Page 5 of Bond Strength

“I’m glad you guys gave this little one a home.” I gave Subzero a kiss on the nose. He licked me back, and a laugh burst out of me. “I’m heading out.”

“What broke at your folks’ house this time?” Ollie asked, a knowing grin on his lips.

“Chip in the outer wall.” I pushed up and handed the leash over. “It was an easy patch, though.”

Ollie shook his head. “Never understood why she doesn’t just say she wants to see you.”

“We leave straightforwardness to your family,” I said, though Ollie’s words burrowed in deep. Did I pull the same shit as my mom? Dodge around what I wanted to make everyone else happy or not be an imposition?

My phone rang, and I glanced at the screen. My boss.

“Gotta get this. Talk to you soon?” I quick-walked to my car. Chances were, if my boss was hitting me up, someone had called out, and they needed me to come in. My shoulders tightened as I braced myself.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I answered the phone.

“Ray was supposed to go over to do a quote for a job this afternoon, a local one.” Brandon had been my boss for the past five years, but over the last year, he’d been foisting extra jobs on me left and right. To the point that the sheer volume had started to weigh on me. “Need you to go over and complete it.”

“He called out?” Frustration percolated inside me. I wanted to put my foot down, to say no, but I’d known Brandon for so long, and hell, no one waited at home for me. My gut twisted tight. Maybe the loneliness seeped under my skin a little more than I realized.

“Yeah. If you go do the quote, you can have the job,” he said. The idea he presumed I’d be free rankled a bit. This was why I’d drifted from almost everyone, why my connections felt superficial. How the fuck was I supposed to develop any relationship when I got tugged in all these directions?

Brandon rattled off the address, and my mouth dried.

Because I knew the address far too well.

This job, I’d definitely take.

Chapter three

Declan

Istared at the big spiderweb crack on one side of the masonry on my wall. More than a few of these had emerged around my house, and I had the feeling they were indicative of a more serious issue. However, repair work was out of my depth, a long-running joke in a family who owned a contracting business. Guaranteed if Dad, Ollie, or Cor saw this, they’d yell at me for not getting this fixed earlier. But I didn’t invite my siblings over. My home was my space to breathe. I was happy to meet them at Mom and Dad’s or wherever they happened to arrange get-togethers.

Which was far too often, to be honest. My family was a needy bunch.

The temptation to dig into the cracks and peel away the pieces rose something fierce, but that’d be counterproductive to the whole fixing the house issue. Thankfully, Ollie had contacted one of his masonry specialist friends, and they were coming over to give me a quote.

Waiting didn’t crawl under my skin, but lateness did, and I checked my watch for the dozenth time in the past five minutes. Contractors were notoriously late, though. Ollie always said they ran on their own time, which seemed a bit bullshit to me. They had watches and phones and were capable of checking them, like the rest of us.

The chill of October’s breezes wrapped around me, raising the hairs on my arms. I scrubbed at them, willing them to go down. My phone buzzed, and I checked. Just Jacob and Henry trying to get me to go to a movie with them. However, they’d started dating recently, and while I appreciated them including me, they’d spend the entire time making gooey eyes at each other. Beyond that, the movie wasn’t high on my list. Superheroes were less my thing. Sci-fi or fantasy, on the other hand, and I would’ve been in.

I stared down the street as if I could manifest the contractor into existence. I gave the crack a poke, and a chunk crumbled off. Probably shouldn’t have done that. A burst of adrenaline ran through my veins, though, and I poked at it again. More crumbled off.

Oops, shouldn’t have done that either.

The rumble of a car came near, and a gunmetal-gray Honda Accord slowed in front of my house. Curiouser and curiouser. I’d expected the typical work van.

The driver’s side door opened, and an all too familiar figure stepped out.

I didn’t bother restraining my groan.

Noah wasn’t dressed in coveralls, so what was he doing in my driveway? Surely, he wasn’t the specialist I had been waiting for, but I hadn’t invited him over either. The sun caught the light on his blond strands, finger-length and tousled. He flashed me one of those too-bright grins, and I squinted. The man was sunshine incarnate, and it blinded me.

And like the sunshine, he was also just as fleeting.

“Hey, Dec,” he called, like he used to when we were kids.

I wrinkled my nose. That rankled. He had changed, and we were no longer the people we once were. Also, I needed him to leave because I had a contractor coming. “What are you doing here?”

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