Page 66 of Lemon Crush

“I missed her call today because Bernie kidnapped me and then you locked me in your office and had your wickedly one-sided way with me,” I said with a grin. “You know there ain’t no guilt party like a Retta guilt party.”

’Cause a Retta guilt party don’t stop.

His gravelly grunt of amusement hit me right between the thighs. He sounded like Henry Cavill’s Geralt when he did that. I’d absolutely toss a coin for hisWitcher. “Forget the guilt, Gus. Did you like what happened between us?”

Did Ilikeit? “I loved it. I’ll love it even more when you let me reciprocate.”

“You promised me a few days.”

“I know.” I sighed. “And I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I hope those days pass quickly, because I’m a very tactile person and I have a lot of ideas about where I’d like to put my hands.”

He made a rough sound into the phone. “What are you going to do with your hands after we hang up?”

“That’s a leading question, but my answer is going to disappoint you. First, I’ll write out what I’m planning to say to Morgan tomorrow. I’ll definitely mention the fact that I let you have your special old-man bed and full use of the pool to really make myself look good.” When he laughed, I crossed my legs and closed my eyes. “Then, well there’s this big, gloriously sexy beast that lives in the apartment behind my house.”

“Glorious beast? You don’t say.”

“Yes. And talk about talented hands.” I hummed into the phone playfully. “He is very handy to have around. He’s always outside doing chores with his shirt off, flexing his muscles and tempting me to touch them.”

“I suspect he was doing that on purpose.”

I lowered my voice. “Sometimes, when I take a break from writing, I like to watch him from my office window and daydream about joining him out there and getting my hands and tongue on every bit of bare skin I can reach.”

I can hear his breathing on the other end of the line. “You’re making things very hard for me over here, August.”

“There’s a cure for that over here. I’m just saying.”

“Well, don’t say any more until I get home.”

“What happens then?”

I heard a car door slam and then the sound of an engine starting.

“Guess you’ll have to look out your office window and find out.”

15

WADE

A weekafter August and I started our little game of who could hold out the longest, I was scowling down at the Bryants’ patio grill and trying to convince myself I could handle seeing her across the table tonight without dragging her to the nearest bedroom, damn the consequences.

The hostess might frown on that.

Morgan had sent out the call for a mandatory family dinner and, at Gene’s request, BYOT or “bring your own takeout,” was the theme of the night. I’d ignored it and brought a large chef salad and a few sweet potatoes to grill, with both Phoebe’s blood pressure and my cholesterol levels in mind.

That fortuitous decision had the added benefit of allowing me to leave the crowded house for a few moments’ peace—or as much peace as two collies continuously barking at absolutely nothing could give me—when the tension in the air got to be too much.

I’d seen the look on Morgan’s face when I arrived.

She’d only taken a few days to recover from her jet lag and get her ducks in a row for the start of the semester, but her look said she still had plenty of energy left to deal with whatever wasbothering her. Not that I would necessarily know what that was until she was ready to tell me. Unlike Bernie, who flared hot and fast and moved on just as quickly, if something upset Morgan, you might not find out about it for months, but when you did, you’d be sorry. Her ability to keep a grudge alive was impressive and occasionally unsettling.

At least she’d handled the news about the rental better than August imagined she would. I’d been relieved, for her sake, but not surprised. Then again, I’d always been aware that the dynamics between the two sisters were more complex than mine and Bernie’s. When it came to August, Morgan’s usually calm, predictable behavior wasn’t always present.

Maybe it was a woman thing. I didn’t mean that to sound sexist, but you couldn’t argue that women hadverydifferent relationships with each other than men did. I supposed it could have something to do with how different they were, and how long they’d been separated.

When Morgan decided to move in with us at seventeen, which had caused their initial separation, it had also taken a lot of weight off my shoulders. My stepmother, Yvonne, believed in raising us “free range,” while my father was no more than an infrequent visitor, using us as a quick pit stop before long-haul trucking his way around the country and into the bed of every willing woman he could find.

We’d barely seen him growing up, and I hadn’t heard from him in the last ten years, which was fine by me. But my childhood had been spent making up for his absence. I’d done under-the table work at the garage until I was old enough to be on the payroll, eventually purchasing and renaming it. I’d helped Yvonne with chores and bills, so she wouldn’t regret sticking around, despite my father’s infidelities. And I’d done everything I could to make sure my sister got to be a normal kid for as long as possible.

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