Katie

“You know I’ve done the best I can, but there was a lot that had to be fixed.” Grant, the plumber, seems to gulp. “Had to replace piping. Had to cut out and replace all that damaged plaster.”

“I know.” I nod and keep my hand out with the cash. All my cash. All my savings.

He’s been making me hold out the money for a long time, considering he intends to take it. Grant must be in his late twenties, has a thick head of brown hair, and he’s a nice, good-looking guy…the brother of a girl from my patisserie class. I never asked him for a favor, only to be fair.

He glances at the cash in my hand, back to me, then back to the cash. He bumps the end of his nose with a knuckle. “I suppose I can take off another fifty.”

I don’t say anything. Again, I never asked for favors. But I’m also not going to argue about keeping money I certainly need. He flicks one note up and tugs the remaining cash free. Leaving me with one fifty-dollar bill remaining to my name.

“Thanks, Grant.”

He nods and tucks the money into his jeans then plucks a fridge magnet from the pocket on his shirt—a pocket with his name embroidered in red below the company logo. “Next time the roof leaks in the middle of the night, call me. We do twenty-four-hour emergency visits.”

“Thanks.” I take the magnet. It’ll go on the fridge, but I doubt there will be a night call. Don’t want to imagine the kind of surcharge involved in that.

Plus, a middle-of-the-night call would require Mom actually organizing something herself. And organization isn’t her strong suit.

I show Grant out. It takes three tries to get the screen door closed. It finally works in enough to lock.

A tug pulls at the side of my shorts.

I glance at the scruffy three-year-old blinking up at me and scoop him up. “Troublemaker!”

He flashes me a smile full of short, little baby teeth.

I smooch his cheek. “Let’s check the oven.”

He’s really no trouble. Of all my six siblings, Jake is the quietest. Maybe that comes from being the youngest in a big family. There’s no spoiled for this kid that doesn’t come from me. It’s hand-me-downs and good behavior, because he was born needing to know the drill.

I set him on the counter, take the tray out of the oven, then transfer the pastries onto a rack. As my special helper, Jake gets to shake the icing sugar out on top. The screen door groans, and noise rockets into the house like a thunderstorm.

Mom herds the tribe into the kitchen. They flock around the baking tray with grabby fingers.

“Go wash your hands,” she shouts.

The kids charge to the bathroom.

Mom kisses Jake then pecks my cheek and looks at the tray. “I’ll never understand why you couldn’t be obsessed with cooking real food.”

I snort and shake my head.

She slides something in front of me.

I pick up the jumbo bag of almond flour then look at her. “Thanks, Mom. You didn’t have to. This stuff is so expensive.”

Out of all my siblings, I understand the value of a luxury, and I clutch the package tighter. There’s already half a dozen recipes I’m desperate to try with this.

“One perk of working at a grocery store.” She shrugs and unclips her nametag and sets it on the counter. “Reduced to clear.”

I give her a hug, and she pats my back. I breathe in her shampoo and makeup smell. One thing there has always been enough of is this. Mom’s not perfect. Really, she’s not. But she tries.

It’s just…

Footsteps thunder back into the room. I let Mom go and watch her funnel the kids to the table and kiss and pet them all.

It’s just that she might be the loneliest person I’ve ever known. For all my siblings, there’s never been a step-father in the picture. There’s never been a father of any kind that I’ve seen more than a few times. She doesn’t speak to her family. There’s a couple of grocery store friends who come around. And that’s it.

We—those of us right here in this room—are it . We are all. And for the most part, together, we’re happy.

Mom takes the pastries to the table. The children dive into them with utter disregard for the craftsmanship involved in creating them. I sigh. Should’ve just made choc-chip cookies.

I pull a pastry apart and study the perfectly separated layers. My rear pocket vibrates, the ringtone just barely audible above the racket. I put the croissant down, wipe my fingers, then slide out the cellphone.

It’s him .

The room seems to go quiet. It takes me a minute to find the nerve to answer. “Hello.”

“Katie.” He says my name as though it’s a complete sentence. Katie . As though I’m supposed to know what he wants.

“Yeah.” I don’t respond in kind. I’ve never said his name, and now it’s been so long, I wouldn’t know what to call him. Clay. Mr. Colson. Sir. It’d all be weird. In the beginning, before I knew gruff is just how he is, I didn’t have the nerve to do anything but nod. The closest I got was addressing him via Dixie.

Dixie’s daddy. And it’s stuck.

“I need to leave early again tomorrow.”

His voice is a deep, rich rumble that seeps through the line and makes me shiver.

I lick my lips. I can’t come early. There’s barely time to get the twins to daycare in time to make it to his place by 8:30 a.m. like I’m supposed to.

“I don’t have time to walk Dixie, Katie.”

