Page 69 of Your Place or Mine

She was my landlord—a force of nature wrapped in paint-splattered denim and bold opinions. She was turning the building upside down, rewiring my routines, and repainting the pieces of my life I’d worked hard to keep the same.

And I couldn’t stopwatchingher do it.

She was chaos. And I’d lived too long building a life that made sense to invite chaos back in.

But when she leaned in tonight, all heat, cleverness, and spark in her eyes? When she said, “Then stop biting,”with that look on her face?

Yeah. That had gutted every ounce of logic I had left.

And that moment…God, thatmomentwhen our hands touched?

I still felt it like static under my skin.

I dragged a palm down my face and let out a low growl.

I needed to get a grip. Needed to reset, find my footing,somethingbefore I did something even dumber than everything I’d already done, which included staring at her like a lovesick teenager every time she walked into the room.

I pushed off the wall and grabbed a crate of clean pint glasses to give myself something to carry. Something to anchor me. Something thatwasn’t her.

But as I headed back toward the door, Drew was already coming in, his silhouette smug and way too knowing.

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “You alright there, big guy?”

“Fine,” I snapped.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding slowly. “I could tell. Real calm and collected, storming out of the bar like you were about to have a breakdown in the mop closet.”

I shot him a look. “Not in the mood.”

He grinned. “No kidding.”

I tried to push past him, but he blocked the door with one foot. “So, what’s the plan here?”

“What plan?”

“With Lydia.”

I set the crate down a little too hard. “There is no plan.”

He lifted a brow. “Right. That’s why you look like you want to throw every chair through the window when she so much astalksto me.”

“I didn’t—”

“Youdid.”

I glared at him. “She’s our landlord.”

“And?”

“And I don’t need to complicate things.”

He held up his hands. “Okay. But you might want to tell your eyes that, because they’ve been undressing her with Olympic-level precision for the last week.”

I turned away, hands clenched. “This isn’t funny.”

“No,” Drew said. “It’s not. It’s also not sustainable. You can’t keep pretending you’re not interested when everyone in the room can see you’re one insult away from kissing her or combusting.”

I didn’t answer.

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