Page 24 of Screwed (Dad Bod Contracting 4)
“James…I just want a little more open space. I wasn’t asking for a whole remodel.”
“I don’t do shit by halves, babe.”
“Is this like selling me the car?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, sort of.”
I sigh, somewhat bitterly. “I hate having people do favors for me.”
“I’m not—”
“You are, though.” I knock knuckles against the countertop. “Growing up rich, favors were sort of…de rigueur.”
“Say what?”
“Accepted practice. Everyone did everyone favors. If my father wanted to exert influence over a legal proceeding to make sure it benefited him, he’d do a favor for the son of the judge, get him an otherwise impossible to obtain internship the son was in no way qualified for, and in return my father got the ruling he wanted. My father wanted me to go Harvard—we had the money, and I had the grades, but I got denied at first because of an equality in admissions thing. Father dearest did a favor for the dean’s niece, and I got into Harvard. Even getting the internship I did, working for the senator, all that—it was all at least in part done for me as a favor to Father, so he would scratch their backs.”
“And ever since, you hate it when people do favors for you,” James finished. “Because you want to earn things on your own merit.”
“Exactly.”
James crosses the kitchen and stands in front of me—we’re not touching, but he’s way inside my personal space; I’m forced to look up at him, and for the first time since he got here, he slides his Oakleys off his face and fits them onto the brim of his hat. His eyes are deep and brown, dark and unreadable and fierce.
His massive hands, big as a grizzly’s paws, clasp around my arms. “Nova. Listen. I ain’t the type to just go around handing out eighty percent discounts on my services. I’m a professional. This is how I make my living. I don’t do shit for free. A buddy or acquaintance asks me to come over and help him build a deck, I say no, I’ll do the deck, but you’re hiring me. You do free shit one fucking time, and everyone expects free shit all the fucking time. So I don’t do favors. I’m not doing you a favor.”
“Then what is it, James? Because the answer you gave about the truck didn’t quite scan for me. I needed the wheels and I wanted to save the money for this”—I wave at my kitchen—“and honestly, that truck just gave me a hard-on. But as much as I love your ideas for my house, I can’t accept the answer you gave about the truck. Feels a little too much like a favor, and I’m not going down that road. Not when you’re talking this amount of time, money, and work ”
He doesn’t blink. Just stares, jaw tensing. Hands clasped around my arms. “Dammit, Nova.”
“It’s a simple question, James,” I whisper.
“No, it’s not.”
“Why not?” I’m pushing it. Pushing him.
This is dangerous ground. We’ve made it this far by basically ignoring each other and behaving like nothing more than casual acquaintances. By pretending nothing happened, by tacit agreement, we don’t tread where things risk getting personal or deep. This…
This is taking it past that.
Way, way past that.
James abruptly releases me and paces away. “You don’t want me to do the job for cost, fine. I ain’t gonna force it on you.”
“It’s not that, James. It’s that I want to know why—truly and honestly, why you’re doing it for cost in the first place. Why you sold me your truck for half its value.”
He’s facing away from me. Fists clenched at his sides, head hanging. He’s sucking in deep breaths, mighty shoulders lifting and heaving, broad back expanding.
“Last we discussed this, Nova, we agreed we wouldn’t go there.”
“Go where?”
“You know.”
I huff. “You giving me steep discounts on the truck and the remodel is kind of you going there, no?”
He whirls on me. “I fucking like you, Nova, okay? I’m trying to pretend I don’t, like you’re just one of the crew, like Audra, Imogen, and Laurel. But you’re not. I feel differently about you than I do about them, and not just because they’re all shacked up with my best friends.”
“James.”
“What? You asked for the truth—that’s the truth.”
I did—I asked for exactly this. And now that I have the truth…I don’t know what to do with it.
“James, I…”
He stares down at me, liquid chocolate eyes fierce and wild and dangerous. “You what, Nova?”
I swallow. “I don’t know.”
“You said you needed the truth, Nova. Now you have it.” He closes in; my heart hammers in my chest, thumps in my throat. My pulse is pounding a mile a minute, my palms are clammy. My mouth is dry, my lips are cracking—I lick my lips, and watch James’s eyes follow my tongue, and linger on my lips.
