Page 45 of Drilled (Dad Bod Contracting 2)
Nova lets out a short breath, waves the muddler at the men, grinning easily. “Shoo, now, boys. Nothing to see here.”
James tugs on his beard, his eyes hidden, perpetually, behind his Oakleys. “Not sure if I believe that. I might need another demonstration of whatever was going on just now.”
“Not likely, bud,” Nova says. “Sorry. That was a girls’ club conversation, and you don’t have the right equipment to be a member.”
I don’t have any quippy comebacks—Franco is in the room with me, and I’d almost forgotten how he tends to suck all the oxygen out of my lungs, along with all of the sense out of my head. I hear voices, James and Nova, mainly, but it’s all just buzzing, like the adults in Charlie Brown movies. Franco is staring at me, his expression as unreadable as ever, and I’m staring back, and probably drooling.
He’s as casually dressed as I’ve ever seen him, in a pair of cutoff khaki shorts and an old, faded, black Garth Brooks concert T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He’s barefoot, which, for some reason, makes me horny.
Or maybe it’s just him; it’s probably just him. But there’s also something about his bare feet that makes me shivery and quivery.
Franco isn’t grinning, or even smirking. His gaze is hooded and heavy-lidded, his granite jawline pulsing as he grinds his molars together. His hands are shoved deep in his pockets, and his chest is rising and falling a little too deeply to be normal. I notice a surreptitious movement in one of his pockets, and I realize he’s adjusting himself; his zipper is tight, and seems to even swell further the longer his gaze remains locked on me.
I still have the knife in my hand, and I’m squeezing the handle so tightly my knuckles hurt. I’m breathing hard, my chest rising and falling raggedly, rapidly, just like Franco’s.
“Audra.” I hear a voice, saying my name, as if not for the first time. “Hello?”
I blink and shake my head to clear the hypnosis. “What?”
Nova puts the straw in her mojito to my lips. “Have a drink.”
I take a long pull, and discover she’s added an extra dose of rum because whoa. But it’s exactly what I need to burn away the effect of stupid, beautiful, mesmerizing Franco. Just for good measure, I take another long pull.
“Why don’t you just go ahead and give me this, huh?” Nova says, as she takes the knife from me, slowly and gingerly.
“Yeah, good idea,” I murmur without taking my eyes off of Franco’s.
Abruptly, Franco spins on his heels and stalks across the backyard like a hungry predator deprived of its meal. At the very farthest corner of James’s sprawling, acre-and-a-half backyard, there’s a downed tree, an elm that was struck by lightning. It has already been partially cut into huge chunks. Nearby is a shed, which narrowly missed being smashed by the tree when it fell; Franco goes right to this shed, yanks open the door as if it offended him, leans in, and comes out with a massive chainsaw, a heavy, wedge-headed ax, and a pair of safety goggles.
I almost laugh at the fact that even pissed off, or whatever Franco is in the moment, he still remembers to wear safety gear. I’m not laughing, though. He starts the chainsaw with a single furious jerk of the starter cable, and uses it to cut a six-foot-long chunk of the tree into smaller sections, and then tosses the chainsaw aside in favor of the ax. He sets a length of wood on end, hefts the ax up over his head and brings it down with slaughtering, vengeful force. The piece of wood splits apart into two, each half flying two or three feet in opposite directions. He grabs one half, splits it into halves again with just as much angry force, and then repeats it with the other half. All four newly split quarters he tosses into a pile, and then starts the process over again with another chunk.
Watching Franco split wood makes me horny.
I want to go over there right now, rip the ax out of his hands, and beg him to take me right up against the pile of wood.
His muscles shift and ripple as he swings the ax, and he lets out an audible grunt of exertion as he brings the ax down to slam into the wood.
“You finished with those drinks, Nova?” I hear James rumble in his growly, rippling, bass voice.
I blink, tearing my gaze away from Franco, and turn back to the kitchen just in time to see Nova topping the drinks off with slices of lime, her eyes on her work rather than James. But her attention, it’s still somehow clear, is entirely on James. The air crackles, sparks, and sizzles with energy.
His eyes are shielded by his Oakleys, but it is perfectly clear that his eyes are locked on Nova as she gathers three glasses in one hand and two in another, leaving James to snag the last two. They exit the kitchen together, not talking, a foot of space between them, leaving the last drink for me, even though I still have Nova’s original glass in my hand.
