Page 23 of Hero Next Door
“Prone to accidents?” he asked, already bent over my feet and cleaning up the mess he’d made. “Not generally. Evidently you just bring out the best in me.”
He looked up, gazing at me from the floor, and I stared down at him for one long, tense moment. God, he was beautiful. Full lips and wide cheekbones and deep, soulful eyes. Curls that didn’t seem to have any idea that they could be anything other than messy.
And he was definitely not mine to admire, I thought. Because I wasn’t going to be here long enough to take advantage of those curls or those lips.
And also, he was on his knees right in front of me, like... like...
He and I both realized what it looked like at the exact same time, and we jumped apart like we’d been burned.
“Are these hash browns ready?” I asked, turning back to the stove. “How do you tell when they are?”
He was already over at the counter, working on some new eggs. “Lift up the edge and lift. Do they look done?”
I did what he’d suggested, but had no idea what I was looking at. “How do you define ‘done’?” I asked doubtfully.
He came and leaned over my shoulder, looking at the hash browns in question. They were sort of golden brown on the other side, and looked delicious, but...
I looked over and met his eyes, realized he was hanging over my shoulder like he belonged there, and turned and walked away, muttering something about washing my hands before dinner.
I barely knew this man and he’d already been closer to me than most of the guys I’d known over the last five years. And it was starting to make me feel things I had no business feeling.
We were going to have to get a whole lot better at avoiding each other if we were going to keep working together.
I’d put that on the list of things we needed to do tomorrow.
CHAPTER12
Dev
Iwent to her house bright and early the next morning and found the kitchen totally unfunctional still, but also full of the scent of coffee and eggs.
“I may not be able to cook them as well as you, but they’re edible, at least,” Parker said, sliding a plate in front of me.
I took a bite and closed my eyes in pure bliss. She’d only been in charge of the hash browns last night, but I should have put her in charge of the eggs. They were heaven. Full of butter and fluffier than anything I’d ever managed to create.
She’d been lying last night about not being able to cook.
I wondered why. And I immediately decided not to ask. It was none of my business, and it didn’t matter to my life. I was only here to help her finish the house.
“I guess I’ll survive,” I muttered, my mouth full of another bite.
She tipped her head back and forth as she chewed, like it didn’t really matter much to her whether I survived or not, and I went back to my eggs wondering if that meant she’d decided the same thing I had last night.
Namely, that we’d gotten entirely too comfortable with each other yesterday and we had to be a whole lot more careful if we were going to come out of this thing whole.
Probably not. She was a big-city girl, full of business experience and hanging out with country western stars all day. She’d seen the city lights, whatever that meant.
She’d progressed so far beyond this town and the people who lived here that it was a wonder she was even bothering to speak to us.
At least that was what I’d told myself last night, hours after going to bed and failing at falling asleep because my brain was too busy remembering the feeling of her skin under my fingers and her body next to mine as we struggled in the water yesterday. I’d laid there remembering every moment of the day, reliving it like my life somehow depended on it and going through every single emotion I’d felt.
And then I’d balanced that by continuing not to sleep so I could give myself all the reasons it didn’t work. Big city girl, going home soon, never once bothered to talk to me in high school, etc. In short, not a good match.
Not that I was interested, anyhow.
I had far too much going on in my own life to bother trying to fix hers. Or fit her into mine—which she probably wouldn’t want in the first place. And was I really willing to let someone else into my life?
Someone who would end up leaving me like everyone else had?
