5
| SUMMER |
MONDAY
(Time: 5:52 a.m.)
All the way to the jobsite, I feel like I should be hitting the ground running with follow-up plans now that Jason agreed to consider the marsh lands behind the lot.
But I’m not.
Instead, all I can think about is how unbelievably sexy the man is. How in the world has it never affected me before today?
A vividly clear snapshot of him standing in his bathroom today suddenly hits my memory banks again, and I very nearly swerve into a parked car.
It’s like some kind of mental dam has broken. And now, isolated memories of him over the past month and a half are starting to look like those optical illusion images. Like the one with the rabbit that’s clearly a rabbit…until suddenly, your perception shifts and you realize it’s a duck.
Things like how huge his calloused hand had felt gripping my elbow the other week when he stopped me from stepping into a muddy puddle. Or how his deep voice is always so much rougher, raspier the mornings I accidentally wake him up. Or the way his body emits heat like a furnace whenever I stand too close, but in a pleasant way, like when my skin gets warm and toasty in front of a campfire.
Suddenly, all of it has the inside of my car feeling hotter than a burning kiln.
I roll down all my windows to let in some brisk mountain air, and though the early morning fog helps a little, I’m starting to think that nothing short of an ice-cold shower is going to work.
Almost thirty years I’ve been on this planet and this is the first time I’m actually, legitimately hot and bothered over a man.
Not that I’ve never been attracted to a man before. I definitely have. But it was always short-lived, usually dying the moment that put-off look would creep into his eyes. The same look most people get around me when they realize they can’t quite figure me out, and moreover, that they don’t want to.
I swear, I make an effort to not be weird. But it just…happens.
Maybe it’s because I’m not good at keeping behind those invisible lines people draw around themselves. I’m not sure why I don’t see said lines until well after I’ve trudged across them.
With guys, it always starts out the same. With them asking for my number. Every time, I find myself wincing and almost wishing I were the kind of woman that drew over the men who’re only looking for one night stands. I’ve gone out drinking with my guys enough times to have heard how simple and quick the exchanges go when they’re picking up their drunken flavor of the week, no-name, walk-of-shame quickies.
No man has ever tried that with me. Nope, I always get the nice guys who want to chat on the phone before asking me out on a proper date.
Small talk? Not a skill I possess.
I never know how to tell them that I’m not good at chatting on the phone. Or chatting in general. At least not about anything outside of work. So, I end up giving them my phone number.
Sometimes, miraculously, those awkward first conversations still result in plans for a first date. With the optimistic guys, at least. The more realistic ones jump out of the burning building the second their weirdo-detection alarm starts blaring. Usually by the five-minute mark.
So far, my record is two minutes flat. I think that time, I’d answered the question about how my day went by describing—in pretty vivid detail—how we’d unclogged a drainage ditch at one of my jobsites and found ourselves knee-deep in a veritable sea of frogs...and how a group of frogs is apparently called an army, according to Google.
Frankly, I recall judging the guy a little bit for continuing to talk to me for a whole minute after I’d told him that fun amphibian fact. Though I do appreciate his effort at trying to remember the name of the Muppet character Ms. Piggy had been in love with to keep the conversation going those last painful ten seconds before he finally made a lame excuse and hung up.
With Jason, however, our chats are never awkward. No questions about my nonexistent weekend plans. No asking me how my equally nonexistent family is. It’s shop talk, and that’s it. Everything is brief, almost abrupt.
I love that.
There’s no pussy-footing with him, no socially-acceptable rules to abide by. He doesn’t care that I’m conversationally-challenged; he just cares that I do a good job.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not stupid enough to believe Jason doesn’t think I’m peculiar. But the sheer fact that I haven’t once seen that look in his eyes yet, the one that says he’s kind of wishing we’d never met, and that he’s already written me off as a person too strange to spend another second with.
Well, let’s just say that counts for a lot.
And to top it all, he hand-picked me to run this incredible project. It’s amazing to have someone like him truly believe in me, trust me to bring his construction vision to life.
I just can’t let him down.
Which means I absolutely, positively cannot be developing these bizarre new feelings for him.
Nope. Can’t happen.
So…all I have to do is stop thinking sexy thoughts about the man. Forget I ever saw Jason Steele naked.
Yup. Easy peasey.