Page 73 of Not That Ridiculous

I turned to go to the kitchen and nearly fell over Phil, who knocked into my thigh with his big head until he found my hand for a quick lick, and beelined after Kevin. He wanted to say hello, and as he’d no doubt heard Ali yelling, he now knew that he had a new friend to make.

I let him go, trusting that Kevin wouldn’t let him near the road even if Phil tried. Zero chance of that when there were people around.

I made Kevin and Ali their lattes, arranged some cookies on a plate, and carried the lot out on a tray.

The old door was already off the hinges and they were chiseling around the frame. A dauntingly large crowbar sat ready. Phil was lying off to the side on my pocket-sized front lawn, watching them work with his head resting on Kevin’s open toolbox, drooling on Kevin’s screwdrivers and spanners.

“Am I safe to come through?” I called.

They stopped what they were doing and Kevin waved me through. He was wearing safety goggles. He should have looked like a prat but apparently I was into workmen now, because even the stupid goggles worked for me. As did the clinging t-shirt, the bulging arms, and the competent, authoritative way he held his tools.

For god’s sake. I was into the way heheld his tools?

I had lost it.

I thrust the tray out and said, “Here.”

“Ta.” He took a cup, handed it to Ali, then took one for himself. He lifted it to his lips and paused when he saw the heart I’d drawn in the foam.

My cheeks heated. “Make sure Phil doesn’t eat any of the cookies. They’ve got chocolate chunks in.”

“Not a problem,” Ali said, taking the plate and turning to sit on the doorstep, propping the plate on his knees.

Wrong move.

I bent down and snatched the plate back off him a second before Phil made it, but it was a close thing.

For a dog with limited eyesight who wanted the world to think his top speed was three miles an hour, he sure could move when he sensed food. Phil flopped onto Ali’s lap like a breaching whale. Ali squawked, and he just about managed to stop from spilling his latte all over his jeans.

Kevin calmly took the plate off me and said, “We’re fine. Phil’s fine. You go and do whatever you were doing before we came.”

I wasn’t in the right headspace to lounge about on the sofa contemplating lubricant, Kevin’s dick, and my arsehole anymore.

I went in and did the accounts instead.

14

Noise-canceling headphones could only do so much when every whack and wallop out front shook the entire house.

I’d slipped the headphones on as I hunched at the kitchen table with my laptop, feeling oddly unsettled at the sound of splintering wood when they took the doorframe out.

It was a deep-seated, primal thing. My entrance was being breached. I should be out there defending it, not sitting with the kitchen door shut and my back to it all, grimly going through spreadsheets with numbers in one column that were lower than I wanted, and numbers in the other column that were higher than I wanted.

I’d had a quick look online at the price of exterior doors and frames. The basic prefabricated ones weren’t too pricey. They weren’t cheap, but they wouldn’t break the bank.

The door I’d seen on my lawn next to Kevin’s toolbox and Phil was, however, premium quality. Even worse, my house had been built back in the 1800s, meaning it didn’t have anything approaching standard dimensions.

In other words, Kevin must have sneaked back at some point and measured up before he custom ordered it.

I didn’t know what to think.

Actually, I did know what to think.

I thought that Kevin had a hard-on for me, he had a hard-on for my house, and he was a generous and giving soul who was determined to shower me in free parts and labour, and orgasms.

I didn’t have low self-esteem, but I could admit that it wasn’t the highest, either.

So I questioned it, all right?

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