Page 28 of His Hot Mess

A honk brought me to my senses. The truck behind me revved—the light had turned green. Sadie looked up at the sound of the horn and propped her hand over her eyes. Could she see inside the car? Had she seen me staring at her like a fool?

I pulled up next to her and leaned over to open the door.

“Hey,” she said, slipping into the front seat like the spring breeze. The scent of her shampoo brought me back to the bathroom with the lacy panties and the thought just about undid me. I wanted to reach over and pull her onto my lap. To bury my face in her hair; kiss her neck; run my hands all over her…

“Hi,” I said finally, tearing my eyes from her.

We’d looked at each other a moment too long. Was it me or did her cheeks flush? Did the soft skin at her chest flush too?

“Those aren’t exactly work clothes,” I said, looking back at her.

The smile on her face fell away, her brows bunching into a scowl.

Why was I like this?

“I’m ready to work,” she said.

Then she did the worst possible thing. She hiked up her dress. She did it to lift her feet up, to waggle them at me to show me she was wearing sneakers. But all I could see was the full length of her legs; her dress pooled at her hips. When she lowered her feet back down, the sight of her bare thighs pressing against the smooth leather seat of my truck made heat swirl in my crotch. I gripped the wheel so tightly I was sure I put indents into it.

Throwing the truck into gear, I said, “You’re going to mess up that nice dress.”

“Nice to see you too!” She jerked her dress back down. “Anyway, I live upstairs from the shop. I can change if I have to.”

We sat in scowling silence as I drove.

“I wasgoingto say thanks for inviting me along to the lumber yard,” Sadie said after a minute.

Once again, I didn’t know how to dig myself out of this jerk hole I’d gotten into. So I kept going. At least it kept me from saying something I might really regret. Something about the way I was feeling.

“You said you wanted to roll up your sleeves, so you can help with all of it.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

But I didn’t feel good.

The lumber yard was only a couple minutes drive from her place. It was enough time for me to know I didn’t want to keep feeling like a total ass. There must be a middle ground between being pugnacious and wanting to take her right there in the truck.

When I pulled up into the yard, I killed the engine and turned to her.

“You look nice,” I said.

Sadie opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Why are you being nice?”

My chest cramped. Why had I been a jerk? “I just mean… you’ll probably be fine working in that. I just wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

She stared at me with a look I couldn’t interpret.

“Thank you,” she said after a moment. “So are we getting to work or just sitting here being pleasant? Do I have to say something nice to you?”

I grinned. “You’re good.”

I’d been worried after flubbing up the first few words I’d said to her that the trip was a mistake. That even shopping for lumber was going to be a trial of us snapping at each other. But I found myself actually having a good time, even laughing, more than once. The first time was when Sadie was trying to master driving the giant platform shopping cart around and managed to first smash into a stack of 2x4s, and next some poor guy’s ankle.

I offered to drive the cart, but only once, knowing insisting would only piss her off. Only when it was fully loaded and she could barely get it around a corner did I casually say it was my turn to take a shift. She was sweating by then, her face glowing in a way that made me think of what she might look like in a different scenario that might raise her temperature.

Pushing the cart was a good distraction.

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