Oh shit . This is a warning call. My face gets hot. This is a “you’re-on-notice” call. There’s not another job like this I could just pick up. Clay doesn’t want Dixie walked with other dogs; he wants one-on-one attention for her while he gets ready for work in the mornings. So he seriously overpays for that privilege.

“I understand; I’ll be there promptly.”

His voice drops two octaves. “Good girl.”

Heat breaks over me with a wave of pins and needles. Good girl . I grab hold of the counter. I’m wet. Wet like a hussy, right here in the middle of my mother’s kitchen, with six little siblings eating at the table.

“Bye.” I shove my thumb over the end button.

Good girl .

I hear him again. I’ve heard him say it a thousand times to Dixie. Heard him say it and wondered what it’d take to have a man like him look at me and call me his good girl.

I shove the cellphone into my pocket.

Well, he didn’t look at me and say it, but I got to hear it. Now I know there’re things , a lot of things , I’d do to hear those words again.

***

I finish drying Dixie, set the hairdryer down, and glance at the house. By some miracle, the twins were angels, and I had them dressed and fed and kissing their heart-surgeon mother goodbye an entire twenty minutes ahead of schedule.

Got here half an hour early, walked Dixie hard and bathed her again, even though she didn’t really need it.

If I don’t get a “good girl” today, I’m never getting another one.

I unplug the hairdryer and stow it in the outside cupboard that contains all her things. Dixie has more wardrobe space than I do. She scratches at the kitchen door. I chase after her and slide it open, hovering in the doorway.

I always get a little stuck at the threshold.

First, by the wave of boarder-line arousal at the epic-ness of his kitchen. The granite. The appliances… Oh, the things I could bake in here. The second thing stops me more firmly. The smell of freshly brewed coffee, peanut butter, expensive cologne, and other nice, warm, comfortable things that aren’t supposed to be for me.

“Well, sit down.”

My gaze slips to him. Tingles wash over me. He’s dressed up again. Clay usually works in jeans and a t-shirt, but the last few days, he’s been in suits. It’s too much for me. His thick, dark hair is groomed too nicely, and looking like this, he reminds me so much more of how far out of my league he is.

Clay “The Grinch” Colson.

And who the heck am I?

“Katie, I don’t have all morning.” He deposits the plate onto the counter.

I stumble over to it and sit on a stool. Not sure why he makes me eat toast like this. It’s not even as though he makes some for himself. He just started doing this a couple of months after I took the night job, and he never stopped.

Dixie eats toast from his hand then bounces off to the living room, where her bed is.

I gulp the cooling coffee and take a huge bite of toast. I’m not complaining, though. This is the only time in the day I actually sit down to eat.

“Katie.”

I stiffen. There’s my name again like a whole sentence, and this one isn’t happy. He deposits his briefcase on the bench and shakes his head.

I glance down at myself. Oh, crap … I was so busy trying to impress him by being done early, that I didn’t notice his lawn was freshly mowed. Now there’s a trail of clippings across his immaculate tiles, leading right to me. A worse trail of clippings pepper my legs.

Oh, Jesus.

“It’s okay; you go.” I drop the toast and leap up off the stool. “I’ll stay and clean up, then lock the door and pull it shut when I leave.”

That’s what I do half the time, anyway.

He points his finger at me. That famous, jabby finger. “You stay right there.”

I drop back into the seat, and my heart drops, too. He storms from the room. I watch after him and swallow the remaining coffee. What’s wrong with me that I’m so hungry for the approval of a man who always looks at me as though I’ve done something wrong?

He reenters the room with a broom and a towel draped over his shoulder. He sweeps the mess out the door.

“Please, let me—”

The broom drops against the wall with a clatter.

He strides for me.

Uh, oh.

I swallow and lean back. “Sorry, I didn’t realize the lawn was just cut.”

“Katie.” Same word again, and his eyes are all squinty.

But I just can’t decipher a one-word phrase that supposedly means everything. “Yes?”

He turns the stool I’m sitting on until I face him fully. “Just take your shoes off before coming inside.”

My gaze meets his, and I frown.

He doesn’t…

He stares back at me, intense and focused, and I feel like I’ve missed something crucial.

He’s not angry as I assumed he was.

“I will.” I press my lips together. Why didn’t I take off my shoes? But I already know. I was in such a hurry.

He reaches out and takes my calf.

I gasp and grab the sides of the seat. What the hell is he doing?

He takes one end of my shoelace and tugs. The bow unravels. My pulse skips a hundred beats.

He stretches out the lace, and his gaze flickers along the length.

A flush bursts up my neck. What ? Now my favorite, multi-colored laces aren’t good enough for him, either?

Well, screw him. Not only are they freaking perfection in a strip, they match at least one other thing I’m wearing today. “If you don’t like those, then you’ll really hate my rainbow underwear.”

