“How much stuff is Cullen getting you?” I wonder, shaking my head at the screen of Gemma’s phone. We’re sitting at the bar in House of Stars, poring over listings and specs for furniture for our apartment while we’re both breaking for lunch.

“Just a new couch for the living room and a new coffee table because he says our old one is so hideous that it distracts him from me every time he comes over.” Gemma rolls her eyes and shoots a glance at the staff rooms behind the bar. Cullen’s strong voice echoes through the current emptiness of the rooms.

“He’s not wrong.” That coffee table could frighten a robber out of stealing. “So, we need a bookcase.”

“And a desk for you. Come on, don’t argue.” Gemma correctly interprets the pursing of my lips. “You need one with all the hunching you do over your laptop. Brandon probably doesn’t want to date the Hunchback of Notre Dame—” She laughs as I hush her vehemently. “Kidding. But also, not kidding. About the desk, anyway. It won’t break Cullen and us—”

“Has done enough. Fine.” I look over the list we’re making. “Will the driver help carry things up to our apartment?”

“I think so, but he isn’t going to help put things together.”

“Well, that’s no good. We have like one flathead screwdriver,” I point out. When had we last had money to order any furniture?

“I think I can help with that.” Rick walks up on the other side of the bar and leans his arms against it, a warning of the bartenders to be hired. “I could give you some tools, but two beautiful ladies shouldn’t have to assemble furniture alone. Brandon!” Rick calls suddenly, waving at someone behind us.

I resist the urge to spin around like a puppet on strings as Brandon’s deep, masculine voice rumbles right behind me, “Hey, Rick. How are you?”

Great. Absolutely great. I’m so glad I wasted my time on having decorum so Gemma could ruin my efforts by craning her neck around my shoulder to get a good look at Brandon and size him up like a shopper at an open market eyeing a fresh-caught fish.

Since Gemma probably already managed to make Brandon feel weird, I smile at him. His smile stays on his face as he looks away from me to Rick, but I can feel that it’s meant for me.

“You got an hour or two after work, Brandon? These girls are getting some new furniture, and they don’t have tools.”

Does Rick know about… whatever this thing between Brandon and me is? The longer I look between Brandon and Rick, the more knowing the older cousin’s expression becomes.

“We’d love some help.” Gemma beams at the cousins. I glare daggers at Gemma. “You’re welcome to stay for dinner, of course, Brandon,” Gemma adds the desk and bookshelf we’ve been looking at to the cart with the coffee table and sofa, then places the order.

“Dinner sounds good,” Brandon accepts. “I have to pick up some electronics after I leave work, but I’ll head over after.”

“Good, that’s settled then.” Rick looks a little more pleased with himself than he deserves to be.

“Can you give me your number so I can let you know when I’m on my way?”

Gemma stands up abruptly. “I have to get back to practice. You can get Taylor’s number and text her. Thanks, Brandon!” She spins, her brunette hair bouncing triumphantly, and gives me a wide grin, her back turned to the two men as she saunters away.

Rick rubs his hands together. “My work here is done, and my work over there is just beginning,” he says as he hurries off in the direction of some disgruntled furniture deliverers arguing about something.

“Sorry,” I apologize to Brandon. “She’s not very subtle.”

“Neither is Rick.” His mouth curls into a grimace that matches the dryness in his voice.

“We really do need help with the furniture, though. Thanks for agreeing to help out.” A time when Gemma and I broke a shelf we were trying to mount comes to mind, but I don’t want Brandon to think I’m totally inept. So instead, I shift the toe of my heels nervously against the stool.

“I promise it is no problem,” Brandon says again, hooking his thumbs in his belt. The movement is so casual, but the weight of his arms pulls the belt down and presses his shirt against the rock-hard formations of his abs.

Every time I think I have myself under control around this man, he does something that proves me wrong.

“Then here, do you want to put your number in my phone?” My arms don’t shake when I hold it out, but a shiver runs through my body and ends in a place I shouldn’t even think about in the workplace when he brushes my hand to grab the phone.

He presses a few buttons then hands it back. “Text me so I’ll have your number. By the way, while I’ve got you—”

Poor choice of words, he has no idea how ‘bad’ he’s really got me—

“—could you take this and figure out what to do with it? It’s all the things I ordered for the renovations. I don’t know the actual final cost of everything added up, but I think it’s going to come out to be a little less than my estimate.”

“Sure, I know what to do with it. It is less, by the way,” I inform him, looking over the receipt he hands me.

“What, how do you know?”

My shrug is noncommittal, but secretly I’m delighted that Brandon’s clearly impressed. “I just have a good memory for numbers, and the other total was higher than this one.”

“I mean, I was good at physics and math, but I feel like you could memorize an entire textbook word-for-word if you wanted to.”

He’s… serious. Brandon doesn’t smile, and the way his chin angles forward just a little bit farther than usual and his eyebrows draw together just slightly, drives his earnestness home in my heart. This beautiful, striking man actually believes I could memorize an entire book, word-for-word.

“P-probably not,” I all but stutter, fumbling for some kind of witty reply. “Too many words, not enough numbers. Anyway, I need to get back to work. See you later?”

“Sure. I’ll text you!” he calls as he walks away.

I throw myself back into my world of numbers with a good will. Now that I know I’m going to see Brandon later, I find it easier to concentrate. Maybe Gemma is right. Perhaps what I need is more of Brandon, not less, to get over continually thinking about him.

