Page 67 of A False Start
This one is no exception, and I can’t help but puff up as I walk away. Because I may have been looking at her like I wanted her for breakfast, but she wasn’t doing any better.
I toss a few parting words over my shoulder as I swagger to the back of the house with Tripod hopping at my feet.
“But I’m ready for dessert when you are, Wildflower.”
23
Griffin
My private oasisin the mountains is suddenly my personal torture chamber as memories of the night in that tent pummel me non-stop. We spend the day working on fixing the front steps and replacing a few boards on the back deck. Nadia is helpful and a hard worker. We behave cordially, if a little stiffly, around each other. For Nadia, stiffly means keeping a safe distance away. For me, stiffly means my fucking dick twitches every time I catch sight of her ass in the cut-offs she’s wearing as she kneels on my deck.
When we finish, she takes off into the field of wildflowers, saying she wants to explore the property. I watch her stroll away, journal in hand, until she finds a spot amongst the flowers and seats herself right on the dirt before flipping the canvas bound book open and putting pen to paper.
If it weren’t totally creepy, I’d take a photo of her, sitting peacefully amongst a field of flowers who do nothing but remind me of her. Weeds at worst, a miracle at best. Something I can’t get rid of no matter how fucking hard I try.
I groan, mocking myself internally for turning into a total sap after one night with the girl. It’s so unlike me that I’m not sure what to do with it. So, I opt to break shit.
To winterize, I always make sure I have enough wood and kindling to get me through a storm. While Nadia looks all angelic in the field, I decide to pull my axe out and get to work on chopping wood.
I’ve always found physical labor to be therapeutic, and this is no exception. Line the stump up, raise the axe, drop the axe. Break shit. Rinse. Repeat.
The simplicity of the motions is easy to get lost in, and that’s what I do. I only stop to pull my shirt off once I’ve already soaked through it and it becomes downright uncomfortable. I’m not sure how long I chop. I lose track of time. The only proof of how long I’ve been going is the growing pile beside me.
Definitely more than I need.
But I keep going until the muscles in my back ache and my arms shake with exhaustion. I only stop when I feel it.It. The way it feels when I know Nadia’s eyes are on me. I can’t explain it, but there’s this pull between us, an energy, and there has been since the first day in that dirty bathroom in the back of an outdated bar with that absolute loser shoving his tongue down her throat like he lost something down there.
I hate that fucking kid.
I stop, tossing the axe onto the ground, panting as a droplet of sweat trails down the indent of my spine. “I can feel you staring at me, Nadia,” I say, without even turning around.
“You have no business looking that fucking good, Griffin Sinclaire.”
Her voice sounds better after her time in the field. More like herself.
I turn, grinning. I can’t even help myself. Hearing her say I look good is a weight off my shoulders. Like maybe she’s not disappointed about last night after all.
“You’re gonna make me feel like a piece of meat, Wildflower.”
She winks, all sassy and playful with her journal wedged underneath her arm. I’m so dead curious what she wrote in there. Something that turned her mood around, to be sure.
“You hungry?” I ask, wiping my brow with my forearm and trying to ignore the way a pink blush is crawling up over her cheeks, or the way she shifts her hip and looks away quickly like she doesn’t want to even recognize the dual meaning of what I’ve just asked her.
When she peeks back a me from under the fringe of her lashes, she points at me and raises a scolding brow. “For dinner.”
“Mind out of the gutter, Junior.” I laugh, tossing my gloves down on the stump and stride toward her.
“Can you put a shirt on?” She waves a hand over my bare torso, taking me in just a little too appreciatively to be truly offended.
“Why?” I pretend to be oblivious.
“Don’t play dumb, Sinclaire.”
Busted.
“Nah, I’d only be playing dumb if I pretended not to notice you eye fucking me while I unloaded hay bales yesterday.”
She barks out a laugh, walking back up to the house beside me. Coming closer than she has all day. “I was not!”
