Page 45 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

“Yes. Good idea.” Thank God. Actually, thank Dave for saving me from myself. “This guy will follow you when he’s had his treat.”

I take a carrot from the jar next to the window and snap it into three. Partially because I need an outlet for the pent-up feelings flying around inside me, and partly because it then gives me three things to feed Dave and I can spin it out so I have something to do while Miller picks up his stack of dirty clothes and puts on his boots and jacket.

“Thanks for dinner,” he says as I offer Dave the secondchunk of carrot.

“You’re welcome.” I keep my eyes fixed entirely on Dave’s crunching. “See you in the morning.”

In my peripheral vision, Miller nods and opens the door to leave.

“Oh,” I exclaim. “Don’t forget your boxers.” There was probably a better way I could have put that, but the words flew out the instant I remembered them.

“What?”

Annoyingly, my head instinctively turns to look at him and our eyes meet again as his brow furrows in puzzlement.

There’s a pause as I tip my head toward the shelf over the baseboard heater.

“Oh, yeah.” His lips curl up a little at the corners as he retrieves his slightly soupy, slightly burned boxers and adds them to the pile of clothes. “Thanks.”

And then he’s gone, his tall, muscular frame walking away from me, toward the darkness of the main enclosure.

I give the donkey the final third of the carrot and rub his nose. “What the fuck just happened there, Dave?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MILLER

I hadn’t expected this belt sander to actually work. I plugged it in more out of interest than expectation. But it’s doing a good job on this piece of pressure-treated pine that I found among a pile of old wood offcuts in the feed shed.

There’s quite the tool kit on this workbench in the back corner of the barn, behind the tractor and right under where I sleep. There were even some sandpaper belts with plenty of life in them. It all took some dusting off, but I thought I’d give it a try.

There’s a fine-looking old hand plane here too. Might use that to bevel the edges the old-fashioned way.

Is this all really necessary to replace the shed panel I noticed was missing? Definitely not. But I can use it as a practice piece to test out all the skills I might have lost. It’s for an inconspicuous spot around the back that no one really walks by, so no one will ever notice that one short panel has routing, carving, pyrography, marquetry, and whatever else I can think of, in it.

Also, I learned years ago that when you’re woodworking you can’t think about anything else. So maybe this will distract my mind while I try to figure out what the hell happened last night, what the hell I’m doing here, and what the hell kind of person I am if this is what I’m doing.

If it hadn’t been for the window-opening donkey, I would have kissed Frankie.

And I’m pretty sure she would have kissed me back.

It’s not a giant ego that makes me think that. It was the taut anticipation in the air between us, the way it made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, my chest shudder, and my dick stiffen.

I’ve kissed women with way less than that going on between us. There’s actually usually nothing going on between us at all apart from the kissing. No connection, no meeting of minds, just anoh you’re attractive and not bad company, so we might as well kisskind of thing.

In fact, now that I come to think about it in the cold light of day, I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like that crackle of whatever the hell was bouncing around the kitchen last night, rebounding off the walls and off Frankie and me.

Damn good thing Dave showed up when he did. Because if we had kissed, what kind of asshole would that make me?

The assholiest of assholes, that’s what kind.

And that’s why I felt so fucking awful when she told me about her grandma passing away. It was such a personal moment that she chose to describe to me—except it wasn’t me she was telling. It was Miller McSweeney, the nice investor guy who’s here for the love of the donkeysand the outdoors and making the world a better place by not concreting over it.

She was sharing such an intimate story with a pretend version of me. And it crossed my mind to come clean right then. But I’m a shitty coward and didn’t. So I can’t live with myself this morning.

Will making an overly elaborate, perfectly formed replacement panel for the shed make up for that? Of course not. But right now that’s all I can do to try to convince even myself that I’m not an asshole.

And it’s not working.