Page 14 of The Problem with Dating
When I had offered to give him an estimate and some references, that’s when he had announced that he was moving back East to take care of his ailing grandmother. Stanley was only in his early thirties, but his grandmother had raised him, and it was no thing for him to pack up his life to go take care of her.
We had talked more about the damage, and since he didn’t have the time to see to the repairs, he had decided to list his house cheaply and disclose the reason why. If him leaving to take care of his grandmother hadn’t already spoken of his character, taking a loss on his house and being honest about why, had been another view into what a good guy Stanley was.
Now, I didn’t know what Echo’s finances entailed, but that bearing wall was still going to be a pricey fix. However, I highly doubted she’d want my opinion on it now. Plus, we had bigger issues at the moment.
Mainly, that fucking mover checking her out.
And, yeah, I might be acting a bit irrational. And, yeah, I might be overstepping. I mean, the woman hated me. But that didn’t mean I was going to stand idly by and let some guy ogle her. Especially, when he knew where she lived. I mean, I was just looking out for my neighbor, right?
Echo slapped her hands on her hips as she cocked those sexy hips to one side. “Like I give a rat’s ass what you like or don’t like, Mr. Hayes-”
“My name’s Gideon,” I barked.
“Yeah, well, that’s one that Louise got wrong,” she retorted. “It should be Lucifer.”
“You k-”
“And furthermore,” she continued, “what happens on this side of your property line is none of your business.”
“So, I should just ignore your screams when he comes back to murder you in your sleep?” I deadpanned.
Echo laughed.
She fucking laughed.
But then the little spitfire stepped closer and said, “You know what? I hope heischecking out my ass. I hope he’s checking out my ass, and then he asks me to dinner.” I could feel my blood heating. “And I hope dinner is so fantastic that we come back here for a nightcap. And I hope the nightcap is entertaining enough that he spends the night, and we make the walls in my new house shake.” Her smirk was evil. “So, if youdohear any screaming coming from my house at night, then, yeah, I expected you to just ignore it. Because I guarantee you, they won’t be because I’m getting murdered in my sleep.”
Anger at the carelessness for her safety had me momentarily speechless. However, what could I even say to that? It’d be the height of hypocrisy to lecture her on one-night stands when I’ve had plenty myself. While I’ve never brought a woman back to my place, because I guarded my privacy fiercely, I’ve been invited back to a lot of women’s homes over the years, and I’d gone.
And because she wasn’t done handing me my balls, she said, “And someone told me, just yesterday, that there were dating apps I could use to get laid, rather than depend on meddling citizens of the town. So, rather than waste time setting up dating accounts all over the place, I can just cut out the middleman with Cecil over there.”
“Cecil?” I irrationally hissed. “That’s the name you want to be screaming out in the middle of the night? Cecil?”
She arched an auburn brow. “Well, I don’t have a Jax, or Blaze, or Connor handy.”
She’d purposely left out my name, but I guess I should be grateful she’d left out Robert, Sayer, and Nathan in her list of sexy names, because that’d really fuck me up.
“Jax, Blaze, or Connor? What? You have a biker fetish?”
Her brown eyes narrowed. “My fetishes are none of your business,” she hissed. But before I could argue that they might be because, c’mon, the woman was sexy has fuck, even if she did hate me, she added, “Now, if you don’t mind, and quite frankly I don’t care if you do, but I need to get back to helping the movers-”
“What?”I practically roared. “They’re making you help?”
Her head reared back. “No,” she argued. “I just meant-”
“Fuck that,” I growled, and at this point, she’ll have to call the cops to get me off her lawn. My father would skin me alive if he found out I turned around and walked into my house while she was out here helping out the movers.
I stormed past her and headed towards the back of the moving truck. The truck was almost empty, but there were still a few boxes left. I climbed onto the back of the truck as her voice echoed through the trailer.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t do anything stupid, like try to carry some of this shit yourself,” I called back.
“Oh, my God!” she screeched. “Talk about being a chauvinistic jerk!”
I didn’t bother looking back at her as I grabbed one of the boxes. “That’s right, baby,” I replied because, at this point, her opinion of me really couldn’t get any lower.
“Uh, excuse me?”
