Page 57 of The Ex Project (The Heartwood #3)

SPENCER

There’s a six-and-a-half-foot wall of muscle and tattoos climbing off the motorcycle on the gravel drive outside the cabin, and I can’t breathe.

Whatever Ally has just said to me has gone in one ear and out the other.

My eyes dart around the kitchen where we’re sitting at the island, trying to look anywhere but towards him. Grady Landry.

Grady Landry, whose t-shirt is creeping up his waist, showing a sliver of his tanned skin, as he lifts his helmet off.

His dark brown hair is perfectly mussed in a way that makes me want to run my fingers through it.

God he’s hot. I thought so the very moment I saw him, but who wouldn’t?

With his thick arms covered in matching inked sleeves, his short, groomed beard, and the almost child-like way he’s smiling at Mason, he looks as if he came out of the same mold they used to make all my other boyfriends.

I give my head a shake. I’m strictly off men for now. Especially men like Grady.

It was stupid of me not to expect to see him here, my best friend is having his brother’s baby after all, I just didn’t expect it to happen the night I arrived in Heartwood.

Something Ally says sneaks its way past the all-consuming thoughts swirling around my mind, and I hear her repeat the question she just asked me.

“How’s your mom?” Ally asks. It’s a loaded question, and she knows enough not to even bother asking about my dad. Not that I would know how to answer anyways, given that we haven’t spoken in over six months.

My mother is a different story. Marla Sinclair likes to make me very aware of everything that is going on in her life.

It has always been that way. She flits around, generally only caring about herself and whatever boyfriend or husband she has on the go, while I have been the stable one in our relationship.

“She’s Marla.” I offer. She is like no other.

My eyes flick over to the large front windows of the a-frame cabin, out to where Grady is pulling Mason into a quick hug before moving out of sight around the side of the house.

A muffled whoop from one of the Landry brothers that already arrived and is probably a couple beers deep drifts through the front door.

“Living her best life in wine country, you know how she is.”

“Still with Roy?” Ally asks.She moved to the Okanagan after her second marriage fell apart, found herself a house by the lake that she loves.

I thought she was getting her life together, finding herself, thriving in her own independence.

And then she met Roy, and he gave her attention, and her pattern repeated.

“Yup. Still with Roy.” I don’t elaborate.

Ally knows that Marla’s relationship with Roy is her longest one yet, at three years out from their nuptials.

But the clock is ticking. Roy isn’t a bad guy per se.

He is just another replica of the men my mother has dated, and married, in the past. Their love feels lukewarm, and a by-product of the fact that Roy tells my mother that she’s pretty.

All her past relationships have been the same.

She is so easily swayed at first, but then the honeymoon period ends, and the butterflies fade, and the man she thought was so charming moves on to the next best thing.

The Sinclair women have whatever is the opposite of a green thumb when it comes to dating.

Any long-term relationship just withers and dies under our care, no matter how well we think we water it.

I think we subconsciously pick men who are like orchids—pretty to look at, but a bitch to keep them that way.

I’ve seemed to inherit this trait from my mother.

That’s why I stick to casual flings, ‘situationships’ if you will.

Different city, different guy. Some of them have been just memorable enough that I’ve kept them around for more than a night, but they all end the same way; a half-hearted “we’ll keep in touch” as I head for the airport.

But none of the assholes I choose to date are around for the long haul, so it’s better for everyone if I stay detached.

“She’s nothing if not consistent at least.” Ally says, rounding the small kitchen island with a plate of burger patties in one hand and placing her free one on my shoulder as she passes by. “I’m going to take these out so Mason can fire up the grill, can you bring that tray of condiments?”

I nod and set down my wine so I can prep the tray of containing various sauces, when I realize Ally forgot the ketchup.

She’s already gone out the front door with her plate of burgers, but it only takes me a second to locate the bottle in the door of the fridge.

When I pick it up, the liquid inside is separated.

I’ll just give it a good shake, we’ll be good to go.

Putting some necessary force into it, I lift the bottle and shake, but the lid must have been ajar, not fully tightened, and it pops off almost instantly.

Bright red ketchup bloops out, right onto the centre of my camisole.

It’s my favourite one, too. A silky jade green camisole with cream coloured lace trim around the bust.

“ Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter, turning to the sink to grab whatever kind of cloth or towel to clean the front of my shirt.

Whatever I do, the blob of red only gets bigger as it smears around and soaks into the smooth satin fabric.

“Fuckity fuck!” It comes out as a shout, but I get cut off from the rest of the string of curse words I want to scream when I hear heavy footsteps on the porch.

I swivel around to see Grady on the steps up to the cabin and I have the sudden feeling that I would love to just disappear into thin air.

He’s the type of attractive where I can’t picture him doing anything embarrassing, so I’m not ready to face him with half a bottle of ketchup on my shirt.

Scrambling, I look for anywhere to hide.

Bathroom? No, maybe he’s coming inside to use it. Jesus, why is this cabin so small?

With nowhere else to go in the tiny, open concept cabin, I decide the pantry cupboard is my only option. It’s a fair size, with enough room for one, if not two people. I slink inside quickly and quietly, and slide the accordion door shut behind me.

The slats in the old wooden closet door are parted just enough that I can see Grady stalk into the kitchen and crouch at the open fridge to find a beer. His broad shoulders curve around as he reaches down to grab a bottle, the muscles in his back rippling under his shirt.

I am such a creep . This is one secret that I will take with me to my grave.

The beer bottle lets out a pffth sound as Grady pops the cap on the handle of one of the kitchen drawers.

