Page 25 of There's Pumpkin About You
“Do you seriously have to be so difficult so early in the day? I haven’t even had my coffee yet.”
He hands me back my coffee and takes his instead.
I spare him the snide remark that I have sitting on the tip of my tongue, and turn back to the barn.
“What’s all this?” I ask.
I don’t miss the fact that he pauses before he answers me, nor the almost nervous sound of him shifting his weight beside me.
“Finn and I found a way to make it work.”
“You found a way to make what work?” I reply.
“Getting the barn done by the end of the month.”
I feel a drop of coffee flick itself from my cup onto my neck as I turn abruptly. He looks skittish, avoiding eye contact with me and finding more interest in the way the dying grass gently sways in the wind.
“How?” I ask on a whisper.
“It was a puzzle,” he mumbles. “I’m good with puzzles. It was no big deal.”
My world pauses for a second. “Wait a minute… it was your idea to try and get it done on time?”
“I don’t see the big deal, Wren. You needed it done, I found a way to get it done.”
Hearing my name on his lips is a surprisingly enlightening experience. There’s a hint of possessiveness within it that sends a tingle down my spine. He tries to cover it with a thin layer of annoyance, and yet it’s there clear as day. It lowers his already bass-filled voice until it’s low and smoother than silk. If he keeps saying my name like this in the future, then I can already see myself losing almost every argument we have.
“You found a way how?” I attempt to rid my voice of its awkward high pitch.
He chooses not to answer me and instead starts towards the barn. Obviously, thanks to his long, toned legs and my inability to walk with four coffees in my hand, he is halfway there by the time I’ve taken all of three steps. He either notices that he’s left me behind, or he hears my overdramatic sigh (really couldn’t tell which one), because he lifts his head up towards the sky as if searching the heavens for some patience. He spins around, skulks back over to me, plucks the coffee holder out of my hand and proceeds to once again speed off leaving me to struggle to keep up with my little legs.
When we get closer, I see that there are quite a few people. Bash carries a bunch of rubbish towards a skip whilst Finn and Jamie are lifting up a beam and fixing it into place. The last guy I don’t know, but I would recognize him anywhere. It’s the other brother from the photo—Sam.
For someone who is apparently supposed to be the grumpiest of them all, I can tell that his slightly softer features look a lot less frustrated than Gus’s. His brown hair is up in a man bun at the back of his head, and I can see the ice-cold blue of his eyes from twenty yards away. His muscles flex without any restriction thanks to his sleeveless undershirt. He’s a big guy, but I know that he would be lost if Gus were to stand in front of him, his shoulders dwarfing Sam’s by a mile.
Why am I comparing?
I’m not entirely sure. But what I am sure of is that if Oakleigh were to find out I was currently in muscle heaven, she would murder me for not letting her know.
Finn and Jamie spot me first, so I walk over to them and Gus surprisingly follows on behind me. He hands Finn his coffee who says a polite thank you to both of us.
“How did this happen?” I ask in awe as I turn in a circle to grasp everything that’s happened so far.
The walls of the barn have disappeared, the discarded tools placed somewhere else and the hay bales hidden from view under tarpaulin. The dodgy balcony has been taken down and now all that remains is a shell. Brand-new wooden beams that will make up the foundation for the walls and the roof.
Finn shrugs. “Gus was adamant he wanted it done by the party. When I reminded him that we needed more people he went and asked Jamie—well, demanded, really—to help with the work throughout the night. I also managed to move some things around with my team and scramble together three of the guys to come over tomorrow.”
My mind replays Finn’s words over and over in my mind like a track on repeat. My heart jumps and pleads with me to calm down, but I can’t.
“I didn’t demand that he help,” Gus mumbles under his breath.
“You stormed into the coffee shop and all but dragged my ass from the behind the counter,” Jamie states playfully. He shoots me a wink when our eyes meet.
When the dark, almost jet-black of Gus’s eyes meet the hazel of mine, I can see for the first time a man whose face and eyes seem to be at odds with one another. I see a depth to August that I’ve only seen once before, when he looked at the beauty spot above my lip like it was the thread that would make him snap.
In the space of a single moment, everything else begins to fade away, leaving just the two of us wrapped in our own bubble. The sounds of work, drills and shouting around us dim and in its place there is a silence that feels strangely intimate.
I step closer and I see his leg twitches as if he wants to maintain the distance between us.