The grip on my calf changes. Gets pinching tight. My breath catches. He keeps staring at my laces then undoes the other shoe.

Moisture breaks out on my nose. Why the hell did I say that? I rub my nose. What is he thinking? He can’t even look at me…

Oh, god.

“I mean it’s a rainbow thong …not like kiddie underwear.” I clear my throat. Stop talking, Katie . But I keep going, and I can practically feel the depth of the hole I’m digging. “They’re for women. I have like eight pair. They’re just real cute, in case you wonder—”

His head snaps up.

Oh, shit . What is wrong with me? I should be banned from speaking.

Clay practically shakes. Each of his fingers presses into my calf hard enough for me to feel them distinctively, individually.

I’m getting fired.

My breath rushes out. And I get it. Totally justified. But he pries off my sneakers, goes to the door, and tosses them outside. I watch them bounce off the pavers. Shit. Shit. Shit . I look around. Where’d I leave my backpack? I lean down off the stool.

“Where are you going? Your socks are soaking wet.”

I freeze, toe pointed and hovering an inch from the floor, and then I hoist myself back up onto the stool.

He sets his foot on the base of the stool then slides the towel off his shoulder and drapes it over his knee.

“Damp socks are very bad for you.” He seizes my calf again and draws my foot onto his knee. “Don’t you know that?”

Everything in me goes still, as if my body has a glitch.

Fuck .

I stare at my dirty, grass-spattered sock on his stark-white towel. It’s all I can do to keep breathing, but my mind flashes to not so long ago. When I use to walk to school—rain, hail, or mother-freaking snow —with holes in my shoes. My socks got wet, and I survived. Survived to do it all again the very next day.

I think the two of us were raised quite differently.

He peels down my sock. I hold on to the bench. His fingers skim my skin. My muscles draw tight. Yes, my sock is soggy. Yes, my t-shirt is damp. But none of that has anything on the sopping state of my lovely, rainbow thong.

He removes the sock and drops it to the ground then wraps the towel around my calf and wipes. My skin turns to goose-flesh, and I watch the slide of that white, perfect, expensive towel over my dirt-streaked leg in a kind of trance. He wipes over my ankle then takes my foot into the folds. My breath makes a sound. He rubs my toes. My teeth clamp over my lip. There’s an unbearable tension between my legs, and I want to rock into it.

He lowers my foot then takes the other, giving it that same thorough treatment.

Why is he doing this?

I swallow again. There’s too much spit in my mouth.

He drops the towel to the floor.

My shoulders unclench. Except he’s not done. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls something out. I stare at the bundle. Thick, black socks. His socks. He separates them and takes my ankle. I let him have my foot. The goose-flesh is gone, and not because he was right—wet socks make my whole body chill.

But because right now, I’m burning hot.

He sets my heel onto his knee, scrunches one black sock, then pauses at my toes, and this time, instead of using the towel, his fingers touch my skin. He brushes my toes as though they’re fascinating.

I hold my breath. I hold the seat. I hold my stomach tight.

He pinches my big toe, where I painted sparkles over pink nail-polish, then shoves the sock on. The sock swamps my foot. He pulls it up high. The end reaches almost to my knee. I wiggle my toes against the tension. He grabs my moving toes and squeezes them inside the thick sock.

A little sound escapes me.

He glances up, and I nearly slip off the stool. Oh, god . I’ve been wrong this whole time. He takes my other foot and puts the other sock on as he did the first. It doesn’t matter that he’s looked away—I’ve already seen the truth. His expression just branded in my brain and will never wash away.

He’s not mad at me.

He hasn’t been judging me.

The sock pulls up so hard that I squeak and grab his shoulder. My pussy throbs. Oh, fuck.

He’s been fighting to resist .

I look at him, and he looks back.

He’s crossed a line. He shouldn’t have done this. It was inappropriate. He could’ve handed me the towel. He could’ve given me the socks. But he made this choice. He broke this barrier.

Now I want to tear it down and find out what’s on the other side.

“Gee.” But I can’t muster the smile I want to pair this intended sass with. “Thanks, Dad.”

He massages my socked foot, but his expression isn’t half as reassuring as his action. “You should be very careful what you wish for, Katie.”

“Why is that?” I manage to answer, despite almost swallowing my own tongue.

He squeezes my foot hard and leans closer. “Because if I were your daddy, you’d be in a lot of trouble right now.”

I twitch like I just got stung by a bee and hold on to him, but he stands, and his shirt slips from my grip.

He straightens the tie he knotted himself today then reaches for his briefcase. “Ensure you lock the door behind you, Katie.”

I watch him leave with a gaping mouth. Don’t think I trust myself to do anything.