He takes a sip?okay, more than a sip?and rolls his shoulders.

Something about him seems tense, and he cranes his neck to look around the corner.

He’s scanning the cabin, almost like he’s looking for someone.

As he turns around, I realize the slats in the door might just be big enough for him to see me. I slowly back away, into the shadow of the pantry cupboard, my breathing shallow and quick. My gut roils when I realize I’m going to have to explain my sudden appearance at the barbecue.

My elbow bumps something behind me, that lets out a puff of dust on the impact.

I turn to find a bag of flour leaning precariously on the shelf.

Shit. Moving as silently as I can, I push the bag back to a secure spot, but it’s too late.

The cloud of powder has made its way to my nostrils, which are now flaring as I wrinkle my nose in a desperate attempt to stifle my sneeze. No luck.

I sneeze, and I sneeze loud. Like the kind of sneeze that I would imagine only your middle-aged father is physically capable of, and one that rattles the house.

I cover my face with my elbow, hoping the sound was muffled enough that Grady assumed it came from outside.

The heavy footsteps I hear across the kitchen tell me that it didn’t work, and I squint in the sudden bright light as Grady opens the closet door.

The way his hazel eyes scan my body makes me very aware that I’m still covered in ketchup, and now have a fine layer of flour adorning every inch of me. Grady’s jaw flicks as the corner of his mouth quirks up into a playful, lopsided grin. His expression is amused, but not mocking.

“This isn’t-” I start, but I’m interrupted.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Grady says with a casual nod, as if assessing the pantry cupboard, the way he would if I was showing him around my home. “Ally said you had a…unique living situation now but this isn’t quite what I pictured.”

And then, as if I’ve casually invited Grady in for coffee after a date, he squeezes himself in next to me and slides the door closed.

His broad chest takes up the vast majority of my field of vision, being so close to him, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him.

There’s a playful smile on his lips, as he waits for me to respond, to play along with the little scenario he’s made up to ease the sting of my embarrassment.

Colour rises to my cheeks as I realize what he’s doing.

I can’t tell if it’s even more humiliating this way, or if I’m grateful for him making light of me spying on him from the closet, but I decide on the latter as I consider a quippy response.

“Yeah, the rent is killing me though.” I answer. Lame. But Grady goes along with it. He lifts his chin as he looks around the closet once more, exposing the column of his neck to me. I can just make out the outline of his adam’s apple in the dark, bobbing as he swallows.

“What does a stunning zero bed, zero bath, studio like this go for nowadays?”

“Ally is charging me my first-born child. Didn’t you know? She isn’t pregnant with Mason’s baby, it’s mine.”

“Wow, that’s steep. But I guess there’s a ton of storage in here.

” Even in the dark, I can tell that Grady’s eyes are roaming over my face, and my mind stalls under the weight of his gaze.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about wanting to be this close to Grady, and my heart pounds as we stand here breathing each other’s air.

He’s tempting in a way that wars with my resolve not to get involved with anyone.

I chew my bottom lip, my tell when I’m thinking, but I’ve run out of witty comebacks. Grady must register that the role play has come to an end because he says “should we join the rest of the crew out back? Or would you prefer it if I closed the blinds, and you can just spy from the window.”

I give him a playful shove on his shoulder and the solidness of the muscle under his t-shirt catches me off guard.

Emerging from the closet, the light reveals the stain on the front of my shirt once again.

Grady’s warm honey-brown eyes flick down to my chest ever so briefly, in an obvious attempt to only take in the ketchup and nothing else.

“I look like I’ve been through the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I don’t know if I can go outside.” I joke, but heat rises to my cheeks.

“It might be slightly alarming, especially for the medical professionals,” Grady says, referring to Ally and Mason, both with years of experience looking at real blood. “But no one here is judging you, Spencer.”

The way my name rolls off Grady’s tongue, it doesn’t sound like a word that he’s said for the first time. I know he hasn’t, we’ve interacted before.

Goodnight, Spencer. It was the only time he said my name, when he lingered in the doorway to his guest bedroom that night I stayed at his place.

It had come out with a slight shake then.

But as he says it now, it sounds as though he’s practiced it.

The word is familiar in his mouth. As familiar as saying the word hello.

“ That’s easy for you to say, this is your family,” I point out. And now they’re my best friend’s family, too. “You forget that I’m meeting half of them for the first time.”

“Tell you what,” Grady says, crossing the kitchen and reaching for the bottle of ketchup on the counter. He picks it up, and before I can say anything at all, he flicks open the lid and squirts a blob down the front of his shirt, the crisp white cotton now marred with a streak of red.

“Grady! What did you-” I cry out, half shriek, half laugh. Grady just looks up at me and grins, that lopsided grin.

“There. Now we both look like the walking dead.” His eyes sparkle behind thick dark lashes as they linger on me, making my skin prickle. I wonder how long we would have stood there, staring at each other, if Ally didn’t come back into the cabin at that exact moment.

“Spence, people are wondering where the condiments are,” she says, and she stops in her tracks as she comes through the front door. “Oh. All over the two of you, by the looks of it.”

“Yeah, we had a bit of an… incident.” Grady explains, tossing me a playful wink, an acknowledgement that we now share a secret, an inside joke. Something that’s just ours.

“Well, I see you’ve beat me to the re-introduction. Grady, you remember Spencer, don’t you?” Ally says, gesturing between us before picking up the tray of sauces I was supposed to take out ages ago. Grady’s eyes are on me once again, and my skin is hot, feverish.

“Of course, I remember Spencer,” he admits. “She’s not easy to forget.”