4
(Cara)
Inside the house we find the kitchen light fixture ablaze again. Garrett gives a chin nudge toward my blender.
“Remember, one thing at a time in the outlet. Same thing upstairs. You can’t plug in a hair dryer and a curling iron or whatever beauty torture device is in these days—not at the same time.”
I let out a snort at his utterly male assessment of female hairstyling. “I don’t use a curling iron.”
Garrett’s gaze flits over my hair, inspiring the need to tuck it behind my ears again. He raises his arm up and makes a vague circling motion with his hand. “So it just does that?”
“What?” I will not tuck back my hair again, no matter how strong the pull is to do so. I cross my arms over my chest instead, digging the tips of my nails into the flesh on my arms to keep them there.
Another swirly move with his fingers. “The little curly pieces around your face. You just wake up that way?”
“Pretty much.”
His arm drops heavily and a muttered curse leaves his mouth. Garrett looks past me, toward the front of the house.
“I should go. You need help with anything else?”
Yes. I need help with your shirt. It’s been in my way since I met you.
Crap. No. Do not say that.
Before anything inappropriate comes out, I remember that I do have a task Garrett might be able to assist with. One that does not involve his clothes coming off.
“Actually, I do need something else.” Garrett’s gaze turns strangely unfocused for a moment. “I have one last thing in my storage pod outside that’s too heavy to get in here by myself. Could I get you to help me before you take off?”
He looks amused and then shrugs. “At your service, City. Let’s go grab it.”
We head for the door and Garrett holds it open, clicking the front porch light on when we step outside. It’s dusk now, making it even colder out. Garrett stops at the edge of the front porch.
“You want to grab a coat? It’s pretty cold now.”
I shake my head and make my way toward the pod. “My jacket is still in a box somewhere. I’m fine; this won’t take long.”
Fumbling with the lock, I twist it to insert the key and it frees up on the first try. Slipping the padlock off, I reach down to the handle, but before I latch on, Garrett grumbles and steps closer.
“Here. I can’t watch you shiver again.” His coat lands over my shoulders. Then he nudges his body ahead of mine, wordlessly shooing me out of the way.
Whether the coat thing is some lame attempt at orchestrated chivalry, I don’t know, but when I slip my arms through to pull on Garrett’s coat, I nearly groan. The inside is lined in a quilted flannel that is so broken in it’s almost silklike, and I have stop from wiggle-burrowing into the fabric further. And it smells like a mix of something spiced, something soapy, and something dirty. Actual dirt, dirty. Mud, maybe? Sweat and silt? Grit and dust? Whatever the blend, from the smell to the heat, it’s patently male and entirely new to my olfactory senses. I’m more used to how a designer thinks a man should smell—the sorts of cologne that always smell a little like someone dropped a bottle of pine-scented household cleaner into a barrel of Scottish single malt.
“Is it for sex?”
My head jerks up. “What?”
Garrett chin-nudges in the direction of my reformer. “That thing looks like it’s designed with either torture or sex in mind.” He looks over his shoulder. “Which is it?”
“It’s a reformer.”
“That doesn’t clear anything up. ‘Reformer’ could apply to either. Torture or sex.”
“It’s for Pilates.” I huff. “The only form of exercise I can stand.”
He steps in sideways and works his body behind the machine, then gives one corner of the unit a test lift.
“You sure about this? This thing’s heavy. I could bring my buddy Braden over tomorrow.”
Rational reasoning hits hard at the mention of Garrett returning. No way. If we start making a routine of this, I’ll find myself calculating ways to steal his coat or some other article of clothing, all of which are best left on his body.
I yank up the coat sleeves and move into place on the opposite side of the machine. “I’m stronger than I look.”
“I don’t doubt that, City.” He takes hold of his end. “On three?”
I mimic his posture and deadpan my response. “Go team.”
The lack of furniture in the house means we easily make our way inside, setting the reformer down in the middle of the empty dining room. Once it’s in place, Garrett grips his hand around the foot bar, attempts to shake it, and then steps off to one side.
“How does it work?”
I get a little thrill at his question. “The carriage travels when you lie or stand on it. There are a bunch of different things you can do, different poses and moves, but it’s your own resistance doing the work, so your muscles end up long and lean. Like a dancer’s workout. I guess that’s the best way to explain it.”
“Can’t picture it.” He crosses his arms over his chest, eyes running over the length of the machine.
I slip off his coat and hand it his way, then kick off my shoes and step onto the machine. Placing the arch of one foot to the foot bar, I stretch my other leg out to set my heel against one of the shoulder rests. Slowly, I lean forward to grasp the foot bar with both hands, find my balance, and press the carriage out behind me until I’m fully extended. Essentially, I’m doing the splits—and after being cooped up in a car for so many hours, the release is a relief. I tamp down a loud groan that wants to escape into something quieter. Unfortunately, what ends up coming out sounds a little more satisfied than I planned on.
“So it’s stretching,” Garrett offers.
I move into another position, both feet on the carriage shoulder rests, my hands still fastened to the foot bar. “It’s harder than you’d think.”
Letting one foot rise off the shoulder rest, I point my toe and drive my leg up toward the ceiling, then slowly pull it in toward my chest, before repeating the sequence. The moves are yoga-like, akin to warrior three and royal dancer—and the combination of balance, movement, and tension means the whole sequence is far from easy.
On my fifth pass-through, just as my body starts to ache in a way I like, Garrett grunts, a low, rough sound that’s indecent enough to draw my focus in his direction.