I’m finishing up a few entries that Isabel asked me to make when I realize that Cullen is picking Gemma and me up in about thirty minutes, and I’ve totally forgotten to ask Isabel what to do with the receipt Brandon gave me. She’s not in the staff rooms, so I hurriedly finish the entries and walk out and around the bar as quickly as my stilettos will allow.

I let out a startled squeak as a sudden force grips my right foot and forces me to hobble to a stop. An irritated look at my foot tells me that a coiled cable that runs off to somewhere under the bar is wrapped around and under my heel.

“Damn it,” I mutter darkly as I try to bend down to untangle myself, but I nearly overbalance because the way the cable wraps around my shoe means my toe is on uneven ground.

“Hold up, ma’am. I think this is a job for a working man.” Brandon takes my hand to steady me, then drops down on one knee. His calloused hands envelop my calf in their strength, ever so slowly brushing away a circle of cable that became wrapped around my shin.

“Brandon, what are—” I almost squeak, unprepared for the sensory overload of having Brandon kneeling in front of me and caressing my leg. “Brandon, it’s my shoe, not my entire leg!”

“I’m just doing a… thorough job.” The suggestiveness of that sentence nearly finishes the job the cable started and knocks me off my feet.

Hoping my face isn’t the color of a ripe tomato, I give up and use Brandon’s shoulder for balance as he works the cable away from my shoe slowly and carefully. “There,” he says, picking up my foot gently and placing it on the ground beside the cable. “I believe my job here is done.”

He releases my foot, stands up, and walks away like nothing happened.

A couple of people are staring, so I do my best to look like everything is completely normal and return to my quest to find Isabel.

Really, I’m positive I’m still blushing by the time Cullen drops Gemma and me off at home. I know Gemma can tell something’s off, but she probably thinks I’m just nervous about seeing Brandon this evening.

Hot water does wonders for any lasting nerves. I wrap a towel around myself and stick my head out of my bedroom door to find Gemma, an entirely new problem in mind. “Since you helped orchestrate this whole thing, get your ass over here and tell me what to wear.”

“Ooh, now you’re speaking my language.” Gemma joins me as I retreat back into my room, and we eye the clothes hanging in my closet together. “Hm. you’re going to be working and you sweat easily—”

I roll my eyes, but it’s true.

“—so maybe some dark colored top. And of course, you want to look sexy, but not too sexy because you’re putting together furniture and eating, and I’m chaperoning.”

“Chapter—” I choke on my own laughter. “Gemma, you’re way too irresponsible to be a chaperone.”

“Well, whatever. I’m here, I mean. So, not too sexy….” Gemma roots through my clothes and picks out a black top that’s like a T-shirt and a crop top combined. The skin that a crop top would cover is covered, but the T-shirt parts—the sleeves and just above my belly button to the bottom of the shirt—is see-through mesh.

“I like this shirt,” I admit. “What should I wear with it?”

“I’d say jean shorts or skinny jeans,” Gemma says promptly. “A skirt would be too sexy.”

Huh. Gemma’s good at this.

Brandon texts me about twenty minutes later to tell me he’s on the way. I don’t realize how excited I am to see him again until I see those three simple words: “On my way!”

When he arrives, I eagerly run down the stairs to meet him and let him in. “Thanks for coming,” I tell him again as I lead the way upstairs.

“It’s no problem. I wasn’t sure exactly what tools we’d need, so I just brought most of the common ones I could think of when it comes to furniture.” To accompany his words, he holds up a fair-sized metal toolbox with one hand. I watch the ship-on-the-ocean tattoo on his bicep writhe and wonder if I could lift the box with two hands.

Gemma, Brandon, and I sit down in the living room to wait for the furniture truck to get here. The two hit it off immediately, joking around and telling stories like they’re old friends. I was a little afraid that Gemma would be too much for Brandon—she’s really chatty, not at all subtle, and permanently positive—but he’s matching her enthusiasm for the conversation.

After the truck arrives and we carry up the furniture with the help of the driver, the conversation turns to different tools and how to put the furniture together. We end up needing a fair number of the tools Brandon brought, and I realize that we would have had a lot of trouble with some of the heavier pieces without his help.

“That just leaves the sofa, so I’m going to go ahead and get dinner ready.” Gemma stands up and heads into the kitchen, and I hear water running a moment later.

“Spaghetti,” I inform Brandon as I peruse the instructions for assembly. “Gemma has this recipe her mother used to make. It’s delicious.”

Gemma has perfect timing. Just as we drag the old couch into my room out of the way and put the new one in its place, she announces, “Dinner’s ready!”

We’re all starving after struggling with the heavy furniture for the last two hours, so we dig in with an appetite.

“This is good,” Brandon mumbles past a mouthful of spaghetti after a brief, content silence.

“It’s one of the few things I can cook well,” Gemma admits. “I can cook other things, but this always turns out super good.”

“How did you make the sauce? I make spaghetti sometimes, but the sauce isn’t as savory as this.” Brandon pokes at his food with his fork as though it’s a device that will tell him what’s in it.

I just eat my food as they continue to talk about food and recipes, smiling or occasionally nodding when they include me in the conversation.

I don’t feel awkward at all. I just feel… content to be here in this room, listening to two people I care about talk about things they care about.

For the first time in a long time, everything feels right.