Page 16 of The CEO I Hate (The Lockhart Brothers #1)

MIA

T oo much.

Way. Too. Much.

By the time dinner was over and I’d managed to escape the house of horrors, I knew I could rock any toilet trivia contest. I’d also been referred to several good plumbers—all in the Porter family of course—and had been given a fifteen-percent-off coupon for my next purchase of a smart toilet.

“We’ve got heated seats and a bidet feature,” Peter had told me as he’d shaken my hand while saying goodnight.

I’d thanked him and ran back to my car so fast, I think I was back in North Hollywood before my mother could clear the table. I couldn’t believe my parents thought I would date a guy like that. I knew they wanted me with someone stable. But toilets?

God, I wanted to scream.

Things only got worse when I walked into my building to find the elevator out of order.

Again. This thing was on the fritz more often than the janky Wi-Fi Sophie and I had.

I grumbled, heading for the stairs. Mentally, I was still fending off toilet talk and wondered if I really had the energy to haul myself up to the eighth floor.

I hit a full roadblock on the third floor.

A couch was wedged across the stairwell landing like it had been dropped there by a helicopter. What in the Friends was happening?

“Mrs. Franklin?” I called out, craning my neck to see around the armrest .

I bumped into Mrs. Franklin on occasion in the elevator with her tiny Pomeranian or in the laundry room while her massively overconfident grandson Earl stripped down to his tank top to flash his guns at me.

He wasn’t bad looking, but he was way too full of himself, and at age twenty, I seriously doubted he had the experience to be anywhere near the Lothario he wanted to be.

“Hi, Mia,” she said, hands on her hips as she caught her breath.

“What’s, uh, going on here?” I asked. Because it sort of looked like she was trying to haul the couch up the stairs with Earl. Blocking the only route to my apartment. The one place I wanted to be so I could complain to Sophie about how horrible dinner had been.

“Annika in 304,” Mrs. Franklin said. “You know Annika?”

I shook my head.

“Well, she got a job overseas and is moving out. Said we could take her couch for free! Can you believe that?”

“It’s practically brand new,” Earl cut in, flashing me a wide, sleazy grin. “Perfect for cozying up on.”

Somebody save me .

“We’re just trying to get it up to the fifth floor,” Mrs. Franklin said. “But it’s stuck.”

“Pretty sure the stairwell is narrower up here,” Earl added.

“Oh, well, let me help,” I said, handing over the bag of yearbooks to Mrs. Franklin.

She was very spry for a seventy-five-year-old, always telling me about her hot yoga classes, but she’d also been talking about needing a knee replacement surgery for ages.

Probably from all those years of go-go dancing in the seventies.

“You’re sure?” Mrs. Franklin said .

“I insist. Earl and I can handle it.”

He smirked, giving me a wink. “We sure can.”

Ew. “Calm down, Romeo,” I muttered, squeezing myself past the couch to grab the front end while Earl positioned himself at the back.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, you ready?”

“Just prepare yourself for the gun show, Mia.” Earl flexed his biceps dramatically before lifting his end of the couch. “These babies don’t just lift weights. They also lift?—”

“Right now, I’d settle for lifting the couch,” I groaned. This sucker was heavy.

Earl grinned, unfazed. “Anything for you, girl. You know, they say heavy lifting is great for bonding.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Who says that?”

“Me,” Earl said. “Just now.” He winked again. It was so exaggerated I thought maybe he’d gotten dust in his eye.

“Earl, less talking and more lifting, okay?”

He hoisted the couch up, immediately backing into the wall. He let out an oomph .

“You need to turn and lift,” I said. “To get it over the railing.” He did, half-balancing his side of the couch on his head. “Watch your end,” I called.

“Don’t worry, I’m watching my end and yours.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Earl, stop pestering the poor girl,” Mrs. Franklin cut in .

“I’m not pestering her, Nana. I’m shooting my shot.”

More like shooting himself in the foot. If this was how he flirted with all girls, he’d be lucky to get a date sometime this century. “Let’s just focus on the task.”

“I can multitask,” Earl said, popping his head up to waggle his eyebrows at me.

We somehow managed to get the couch around the first landing and halfway up the stairs to the next before Earl’s face turned red from the effort.

I didn’t even want to think about how I must look.

“I can tell you’re playing hard to get, Mia.

But that’s okay,” he grunted. “I’m a patient man. ”

“Earl, you barely have a driver’s license.”

“Hey, I’m old enough to know a good thing when I see it. And you know what this couch would be good for? Movie nights. Romantic movie nights.”

As if I needed the clarification. “For you and your grandmother?”

“Ah, come on!” Earl complained. “I’m a total catch.”

Yeah, like the flu. We wrestled the couch up another flight of stairs.

Footsteps carried up the stairs, slowing as a figure popped around the railing…who turned out to be Liam. Oh, great , I thought, huffing, abruptly aware of how red my cheeks probably were and what a sweaty mess I was.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked.

