Page 40 of A Stealthy Situation

I cross over to the spot I like to use to look out over campus, turn my back on the view, and then take a selfie.

Me:

You have your attic window; I have my rooftop.

Benny:

You also have a sunburned nose and look hideous. Don’t send me selfies ever again.

A smile tugs my lips because I’m ninety percent sure he’s joking. Except about my nose because when I look at the picture again, it is a bit pink. The rest of me, though, looks exactly like I always do. Backward cap, hair sticking out the front. Ehh, I look more freckly than usual because of the light, but if Benny thinks freckles are ugly, he never would have been interested in me in the first place.

Benny:

Because I’m not allowed to jerk off to them, so it isn’t cool, bro.

I want to write back that I never actually made that rule, but I stop myself. This is where the shaky ground is. The thought of him jerking off to me is one I kind of like, but saying that, opening up the possibility that maybe I want to test my straightness out … I need to tread carefully. So instead, I do what he does when the flirting gets too much and he wants to smart-ass his way out of it.

I send him a kissy face emoji.

Then I tuck my phone in my pocket and try not to think about the weekend.

12

BENNY

I snarl as the stupid goddamn stupid fucking lawn fucking mower splutters to a stop again. And all the swift kick I aim at the grass catchy ma-thing does is send pain radiating up my foot.

“This is bullshit.”

“You’re too impatient.”

I level Harrison with a glare that only makes him smile wider.

“You’re cute when you’re angry.”

“Call me cute again, asshole.”

Harrison laughs. “And you’re adorable when you’re stabby. I know this is hard to believe,” he says, ducking down and tipping the mower on its side, “but if you go over large rocks, this beast isn’t going to like it.”

I gesture to the lawn—if you can even call it that. “If I stop to remove all the rocks, we’ll be here all day.”

“And I assume that’s why this guy hired me instead of doing it himself.” Harrison scrapes something out from below and then stands it upright again. “Try now.”

One pull of the cord has it roaring to life. “This sucks.”

“Yep,” he says before squeezing water from his drink bottle into his open mouth. “But it’s honest work. Open.”

Fuck, he’s weird. I open my mouth, and he fills it with water. God, it tastes good, considering today is hot as balls. We’ve both done away with our shirts, and I’m still sweating like an ice cube in lava. I’m a Vermont boy. I’m not used to all this heat.

Harrison tosses the drink bottle back toward our stuff and then grabs some more rocks. The shirtless look with the thick, black gloves is doing it for me, and apparently, I’m at the point where I’ll find anything he does hot. It’s becoming a real problem. Even going out with Em the other night didn’t fix it.

“Please tell me we’re nearly done,” I shout over the motor as I push the stupid machine around. Gotta say, this is better than shifting all that rock Harrison is moving, but it’s still a pain in the ass. I’m no stranger to hard work; hockey is brutal training, especially at camps where we’re at it every day, but this is a different kind of torture. If I wasn’t so set on fulfilling my side of the bet, I would have tapped out by now.

“One more house after this.”

Fuck me. How the hell was he supposed to get all of this done himself? It feels like we’ve been at this all day, and he probably would have been working well into the night at this rate. As much as I bitch and moan and will never admit this out loud, I’m glad I’m here. Apparently, I have some kind of nice person hiding under all my snark.

“I’ve just decided I’m cashing in on that dinner tonight,” I warn him, shoving the mower over yet another whatever on the ground. Thankfully, it keeps chugging along, and even though I’m trying to mow this stupid grass straight, I’m not doing a very good job.

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