Page 26 of A Real Goode Time
She slumped backward against the counter beside me, her face in her hands. “God…dammit. Again. Why am I such a fuckup?”
“I’m sorry, Torie. It’s my fault. I’m normally up way earlier than this even without an alarm, but I just…I had trouble falling asleep last night, and I…” I let out sound that was more growl than sigh. “Fuck that—I’m not going to make excuses. I told you I’d get you on that bus, and I didn’t.”
“It’s Saturday. There are no more busses till Monday now, probably.” She groaned. “It’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for me. I should be responsible for myself.” She looked at me, and it was clear she was battling tears of frustration. “I’m sorry you had trouble sleeping. It’s probably weird having someone else in the loft.”
“It wasn’t that.”
She frowned. “But you said you had trouble falling asleep.”
“Yeah, just not because of the bed.” I chewed on my upper lip, considering what to say. “I had…things on my mind.”
Her eyes flicked to me—to my hands, as if remembering what she’d seen. “Things on your mind, huh?”
“Yeah. I’ve got an overactive mind. It’s always going, you know?”
She wanted to say something, I could tell, but she made a face likenope, not going there,and looked away. “So I have to figure out what to do now. I can’t just stay with you all weekend.”
“Sure you can,” I said, before I could stop myself. “We could work on the Nova together. I could use the help getting it done. Plus, later, I have to get to the build site and finish up some stuff.”
She gave me a quizzical look. “Build site?”
“Oh, yeah, I work for a home builder on the weekends. I do finishing stuff, small jobs. Put in electrical outlet plates and light switch covers, install cabinet and drawer pulls, basically just button things up so it can be turned over to the owners or the listing agents.” A thought occurred to me, then, and I snapped my fingers. “Actually, Jeremy, my boss who owns the company, he’s always looking for people to help clean up once the bulk of the build is done, and we’re at that stage now. I have about six or so hours of work to do, and there’s about that much to do in cleaning. Vacuum rugs, sweep up sawdust and shit, mop, wipe down walls and counters, all that shit. He’d pay you fifteen an hour cash to get it sparkly for the new owners. You interested?”
She blinked. “Wait, what? Like, a job?”
I tipped my head to one side. “Not really a job, just an afternoon or so of work for cash under the table. Whatever we don’t finish today, we go back and finish tomorrow. He just wants to turn over keys Monday. You need the money, and he needs someone reliable and hardworking to get it done.”
She eyed me, smirking. “How do you know I’m hardworking and reliable? I smoke pot and I missed my bus not once, but twice.”
I laughed. “I’m pretty good at getting a sense for people. And I overslept too, so it’s just as much on me. And I mean, you wouldn’t be able to support yourself at twenty years old waiting tables if you weren’t hardworking and reliable. Trust me, I know. My mom waited tables for most of my life, so I know exactly how hard it is to make ends meet as a server.”
She grinned. “Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence. And yeah, I’d love a chance to make some cash.”
I waffled on another thought, and then blurted it out. “I also could really use an extra pair of hands getting this Nova done. I could slide you some cash for that, too.”
She shook her head. “Working on the car I’ll do for free, for the nostalgia of getting engine grease on my hands again. And for the hospitality.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. If all goes well, we’ll have the Nova done by noon, I’ll cash out that account, and we’ll head over to start work at the Setters Road house.”
“Coffee first?” She sounded so eager, so excited for coffee that I laughed, and grabbed a mug, poured her a hit of thick black caffeine. “Hope you like your coffee black and strong, because I don’t have milk or sugar.”
“Would you think less of me if I did like it milky and sweet?”
“A little bit, yes,” I said, laughing.
Her skin looked milky and sweet is what I was thinking—her pulse was throbbing in the delicate vein of her throat, and I wanted to put my mouth there, feel her pulse under my tongue as I tasted her skin.
I blinked and looked away. I’d never found a throat sexy before, but hers was elegant and delicate and…sexy, and it was wreaking havoc on me.
I turned away, poured myself some coffee, and we stood in the kitchen in companionable silence.
She spoke again. “I had trouble falling asleep last night, too,” she murmured.
“Oh?” My mouth was dry, the aftertaste of my coffee souring on my tongue.
She held the mug in both hands in front of her mouth, eyes on mine over the rim, her voice muffled behind the ceramic mug. “Yeah. I have an overactive imagination, too. Had…things on my mind.”
“Things on your mind,” I echoed. And then it dawned on me what she was getting at—repeating my words about why I couldn’t sleep, which had led to the little scene this morning, downstairs.