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She bit her bottom lip, and my gaze lingered there a moment longer than it should have. “I just wanted to know... How do you do it?” she asked, her words halting and shy. So unlike her.
“Do what?” I asked.
“How do you stay single? How do you... enjoy it?”
I tilted my head, examining her. What a strange question, considering our interactions had never gone very deep, even in years of knowing each other. “What makes you ask?”
She glanced down quickly. “Reasons.”
I raised my eyebrows, waiting for more.
Extra color started at her neck and wound its way up her cheeks. “Forget I said anything.” She turned back toward her car.
But the thought of her driving away from me when I didn’t know what was behind her question had me saying, “Follow me.”
Now it was her turn to be surprised. She spun back toward me. “What?”
“Get in your car and follow me. It’s easier if I show you.”
I got in my truck, half expecting to see her headlights go another direction, but when I made the turn, she was right there with me.
6
DELLA
I wearily eyed the house in front of me before Hayes’s long stride crossed my headlight beams and he stopped, waiting with his arms folded over his chest.
I got out of my car and gave him a suspicious look. “I’m not sleeping with you, Hayes Madigan,” I said.
He smirked, still lit up by my headlights. “No one said anything about sleeping.”
I gaped at him, but he just chuckled. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Princess. Follow me.”
My heart was beating faster than normal as I walked behind his long, lean form to his front door. He pulled it open without unlocking it—no one in this small town ever locked their vehicles, much less their houses. And then he led me inside.
I’d never been inside Hayes’s home before—even knowing him most of my life. He was several years below me in school, and when we saw each other, it was only in work settings or at family gatherings. Even so, I drank in my surroundings, curious to see what his home would tell me about the enigma of Hayes Madigan.
He was always a bit of a mystery to me. I suspected there was something behind his cavalier demeanor, but I didn’t know what.
Realizing I was a few steps ahead of him, I glanced back to see him tugging off his hoodie. His T-shirt lifted up with it, and my lips parted at the view.
Tattoos covered nearly every spare inch of skin I could see, rippling over the muscles of his stomach. When he took off his hoodie and met my eyes again, I knew.
He’d seen me staring. Again.
But he didn’t comment on it this time. Instead, there was a pleased look in his eyes as he gestured toward the living room. “Look around. What do you see?”
“A living room?” I asked as I eyed the sparse space with dark leather couches, a glass coffee table, and the giant TV that was a staple in any bachelor’s home. Then I frowned. “One that needs a lot more color.”
He smirked. “Look again. Hard furniture. Nothing a girl would like to hang out on. No frilly throw pillows. No plushy rug. Nothing that says, ‘Welcome home, make yourself comfortable while I make us breakfast.’”
My eyebrows pulled together. But before I could speak, he said, “Follow me.”
Dazedly, I fell into step behind him, where he led me down the hallway past his kitchen. “This house has two bedrooms,” he explained. “This one is mine”—he tapped a finger on a wooden door to his left—"and the other...” He opened a door on his right, and I stared inside.
The entire room was stacked floor to ceiling with boxes. The only vacant space was an aisle down the middle of the room to access the boxes.
I looked a little closer at the labels, noticing one of them said BRAKE PADS. Another, OIL FILTERS. I raised my eyebrows. “Did you run out of room at the shop?”