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Noah rolls his eyes. “I said do you think you can do it this month?”

I frown. We were talking about some renovations he wants done on The Snapper. It’s the restaurant attached to my parents’ bed and breakfast, but it’s been closed the last few years. Noah has a plan to reopen it. Since I wasn’t paying attention, I missed the details of what he asked me to do.

“Uhhh...”

“Oh, man, you are really not with it tonight are you? What’s the matter? You hungry or something?”

I shrug, not wanting to own up to the reason why I’m really distracted. If Noah knew I’m still hung up on Mia, he’d never let me hear the end of it. He’d be the first one to tell me I’m being a bloody idiot.

“Let me make you a burger, yeah? I tweaked my recipe for burger sauce again and this time I know I’m onto a winner.”

I grin. “Noah, all five of your recipes were amazing. I don’t know why you keep messing with a great thing.”

“Never settle, Lukey. Never settle.” He turns and starts rummaging through drawers, pulling out ingredients while talking at me over his shoulder.

“So, I was thinking sleek and modern. I want to strip back all the kitsch coastal decor and go for something completely different. I want to paint in something grey or aubergine and buy furniture to match.”

I snort. “This isn’t The Block. Don’t start pitching me interior design. I don’t do that bullshit.”

It’s not strictly true. I’ve dabbled. Rosella Bay is small, OK? There aren’t many construction companies, and there sure as hell aren’t any interior designers in our town. I’ve picked up the basics from YouTube and House Hunters International. I always add wainscoting when I do a renovation. I know what the people want!

Noah just laughs. “Whatever. I know you like that stuff. Don’t lie. Anyway, I wanna go pick out paint this weekend and then, will you give me a hand the week after?”

“Yeah. No worries.” I watch him quickly put together the patties and set them over the heat, whipping around to slice up the onions so fast it boggles my mind. He tosses them onto the pan to join the meat. Noah moves with practised ease, handling the knife with dexterity, flipping burgers so they have just the right amount of crusty brown colour around the edges.

When he sets mine in front of me minutes later, I groan around my first bite. “Mmm. Magic.”

He grins at me, his cynicism lost in boyish enthusiasm for a moment, like when we were kids. “Yeah?”

I nod. “Fuck yeah.”

We eat and chat for a while longer. I hang out, avoiding the moment when I’ll have to go back to my empty home. My place is cold. Especially this time of year. It’s drafty and there’s no insulation.

I should really do something about it. The place is falling down around my ears. Only I kinda bought it thinking—hoping—one day I’d have someone to do it up for. Turns out a house is easy to come by. That special someone? Yeah, not so much.

I’m probably being unfair to the other girls I dated. They were lovely, sweet girls.

They just weren’t Mia.

The next day I’m up way too early. Embarrassingly early, even for me. I kill some time working out, walking up the street to the only cafe in town that serves good coffee. I grab a takeaway and then grab a second one. Maybe Mia would like one.

It’s not that I’m especially excited to start work this morning. It’s just a normal day. One job of many similar renovations for big city wankers who want the perfect holiday home to show off on Instagram where they’ll stay maybe once a year if we’re lucky.

Not that Mia Sinclair is a wanker. Quite the opposite. She actually likes Rosella Bay. Not just the pretty pictures.

Even with all my time wasting, I still turn up at her house at half past seven. I hesitate with the tray of coffees in one hand and the other poised to knock. I wish I could take back my comment about the jumper. I could see right away I embarrassed her. Then I wanted to snatch the words right back and swallow them. Should have just let her have the bloody thing and enjoyed seeing her in it. After all, it’s the closest I’ll ever get to having her again.

It feels weird to knock to be honest. I have the key. I’ve had the run of the place since she and her fiance don’t live in town. I’ve been supervising the renovations for so long the place almost feels like a second home. These two are really going all out with it, too. They want the best of everything and they can afford it, too.

God, they must be minted to pay for all this. Just goes to show why a girl like that never looked twice at a guy like me. I’m lucky she even looked once.

When the front door swings open, my jaw drops to the ground. Her brown, shoulder length hair is rumpled, the blonde highlights emphasising the way it flows in gentle waves. Her smile is wide and genuine, exposing the slightly crooked eyetooth I’ve always thought was adorable. Her long, long legs are bare again. She has on the ridiculously short pyjama shorts she was wearing yesterday, only this morning she isn’t wearing my jumper—more’s the pity. All she has on top is a thin white singlet doing nothing to disguise the way her nipples have stiffened into peaks in the cool morning air.

I’m instantly as hard as I was all those years ago when I somehow convinced her to let me touch her. It’s a hundred times worse than yesterday when she was wearing my jumper over it.

Coughing, I turn and mutter something about leaving my phone in my truck. I practically run back to my Hilux like some sort of weirdo. I open the passenger door and lean over the cabin, pressing my eyes closed for a moment. As if that’s going to help me erase the image of Mia Sinclair, girl of my fucking dreams, looking like she’s rolled out of my bed after a hot night where I got to live out all my fantasies. OK, about one tenth of my fantasies, since it’d take weeks to get through all of them.

I told you I’m pathetic, didn’t I?

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