Page 35 of The Naughty List

I give John a tight smile. “Always looking out,” I say, appreciating his effort, but in this particular case, it’s really not required. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

“Atta boy,” he says with a grin that’s the equivalent of a pat on the back.

Needing to get out of here before he starts explaining how to ask her out and the meaning of the birds and the bees, I take off and get back into my truck, mentally going over everything I’ll need to fix the lock and window and trying to keep my mind off the fact that I’m about to walk back into the home that holds so many memories.

This couldn’t possibly go wrong.

Ten minutes later, I pull up outside Blair’s home, and as I step out of my truck, I’ve never felt such dread in my life. I’ve been studiously ignoring this part of town—apart from dropping her truck home yesterday—simply to avoid having another screaming match with Blair. Don’t get me wrong, getting her so worked up that she physically can’t control herself gives me life, but it’s not what either of us needs.

Making my way up the drive, I can’t help but notice that it needs to be shoveled again. We’ve had steady snowfall over the past few days, but not enough to keep us all locked indoors. I wonder just how hot her blood would boil if I were to do it again. Would she have the guts to come and bust my balls for it, or would I get another lousy text like yesterday?Thanks.

If there’s one thing I know about Blair, it’s that she always needs to have the last word, and sending that one-word text would have driven her insane, but the fact that she did it in that way . . . well shit, that drove me insane and she damn well knows it.

Lifting my hand, I knock on the door before I convince myself to turn around, and before I can even finish knocking, she tears the door open, her eyes already narrowed on me as if knowing exactly who stood on the other side. “What are you doing here?”

“Your backdoor isn’t locking and your window is jammed. I’m here to fix it.”

Her eyes widen with horror. “You?”

“Who else would it be? The fucking Grinch?”

Blair scoffs, more than agreeing, but she sure as fuck doesn’t move out of the way, and I let out a heavy sigh. “You want it fixed or not?”

“What other options do I have?”

I shrug my shoulders, purposefully not making any of her options sound very enticing, because let’s face it, I want to be inside that house. I want to be in her space. “You could wait for John to have time. Could be a week. Could be two. You could do it yourself, but let’s be honest, we know how that’s going to go. Or you could swallow your fucking pride and step out of the way so I can get it over and done with.”

Blair clenches her jaw, clearly not thrilled with her current predicament. “Fine,” she finally huffs out.

I grin wide, and as she steps back, making space for me to pass, I welcome myself into her home before immediately coming to a halt. “Why the fuck is it freezing in here?” I ask, my gaze quickly sweeping the house and noticing the bed made up right in front of the dwindling fire. But hell, I almost missed it among the Christmas spirit that’s violated the house. There’s tinsel, bells, garlands, and glitter spread from one end of the house to the other. Not gonna lie though, she’s done an incredible job.

“I uhh . . .” she pauses, cringing as she kicks the door shut behind me.

“Spit it out, Blair.”

“Ugh,” she groans, storming to the kitchen to point out the jammed window that’s now not so much jammed, but non-existent. “It got jammed yesterday when I opened it, and then I tried to fix it last night, and now it’s . . .” Her words fade away as her gaze drops to the floor by the dining table to where the whole fucking window is propped up against the chair leg.

“How the fuck—you know what? I don’t want to know,” I say, striding deeper into the kitchen to look over the window, hoping like fuck it’s an easy fix. “Why did you need to open the window in the first place? It’s the middle of winter.”

“I was sanding the walls and the house was getting all stuffy.”

“You were what?” I grunt, my head snapping up from the window to take in the walls, only horror blasts through my chest at the sight. “Fuck, B. You didn’t sand the walls, you massacred them.”

“What are you talking about?” she demands, looking over her work. “I did a great job. There were holes and little cracks everywhere.”

“Yeah, but now the walls are wavy,” I tell her. “Look from the side. You’ve sanded it so hard, you’ve created divots in the wall.”

“What?” she groans, moving across the kitchen to look at the wall from a new angle, and the moment she does, her shoulders droop with defeat. “Shit.”

“It’s fine. I can fix it,” I murmur, her defeat singeing my very soul. Despite everything, despite the hurt and ugliness of the last six years, I’ve never wanted her to fail.

She lets out a heavy sigh before dropping into one of the dining table chairs, her elbows braced on the table as she hangs her head into her hands. “I am way out of my league here,” she says.

“No shit. You’re a big-city girl who doesn’t like to get her hands dirty. You’re not the DIY type,” I say as I grip the window on either side and lift it onto the counter, trying to judge just how hard this is going to be to fix. “But having said that, you’re also the kind of girl who can do anything she puts her mind to. You just need a little guidance first.”

Blair lifts her head, her brow arching as she meets my gaze. “Are you offering?”

I press my lips into a hard line, really not knowing the answer to that. Instead, I nod toward the mess of blankets piled up in front of the fireplace. “You slept out there?”

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