Page 23 of Lucky Strike

“I’m not making you do anything. You insisted.” Luna swept her hair into a ponytail.

“I—What?”

“I’m perfectly capable of painting the cabinets on my own.”

“You know what I mean. If you’re so smart with all these workarounds, why are we painting the cabinets?”

“You said I could do anything, and I wanted to see if you meant it.”

Sam’s eyes turned in the direction of rustling and found Duchess pawing the plastic on the floor. “You have a cat?” There was another tick along his jawline.

Darn it!She forgot to shut the cat in her bedroom like the last time he was here.

“You said I could have a pet. I just got her. She’s really good and not destructive and I just need…” Luna allowed the sentence to die because it almost ended with,I just need something so I feel less lonely.A sentence like that might cause some emotions to slip out. Instead, she tucked those feelings back in place. “And you said I could.”

“I said you would have to pay a deposit. You can’t keep sneaking around me.”

“All right, fine. I’m sorry.”

A grumpy expression settled across his face. “You’ll have to keep the cat locked in the bedroom while we’re doing this because I don’t want to take any chances it gets in—Is that what you’re wearing to paint?”

She placed her hand on a hip. Was he going to pick on everything? “What’s wrong with it?” Luna sported the lion graphic tank top because it was old. She didn’t care if it became completely splattered in his presence. She also wore a pair of distressed denim shorts. She considered the ensemble the ideal painting outfit, and if Instagram hearts were a metric of opinion, she wasn’t wrong. Luna didn’t know what type of outfit he saw, but he must have forgotten the question since his gaze did a lazy drag across the length of her bare legs. “Or maybe you don’t find anything wrong at all.”

Brown eyes snapped to hers, the tips of his ears turning red. “It’s going to get paint on it.”

“Again, why do you care?”

Sam didn’t have any answer. His threadbare vintage Nirvana tee and paint-splattered jeans left no question as to whether or not he was prepared to paint.

Luna retrieved Duchess, locking her in the bedroom. When she returned, he was setting up. “There’s not a lot of room. Do you mind if I’m on top?” he asked, while setting out paintbrushes and rollers.

“On top? On top of what?” What the hell was he talking about and why did it send her heart racing?

“We can only fit one ladder. I’ll do the top cabinets and you can do the bottom.”

“Oh. Okay.” Well, obviously. What else could he possibly have meant?

It’s not as though she was expecting Sam to do all the painting himself. When he had saidhelp, he meant the literal definition of it. She wasn’t complaining but it was a small kitchen, which meant they’d be in close proximity for most of the day. This wasn’t a good idea since she’d promised herself never to be friends with him. The more they interacted, the harder it was to remember this. Although giving him a hard time about things and seeing his jaw muscles twitch in agitation was also fun.

He used a screwdriver and straight muscle to pop the lid on the can of primer. When his bicep flexed, Luna concluded she wouldn’t mind if his T-shirt contained a few more holes. If his muscles stressed the seams, snapping the thread in its wake, it might make this afternoon worth getting out of bed for. Unaware of her handyman-related fantasies, Sam climbed the ladder, removing the blue painter’s tape from around the cabinets, crumpling the tape into balls and tossing them to the floor.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Luna had spent a lot of time taping in order to demonstrate her preparedness, and he was failing to recognize any of it.

“The tape will make you lazy and your edges will come out worse because you’ll slop paint on and it’ll seep under the tape. Maybe we need a painting lesson.”

Never mind. Keeping her promise to never be friends with him would be easy because,rude.

“Excuse me. I know how to paint.” What else was there besides putting paint on a brush and then connecting it to the cabinet? Was he about to drop someKarate Kidknowledge? Using this as a reason to sidle behind her, take her painting hand in his calloused one, and demonstrate how tobrush on, brush offin upward, downward strokes. Lots and lots of upward and downward strokes. Would he still be on top?Gah!

She should open a window. The summer heat trapped in her apartment was melting her brain.

“Luna?”

“What?” she said too loud, being startled from a day…dream? A day-mare? Which, of course, was a nightmare during daytime hours. She hadn’t decided which one. It was time to stop these damn handyman fantasies. They weren’t even creative.

He stared at her, his arm raised while in the process of putting the first coat of primer on the cabinet, allowing his T-shirt to ride up and revealing skin along his lower torso. Luna forced steady eye contact with him, while scraping her fingers through the end of her ponytail and trying to keep her heartbeat even.

“I’m trying to show you how to do this and you’re not paying attention.”

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