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Employment. I need a job and fast.

Madison works at a retail store, and Benson works for a technical support company. He already left for work today, but Madison is around the house somewhere. She let me borrow her laptop before she disappeared. It’s a nice day, so I take the computer outside to the porch swing. I search the web for places hiring, hoping to find a job that is willing to take a chance on a girl with zero experience in just about anything. Sure, I have a high school diploma, but that doesn’t mean much in the real world.

Bay Town area. Entry-level. Now hiring.

My search brings a host of opportunities, but my concentration breaks.

What does it is the man—who is so very, very much a man—across the street. The wave of his chin-length dirty-blond hair is prominent, probably from the Florida humidity. He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, and I’m mesmerized. I can’t deny it. There is something absolutely captivating about the way he moves.

I’m still watching him as he heads over to a makeshift plywood desk and scribbles something onto a piece of paper. He looks up and stares out into the street before removing his shirt. When the light dusting of hair below his belly button comes into view, I can’t avert my eyes. My brain floats out of my head, and my heart beats from my chest. My palms start to sweat, and I cross my legs, attempting to suppress the ache within my girlie part that guy just sparked to life. Common sense and decency leave my body, and an intense lust takes its place. I am a dreamer, a romantic, but this man across the lot is pulling something shallower from me, a craving more physical.

How could a patch of human hair throw me into such a tizzy?

My mind starts to conjure a ridiculous story about love at first sight and an intense relationship developing inside the dirt and clutter of the unfinished home across the street. I can’t help it. It’s how my heart beats and where my fantasies go.

Of course, we are just about to sit down to Sunday dinner with our two-point-five kids inside my head when he catches me staring, and I’m pulled back to reality. Slowly, as if I can’t bear the thought of pulling my eyes away from him, I drop my gaze back to the laptop. My hormones most likely wouldn’t be able to take any more anyway. I stare at the list of job listings, but the harder I concentrate, the more the words blur together, and the more my mind wanders to the man across the street.

A man like him would surely see me as nothing more than a little girl. While I don’t think he’s that much older than I am, my life hasn’t presented many social experiences outside where I grew up. Sure, Golden Heights was filled with children my age, but we were all more or less misfits of society. We weren’t prisoners, but we were children of poverty and abandonment, living in a secluded group setting, ostracized from the normal world. Kids can be mean. Even at school, it was easier to stick with the kids who were like me, and honestly, the kids in my classes didn’t seem to mind all that much that I kept to myself. In fact, they insisted on it. A grade-schooler would probably have more exposure to the world than I did.

The bright sun disappears, and a pair of sturdy construction boots catches my downward glance.

“Morning.” One uttered word directed at me. His confidently mumbled greeting and the timbre of his inflection send shivers down my spine in a way that makes me want to demand he do it again.

Look up, Noah. Bring your eyes to his. He came over for a reason.

“Hello.” I manage the single word without any huge disasters.

My chin lifts, and my sight travels up his long, lean legs. The definition in his abs is the perfect background for the trail of hair that made me blush earlier. He stands with perfect posture, his broad shoulders squared and defined. Oh my freaking goodness. His eyes—blue swirled with green that mimics the waves of an ocean—make the breath stall in my lungs. His lips are pressed into a playful smirk aimed my way, which highlights the heavy scruff on his jaw.

“Are you the new roommate?” He takes a seat on the swing beside me, but before I can answer, he continues, “That was probably a stupid question. Of course you are. Who else would you be?”

“I am the new roommate.”

The swing sways heavily with his added weight.

“I’m Brazen Hale.”

He reaches his hand out to me, and I awkwardly give him mine with my palm down, as if I’m ready to hold his hand instead of shake it. His rough fingers grasp around my hand, and the pad of his thumb tickles my palm as he slowly drags it over my skin. The gesture is a mix between a handshake and a caress. It’s a lot less awkward than it should be.

“Noah.” Stupidly, I withdraw my hand from his as I tell him my name. I miss his touch the instant it’s gone.

He leans into my space and checks out the screen of the laptop. “Job search, huh? Any luck?”

“Barely began actually.”

The corners of his eyes crinkle, and a mischievous expression alters his smile.

“What kind of job experience do you have?” He takes the computer from my lap, closes the lid, and sets it to the side before scooting closer to me on the bench. His arm goes across the back of the swing and grazes the back of my head.

“None. I’ve never had a job before.” My voice is small, and I hate myself just a little for it.

“Well, what do you want to do? What are you interested in?” He pushes for more.

“I’m not sure yet. I was kind of hoping something would just jump out at me.” That happening isn’t likely, but again, I’m the optimist.

“Are you organized? Friendly? Able to roll with the punches?”

“Yes, yes, and yes.” I am all of those things.

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