Where it got uncomfortable was when my body reacted to him. A hitch in my breath. A tightening in my chest. Heat in my blood. Provocation of that thing in me that existed only to want and didn’t care about the consequences.
It was maddening that I couldn’t feel those things for someone like Carolyn, who was perfect for me in every other way. Why should it be Maxim who ignited that fire in me, rather than her? What was it about him that wouldn’t let me out of its grasp? Why was I being punished this way?
As if being pulled by magnetic force, I walked over to the chair where he’d hung the sweatshirt I’d loaned him. Glancing out the sliding glass door to the patio, I saw him standing by the rosebushes at the side of the yard, the sun glinting off the gold in his hair. I picked up the sweatshirt and brought it to my face.
It was still warm from his body.
I inhaled slowly. Soap. Fabric softener. But there was something else there, too. At the deep end of my breath was the heady, masculine scent of his skin, and I held it captive in my lungs, closed my eyes.
You inside me.
My mind feasted on the scent. I felt my lips on his skin, my hands on his back, my chest against his. He was warm and strong and hard and—
Two quick knocks on the glass door made me jump, my eyes flying open to find Maxim standing there on the patio, his head turned, so he was looking away from me. I immediately dropped the sweatshirt onto the chair and slid the door open.
“Hey.”
He looked at me, his face impassive. “Hey. Do you have some gloves?”
“Uh, yeah.” My face was probably fifty fucking shades of red. But he hadn’t seen anything, right? “Be right out.”
I put my shoes on again and went out to the garage, where I rummaged around on my workbench shelves. Where the hell were those gloves? I knew where everything was in this garage, so why the fuck couldn’t I find them? My mind was cloudy with confusion and shame. Had he seen what I was doing? He couldn’t have. He wasn’t even looking at me when he knocked. And even if he had, he knew how I was about neatness. He probably thought I was going to hang the sweatshirt up somewhere, or put it in the guest room.
My heart rate slowed, and I remembered where the gloves were. I pulled them off the shelf and slipped them on for a second, flexing and fisting my hands.
“Find some?” Maxim called from outside.
“Yeah.” Quickly I tugged them off and headed into the sunshine, squinting at the light. I’d forgotten to put my sunglasses back on. “Here you go.”
I handed them to him and watched him put them on, sliding his fingers into the spaces mine had occupied a moment before.
It was almost like touching him.
“Hey.” I switched my phone to my left hand and reached for a couple lemons with my right.
“Hey, big brother. How’d it go today with our Russian orphan? Thanks again for doing that.”
“No problem. It was, uh, interesting.” I grabbed a few limes too, in case anyone wanted them for cocktails.
“Did you drop him off?”
“Yes and no.”
“Yes and no?”
I frowned at the bunches of herbs, scanning the selection for thyme. “I took him to the apartment he was supposed to live in, but I couldn’t leave him there.”
“Why not?”
“It was disgusting.”
Ellen laughed. “Like what, the toilet seat was up? There were damp towels on the floor? Cookie crumbs on the counter?”
“No, like roach-infested, filthy dirty, stained-mattress, you-couldn’t-pay-me-a-million-dollars-to-stay-one-night-there disgusting.” A woman perusing vegetables to my right gave me a horrified look and moved away.
My sister gasped. “Seriously? So he wouldn’t stay?”
“No, he was fine with it. I mean, he wasn’t, of course he wasn’t, but he said he’d be okay and it was what he could afford and it was only temporary.”
“Wait, I thought he was staying with a friend, the one that didn’t show up last night.”
“No. That guy was just going to give him a ride to the apartment. But his car broke down in the mountains or something.”
She laughed. “Thanks for nothing.”
“Exactly. Anyway, I couldn’t leave him. It was that bad.”
“Wow. So what did you do with him?”
“What could I do with him? His mom is wiring his savings, but it won’t be here until Monday. So I brought him home with me.”
“Of course you did.” She giggled. “You big softie.”
I grimaced, scouring the tiers of root vegetables. Where the fuck was the fennel? “I’m not a softie. It’s only temporary, and I’m telling you, nobody could have left a friend in that place.”
“You guys are friends now? That’s so cute.”
“We’re not friends exactly, I just—I don’t know what we are.” Spying a bag of fennel, I grabbed it and tossed it into my cart. “But I said I’d help him.”
“Help him with what?”
“With everything, Ellen. He’s the nicest guy in the world, but he moved here, like, on a whim and really didn’t plan for it.”
“He moved here? I thought he was just visiting.”
“He wants to stay.” I switched my phone to my right ear and pushed my cart toward crates of potatoes and onions in the middle of the produce section. “He wants to be a screenwriter.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“Right. So he’s got about two thousand dollars saved up, with which he needs to buy food, shelter, a laptop, and screenwriting classes for the foreseeable future.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
“That’s what I told him.” I tossed a few onions and a big bag of Russet potatoes into my cart. “I said he could stay for two weeks, during which I’m going to help him make a budget and find somewhere to move that he can afford once he gets a job.”
“A job?”
“That’s where you come in. Can you hire him?”
“I’d be glad to. Is it legal?”
I frowned. “Not really. You’d have to pay him in cash. Keep it all under the table.”
“Okay.” Ellen didn’t sound bothered in the least. “I’m not working tonight, but I can bring him in tomorrow.”
“Great.” Some of the tension eased from my upper back. “He says he’s got some experience.”
“Sounds good. Where is he now?”
“He’s back at the house doing some yard work for me.”
“You put him to work already?” She snorted. “That’s so you.”
“Ha ha. He offered, thank you very much. He said he had experience with gardening too, although he could be back there butchering my rose bushes for all I know.”
“He’s a real jack-of-all-trades, huh?”
“Apparently.”
“Too bad he’s so unattractive.”
His handsome face popped into my mind, and I forced it out. “Unattractive?”
“It was a joke, Derek! I was kidding. For God’s sake, the guy looks like a Calvin Klein underwear billboard come to life.”
“I guess.” Don’t think about him in his underwear. Don’t think about him in his underwear. Don’t think about him in his underwear.
“You guess? I’m sorry, but you’d have to be dead not to find him attractive. And not even recently dead. Like a hundred years dead.” She sighed. “Too bad he’s gay.”
I froze, my entire body on edge. “What?”
“He’s gay. One of my servers overheard him telling some girl at the bar that last night.” She laughed. “From the sound of it, she was pretty disappointed. Poor girl.”