Page 51 of Take My Heart
‘Yeah, I got it,’ I say, not wanting a lecture.
I get enough lectures from Nick. And Jason. Jason’s always nagging me about how I run my business. I get why he does it. He invested in this house, and if I’m not making money from my business, Jason’s on the hook for the mortgage.
‘Oh, I was looking at your website,’ Kate says. ‘I came up with some changes you could make.’
‘What’s wrong with my website?’
‘It doesn’t say much.’ She points to the laptop where she has my website pulled up. ‘You don’t tell people about your services and there’s no information about pricing.’
‘They can call me about that. We’ll talk through what they need and come up with a plan.’
‘That might work if they know you, but it’s less likely for new customers. They’ll go to your website to get information and if it’s not there, they’ll go somewhere else. Anyway, it’s just an idea.’ She moves the laptop in front of her and clicks back to the spreadsheet.
I scoot closer to her. Her hair’s still wet from the shower and she doesn’t have makeup on, but she still looks really hot. She looks better than she did when I found her on the road, all done up for her wedding. I don’t mind a girl wearing makeup, but I don’t like when it’s caked on so thick you can’t tell what she really looks like.
Kate notices me sitting closer and sits up straighter, clearing her throat as she shoves up of the sleeves of my sweatshirt. It’s so huge on her it covers her hands so she has to keep pushing up the sleeves. The pants are huge on her too, but at least they have a drawstring so they stay up when she walks.
I’m glad she finally changed out of my shirt. Seeing her in it was causing my thoughts to go to places they shouldn’t. Last night in bed I kept thinking about her wearing it, unbuttoned in front with nothing underneath. I’m only guessing she had nothing under it, but it seems plausible since she only has one pair of panties and a germaphobe like her isn’t going to rewear them without washing them first. Shit, now I’m thinking about her without panties and getting turned on again.
‘Brody?’ Kate looks at me.
‘Yeah, looks good,’ I say, realizing I didn’t hear anything she just said.
‘What looks good?’ she says, laughing a little. ‘I asked you what other columns to add.’
‘I’m good with what you got,’ I say, but I have no idea what’s on the screen. It just looks like a bunch of lines and some numbers.
‘Let me show you how it works.’
Kate spends the next ten minutes talking me through it. I’m trying to listen, but it’s so damn boring. I want to be out doing the work, not putting numbers into a spreadsheet. If I could afford it, I’d hire someone to do this.
‘Are we good?’ I ask when she finishes talking. ‘I need to go see if I can get the plow to work.’
‘I thought it was broken.’
‘I’m hoping it was just too cold yesterday and something froze.’ I get up. ‘I’m going to go try to start it up.’ I head to the laundry room to get my coat.
‘Can I help?’ Kate asks, appearing next to me.
I smile at her, trying not to laugh at how she looks in my gym pants and hoodie. ‘I’m good. You can just watch TV or whatever.’
‘Oh, okay,’ she says, sounding disappointed.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, putting my coat on.
‘Nothing.’ She shakes her head and smiles. ‘Good luck fixing it.’
I stare at her, knowing she wants something but is too afraid to ask. She’s not someone who’s hard to figure out. Her face tells a lot, and right now it’s telling me she’s disappointed and maybe a little sad.
‘Just tell me.’
She looks up at me. ‘Tell you what?’
‘What it is you want.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘When I said I was going to work on the plow, you looked disappointed.’
