Page 41 of Someone to Have
I come around the corner and stop in my tracks. It’s not just any employee hammering in the quiet. It’s Tinkerbell, wearing faded jeans and a fitted shirt with a deep V affording a glimpse of bare skin that makes my mouth go dry. Her thick hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun with a shop pencil stuck through the center of it.
She has several yard signs—or maybe wooden plaques—spread across one of the work tables. It’s hard to tell from her focused expression whether she’s happy about what she’s doing or pissed to be here.
As I’ve come to expect, that much-maligned bottom lip is snagged between her teeth—the lip I now know to be just as soft as it looks when it was molded to mine. It felt as though her mouth had been made to please me.
I bite back a groan as my mind immediately jumps to all the other things I’d like her to do with that mouth. If not for my promise to Jen, I might resort to a meaningless hookup just toclear my unwanted obsession with Taylor. But the truth is, meaningless won’t cut it anymore. Not with Tinkerbell in the mix.
As if she can feel the weight of my stare, she glances up, then promptly slams the hammer down on her thumb.
“Rats,” she hisses between her teeth, and as much as I hate that seeing me is the cause of her distress, the distinctly G-rated expletive causes my mouth to tug into a smile.
“Careful, Tink,” I tell her, striding forward. “You’ve got to watch yourself when dealing with heavy equipment.”
She squeezes her hand into a fist. “A hammer isn’t heavy, and I didn’t expect anyone to be creeping around the place on a Friday night to scare the living daylights out of me.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I move toward the workbench and take her hand, unwrapping her fingers to look at her thumb.
“You need ice.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” I curl my fingers around her wrist and tug her toward the break room. I should be irritated that for all my attempts to avoid her, here I am touching her soft skin again. But the vague sense of disquiet that has plagued me the past few days settles like she just sang my nerves a lullaby in that sweet voice of hers.
“This isn’t a big deal,” she protests. “It’s not the first time I banged myself with a hammer.”
“It’s the first time it was my fault.” I grab some ice from the freezer, wrap it in a paper towel and hand the bundle to her. “Will you humor me and put the ice on your damn thumb?”
She does. “Okay, that feels good.”
Such an innocuous statement, but it slams into my gut like a wrecking ball. Once again, my mind reels with visions of other ways I want to make her feel good.
“We can’t have the star of the show out with an injury, weekone,” I tell her, trying to lighten the mood. Or at least remind myself to keep it light.
She blinks up at me. “I’m nowhere near the star,” she says quietly.
“You should be. Is Limpdick that much of an idiot?”
“He’s not an idiot.” She drops her gaze to the paper towel. “I have a supporting part and even a few solo lines.”
“Supporting my ass. You killed it at the audition.”
She gives an awkward laugh. “The male lead is not exactly tall. Bryan said I did well at the audition, but the two leads are a couple. I’m too tall to make it believable.”
“That’s discrimination,” I tell her, placing one finger under her chin until she meets my gaze. “And you’re the perfect height.” For dancing. For kissing. For wrapping herself around me and never letting go.
“I’m happy to be a member of the cast.” She offers another pinched smile. “Plus, I’m the female lead’s understudy. I’ll be learning all of her lines.”
“A fucking travesty,” I mutter.
She moves her thumb back and forth a few times, then tosses the melting wad of ice into the nearby trash can.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
I give my head a little shake. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like you’re disappointed in me. Like you gave it your all as my coach and I failed you.”
