Page 25 of Not That Ridiculous

Even if the rest of my family had abandoned it.

And, yes. I liked coffee.

“Come on, then,” Kevin said. He dropped his voice lower and tried out a wheedle. “Please, Charlie. I want it so bad.”

The breath caught in my throat and my eyes locked with his.

He’d sound like that in be?—

His phone rang.

For a moment, Kevin didn’t react. For a moment, his face was happy and his eyes were bright.

Then he said, “Fuck,” stuffed his hand in his sweatpants pocket, and pulled out his phone. “Scuse me.” He turned and lifted the phone to his ear. “Yep.”

He stood there, head bent and staring at the floor, motionless as he listened to whoever was on the other end. If I had to guess, I’d say it wasn’t a friend—his mouth was in that stern line that sat so oddly on his sweet face.

Unlike when I’d seen it in the mirror at the gym, this wasn’t a focused, sexy kind of stern. It was an irritated kind of stern.

“Yeah,” he said. “But I’m kind of busy right now, and?—”

The voice at the other end rose.

Kevin didn’t blink or move. Just listened.

“Right, but I’m with someone and—no. Not a client.” He slid his eyes my way but he didn’t look at my face. He stared at my chest, still unblinking. “No, I’m—right. Right. And you can’t—sure. Okay.”

He thumbed the screen to end the call, then dragged his gaze up my chest to my face.

“Kevin?” I said, shifting uncomfortably. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” He heaved a big sigh and stuffed his phone in his pocket. “That was Craig. I’ve gotta go and help Mr Webber put up some shelves.”

I shifted my weight, cocking my hip. “Why doesn’t Craig go and help Mr Webber put up some shelves?”

“It’s Saturday.”

“Yes?”

“Craig doesn’t work weekends.”

“And you do?”

“If someone needs me to.”

“I suppose the overtime pay is good.”

“What overtime pay?” he said glumly.

“The overtime pay you should be getting if you’re on-call over the weekends.”

“Well,” Kevin said. “I asked about that, but Craig said he can’t pay me extra because it’d hurt his bottom line. He gets to charge extra if someone wants Henderson’s Handymen to work on the weekend, or in an emergency, and if he paid me extra, then he’s not making the extra profit and that’s not right. He said.”

It definitely wasnotright. “Kevin?—”

He gave a tiny shake of his head and I shut my mouth. It was clear that he knew Craig was overstepping, and he didn’t want to talk about it. “S’pose I don’t get my latte bear today,” he said.

“If it’s any consolation,” I said, “I wasn’t going to make you one.”

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