“Just some manual labor, man,” Earl said, clapping him on the shoulder. Liam looked at him like he was a bug he wanted to squish.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

Liam held up a six-pack of beer. “Watching the game with Jake. Can’t get up to his place any other way with the elevator out,” he said brusquely, eyeing up the scene. His gaze flicked briefly to Earl, who was shooting me a lopsided grin.

“Oh, right.” I’d forgotten the Lakers were playing tonight. I’d forgotten everything but how cumbersome this stupid couch was.

“Need a hand?” Liam asked, his voice clipped but polite.

Earl puffed up his chest. “My girl and I got it covered. No need to?—”

“I’m not your girl,” I told Earl pointedly for the fifth time.

“Not yet. But just you wait until we get this beauty all set up. Someone’s gonna need to break it in with me.”

There was a long pause.

And then Liam looked at him.

Just looked.

A look so cold, so precise, so lethal, it could’ve frozen the sun.

Move,” he said.

Earl blinked. And shrank.

“Yeah, man. Whatever,” he mumbled. “If you want to give it a go.” He stepped out of the way, and Liam picked up the end of the couch like it was nothing.

“Watch the?—”

“Railing,” I said. “I know.”

When we finally reached the fifth-floor landing, Mrs. Franklin rushed past. “I’ll grab the door.”

Liam and I maneuvered the couch down the hall with Earl walking next to me firing off passes like dollar bills at a stripper. The kid could not take a hint .

We got the couch into the apartment, which took some more wiggling since the doorway was narrow.

But once the couch was in the living room, I hung back to help Mrs. Franklin adjust it while Liam disappeared.

I thought maybe he’d left, annoyed at having to help in the first place, but I could hear him talking in the hall.

“All good?” I asked Mrs. Franklin.

“Yes, thank you so much.”

“No problem.” I took the bag with the yearbooks, then headed for the door.

“I don’t think you understand what ‘back off’ means.” Liam’s voice was low, sharp, and dangerous.

Was he talking to Earl? He had to be.

“She’s not interested,” Liam continued. “And she damn well doesn’t need you pestering her. Understand?”

Earl rushed past me as I stepped out into the hall. He barely glanced at me. Clearly, Liam had put the fear of God in him. The corner of my mouth twitched. Once the Franklins were both back in the apartment with the door closed, I turned to Liam, giving him a look.

“What?” He scowled.

We headed for the stairwell, making our way up the last three flights. “You know, I don’t need you protecting me from overconfident twenty-year-olds,” I told him.

“You clearly do since this one seemed to be trying to attach himself to you like a leech.”

“Hardly.”

Liam’s eyes narrowed. “You’re more vulnerable than you realize. ”

“Vulnerable? Ha!” I couldn’t keep the amusement out of my voice. “You make it sound like I need a bodyguard.”

He snorted. “You do have a habit of attracting the wrong kind of attention.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? “I’m not some damsel in distress you need to save.”

“You were practically being crushed by a sofa when I arrived,” he grumbled. “So, damsel, meet distress.”

We’d finally reached the eighth floor. I came to a stop outside Jake’s door, and I crossed my arms, my temper flaring.

Liam closed in on me, his eyes bright. “Guys like that are insufferable. They need to be put in their place.”

“And I suppose you’re gonna do that for me?”

“If I have to,” he growled. His eyes flicked over me. “And I’d enjoy every second of it.”

“Because you like bullying poor little twenty-year-olds?”

“Because I like reminding them to keep away from what doesn’t belong to them.”

The moment grew charged, the hairs on my arms standing up straight as I swallowed my gasp. I didn’t belong to Liam either, so what was he saying? A wave of delicious heat washed through me, settling in my lower stomach. It was so different from the reaction I’d had to Peter Porter or Earl Franklin.

“Well, maybe I don’t want you to put them in their place,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t need you to.”

Liam took another step closer, his presence suddenly overwhelming. “You sure about that?” he murmured, his breath warm as it washed over my face. “Because something tells me you weren’t all that bothered watching Earl scramble back into his apartment.”

His words hung in the air between us, and my pulse quickened.

“I think you don’t really know what you want,” Liam said, his voice a low rumble.

Maybe that was true, because right now, with him bearing down on me, I sort of wanted to surge forward and kiss him. But that would be insanity.

The door swung open behind us, and I whirled around, spotting Jake.

“Hey,” he said, glancing up at Liam. “Game’s already started. What took you so long?”

“Elevator’s broken, and there was an obstruction in the stairwell,” Liam muttered, stalking into the unit.

Jake gave me a look, but I just shrugged. “Couch.”

Jake nodded. “You wanna watch the game?”

Hell, no! Not with Liam. “I’ll pass.”

“All right. Talk to you later.”

I nodded and headed down the hall to my place, still equal parts flushed and flustered as confusion rattled at my temples. Since when did Liam pull the big, angry, protective bear routine, and why did I find it so damn attractive?