His rapt attention is fixed to my legs, eyes taking in every move I make. Normally, this would be a moment when the instinct to make myself smaller would take over. Too many years of my mother reminding me—usually when I am trying to enjoy my favorite banana frozen custard from Scooter’s—that tall and skinny is one thing, but tall and not skinny was another, so I should probably put the spoon down. Or her insisting I always sit down in family photos, hoping that might make it so my height wouldn’t overwhelm the picture. In her eyes, I’m like a towering sequoia, and all she wanted was a dainty magnolia.
But Garrett’s gaze is appreciation mixed with interest, and shying away from it is the last thing I want to do, so I take a few more passes before sitting down cross-legged on the carriage.
“Do you do mat work, too?”
“Sure, sometimes. I like this better because . . . ” I pause and narrow my eyes. “Wait. How do you know about mat work?”
Garrett laughs, his voice giving way to the lighter sound, then his mouth curves up guiltily.
“I was fucking with you; I knew what this thing was when I saw it. I went to school up in Fort Collins, had a part-time job at this sporting-goods store and there was a Pilates studio next door, with these huge plateglass windows along the front. It’s impossible to be a straight guy and not look inside when you walk by. Plus, we sold a cheap-ass version of these things at the store I worked at.” I let out a little huff and he widens his grin. “Figured I could play the country bumpkin for your benefit. And mine.”
He stretches one arm out, palm open so I can take his hand. I work to keep a glare on my face, but when his fingertips strum across the inside of my wrist and my entire body heats, I realize it’s a futile endeavor.
“You’re impossible.”
Garrett tips his head. “Come on, don’t be mad, City. I’m sorry.”
But his tone says he’s not sorry, he enjoyed every second of what just happened. I sigh and slip my feet back into my shoes.
“Thank you for your help. Fixing the power, moving the reformer. I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem. Happy to help.” He shoves one hand into his back pocket and extracts his phone. “In fact, give me your phone and we’ll swap numbers. That way you can text me if you need something.”
I look down at his phone and hesitate. Garrett finally shakes the phone about, a prompt I take even when I know I shouldn’t. A direct line to Garrett? Garrett with a direct line to me? This is trouble. Double trouble. Or worse. Fivefold trouble.
After I dig my phone out from the depths of still-unorganized things strewn across the coffee table in the living room, I meet Garrett near the front door, where I think it’s best we remain. Adjacent to an opening where I can boot his charming, troublesome self outside as quickly as possible. I hand him my phone and set about entering my info in his.
Garrett hits the contact button on my phone.
“Cara, you only have five contacts in here.” He reads them out loud. “Amie, Dad, whoever ICE is, Will, and some spa with a weird name I can’t pronounce.”
I peer at the screen and shrug, knowing it’s considered peculiar to have so few people in my phone. When I was at the newspaper I had a cell they provided, which was littered with hundreds of contacts, and it was just another thing I was happy to be rid of when I quit. Now I can keep who matters on speed dial and relegate the rest to voicemail or, even better, email. I decide not to overthink the implications of Garrett’s info being included in my inner circle.
“I believe in small circles. The spa is for getting my eyebrows threaded and my nails done. Important girl beauty torture things.”
“I’m sure,” he chuckles as he starts to key in his information. “Who’s ICE?”
“My mother.”
A snort from him. “Should I ask?”
“Technically, it stands for ‘in case of emergency.’ They say you should do that so if you get in a bad car accident or something, the hospital can look at your phone for an emergency contact. But it is my mother, so whatever double meaning you think applies, does.”
I resist surreptitiously scrolling through his contacts. It’s probably littered with entries that lack proper names, only vague descriptions. Hot girl from bar. Blonde/Short Dress. Long Hair—Likes Coors. After typing in my info, proper name and all, I lock the face and we exchange devices.
“All right, now you can hit me up when you need me. How long are you here for, anyway?”
“Eight weeks or so. I’ll head home at the beginning of April.”
Garrett shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat and opens his stance, stepping his feet wider. “That’s a long time to be away from home. Expecting any visitors while you’re here?”
“Visitors?”
“Yeah, visitors. Bound to be people who hate not being able to see you for two months. Maybe whoever this Amie is?” He waggles his eyebrows—which is nearly as bad as the winking—and his voice husks over a notch. “Or maybe Will wants to visit.”
Ah, there we have it. Circuitous line of rambling for him to get to the point, which my sex radar indicates is about determining if I’m single. I open the front door and hold it ajar with my foot.
“Amie is my sister, and she’s busy planning a wedding. As for my parents, Dad’s a Boeing executive and Mom’s a very dedicated executive wife. Aspen is about as far into Colorado as they’ll venture.”
Garrett lets my answer hang for a beat, ignoring my polite cue with the still-opened door. The tip of his tongue peeks out, grazes the center of his upper lip.
“What about Will? If he’s the polo shirt–wearing investment banker back home that’s missing you, I’d prefer to know that straight out of the gate. That way I don’t misinterpret any late-night texts you send my way.”
I lock my eyes on his, a steady gaze to match the one he’s giving me. “I’m good with words. If I send you a text, it won’t be open to interpretation.”
He lowers his voice. “Don’t play like that. You’re good with words? So use them. Tell me what’s what here.”
Maybe it’s the nearness of that very good-bad mouth, the scent of his stupid coat, or the tease of his tone, I don’t know, but an answer tumbles out before I can stop it.
“Will is . . . family. I’m single. That’s what’s what. No boyfriend. No husband.”
One side of his mouth curves up, gratified by this tiny coup over my best efforts to send him off shortchanged. “Thank you.”
And with that, Garrett saunters through the open front door—just when I decide I might not want him to.