Page 8 of Hot Response
She wasn’t sure if that was ahey, watch where you’re goinghey or ahey, how you doinghey. But she realized she was still standing there with her hands cupped in front of her mouth, staring, so she dropped them to her sides. “Hey.”
“I don’t remember seeing you here before.”
With his brow furrowed almost to scowling level, it would have been easy to misconstrue his words as some kind of challenge. But she knew this was the kind of market that was frequented by the same neighborhood people, day after day, so the expression was probably more confusion than anything. “My mom lives a couple of streets over. I lived there for years and I don’t remember seeingyouhere.”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood my entire life, but my sister usually got sent to the store for my mom because she didn’t keep the change.”
“Seems strange we haven’t crossed paths before.” She didn’t really see any point in telling him she’d moved back temporarily. He’d probably assume she was visiting her mother and ran to the store for her, and there was no reason to disabuse him of the idea.
“Maybe we have, but didn’t know it.”
She was pretty sure she’d notice a guy like Gavin, whether they’d had words on the job or not.
Carter made one of those annoying teenage sigh noises, like an audible eye roll, catching their attention. But he didn’t look up from his phone. He was just trying to nudge Cait along, and then he’d follow behind silently, because the sooner they got home, the sooner he could be back in front of his video games.
“Carter, this is Gavin Boudreau,” she said, just to annoy him and force him to interact with another human being for a minute. “He’s a firefighter. Gavin, this is my brother, Carter.”
To her relief, he lowered his phone in his left hand and reached out with his right to shake Gavin’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.” When the handshake was over, Gavin tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat. “I think I’ve seen you around.”
“Probably. I’m here a lot.” When Gavin nodded, Carter faded backward and Cait didn’t need to turn her head to know he’d gone back to his phone.
When Gavin turned his gaze back to Cait, she saw that brow furrow again and, afraid he was going to pick up where they’d last left off, gave him an obviously fake smile. She might feel bad about the argument they’d had, but she didn’t want to get into it now. “Good to see you again.”
Since she was walking past him, she heard the mutteredyeahunder his breath, but kept on going. It was hard to chalk her slight breathlessness and quickened pulse to being aggravated by Gavin’s presence, but she tried. She refused to believe she was still attracted to him. Not after thema’am.
Or at least that’s what she told herself while grabbing two boxes of her mom’s herbal tea off the shelf.
“That guy was totally checking out your ass when you walked away.”
She jumped at the sound of Carter’s voice, then glanced around to make sure nobody was within earshot. “No, he didn’t. Especially with you standing right there.”
“Yeah, he did.”
When he lifted his phone, she snatched it out of his hand and stuck it in her pocket, sick of watching him look at it. “I doubt it, since we don’t even like each other.”
“Whatever,” he mumbled. Then he gave her a defiant look. “He might not likeyou, but he likes your ass.”
“I swear, Carter...” She let the threat die unspoken, just giving him a stern look before heading for the register.
But, yeah, she couldn’t help thinking about the possibility as she walked away. And it made her smile.
* * *
Cait Tasker had a great ass.
Gavin already knew that, of course, but only to a point. But he’d never seen that ass in worn denim that hugged her curves in a way her uniform pants didn’t.
But since he was about two minutes from walking into his mother’s kitchen, he forced himself to stop thinking aboutherass and instead focus on what an asshe’dfelt like when he turned and saw her brother watching him watch her. Feeling like a total creep, he’d given the kid an awkward smile and practically fled toward the register at the front of the store.
Real smooth, Boudreau.
He jogged up the back steps of the house he’d grown up in, waving to Mrs. Crawley next door. He wouldn’t dare to guess out loud at her age, but she had to be pushing a hundred and twenty, he thought. She’d been old when he was three and she’d dragged him home by his earlobe for pissing on her petunias.
Hell, he couldn’t even remember how many times over the years she’d caught him up to no good. His earlobe throbbed just thinking about it. But the day he’d gotten his first assignment with the fire department, she’d baked him a batch of the most disgusting maple cookies he’d ever tasted. And he’d eaten them and smiled because he’d been raised right and she felt as if she’d been a part of it.
He loved this neighborhood, which was a big reason he lived within walking distance. His big brick apartment building didn’t have the charm of this row of single-family homes, but it was close enough so he still felt like a part of the community he’d grown up in.
