Page 19 of Brand
CHAPTER EIGHT
Brand
The woman was driving me insane, and that was putting it mildly. There was something beautifully off about her. Every time I caught her struggling in silence, trying her best to handle the situation on her own, it made me wonder if I’d gotten everything about her all wrong. It wasn’t that she seemed to have too many issues handling the things that we did here every single day, it was the fact that she refused to ask for help.
And those weird as fuck little sayings she had. I found myself chuckling every time I overheard her. It was like she refused to cuss but got around it by stringing a bunch of random words together.
“Oh, bees and honey.”
“Work you, stupid piece of moldy bread.”
“Ouch! Son of a biscuit maker.”
“Turd nugget.”
That was just a few of them. Biscuit seemed to be a reoccurring thing.
“Oh, for the love of biscuits and gravy.” Cami’s frustrated voice floated in through my opened door.
See what I meant?
“Cami?” I called out softly after I managed to quell my silent laughter.
“No, it’s fine. Just the Internet isn’t working on this thing. I’ll figure it out,” she said in an ongoing ramble.
“Cami.” My voice a bit more firm that time. I didn’t want to sit there like an asshole and make her figure it out but at the same time, I wasn’t about to beg her to let me help.
“I’m just going to turn it off and on again. If that doesn’t work, I’ll bring it to you.” I knew as she spoke those words she was already doing it.
I left the security of my room. I may have been hiding out in there. No, I didn’t have a client at the moment and my room was spotless as always, so there was really no reason for me to be in there just sitting around with my thumb up my ass.
“You know you can ask for help right?” I asked, coming up behind her and looking over her shoulder. “I don’t mind.”
“Um, yeah, I mean, I know, I just don’t want to bug you.”
She wouldn’t look at me and for some reason, it irked me. My hand rested lightly on her shoulder and she flinched like a frightened little rabbit. It bothered me because it seemed the more she was around me, the more she seemed to avoid me. Especially times like this, when we were alone in the shop. I knew it was just me. She wasn’t standoffish with Sketch. She didn’t avoid Blade even though the guy was way scarier than me. I mean, until you got to know him, that was.
No, there was just something about me that she didn’t like or shied away from. It bothered me to no end because I didn’t think I was that bad of a guy. I was fun. I was easy to get along with. I was even playful. Right? Or so I thought. My brain struggled to find an explanation for her behavior but I kept coming up blank. I didn’t think I’d done anything to make her feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t think of one time I’d said or done anything inappropriate.
True, there was the bathroom thing. But I’d noticed it before then. I knew the fact that I’d seen her in her underwear right after she had gotten barfed on, didn’t help things. In all honesty, I hadn’t meant to barge in on her like that. I had no idea that she was going to rid her clothes or that she would have stripped that quickly and in hindsight, I should have knocked and waited for her reply. I did kick myself for that one.
“Fiddlesticks! Now it’s not turning on at all.”
I chuckled, I couldn’t help it. I was sure if I called her cute right then she’d run away somewhere and hide. So I did my best to cover it up with a cough, which only made her turn and eye me with suspicion.
“Forget the tablet,” I said gently grabbing it away from her. “I have a guy that might be able to fix it. If not, I’ll get another one.”
“I’ll pay—”
I cut her off with a shake of my head. I knew she could afford it, but that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t going to take her or her parents’ money.
“Here,” I said as I pulled out a sketch pad and plopped it onto the counter. “Draw me a waterfall. Throw some birds flying around there too.”
I backed away, watching her fiddle around for a pencil.
“You have twenty minutes,” I called out, then turned and went into my room.
Exactly twenty minutes later, I came back out and saw her arm frantically moving back and forth. I watched her for a second, admiring how cute she was. Her hair hung down, covering half of her face. Her chin was tilted to the side and a look of pure concentration was trapped between her brows.
