Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Alright. That’s…that’s good. I just came up here because I need the chainsaw, and it’s not working. I swear it’s probably the carb. Isn’t it always the carb on small motors?”
My head shoots up. “You know about small motors?” No, that’s not a turn-on. That is not a turn-on in the least. Though my dick says otherwise. It’s now screaming hard, and not just because of its recent brush with denim death.
“It’s just something I’ve heard my dad complain about over the years, although I did take motors in high school in shop class. But that was a hot minute ago, and I don’t think I can take that thing apart on my own.”
Is now the right time to tell her that she’s certainly not going to use that chainsaw? That would be a no. If she’s anything like Jace, telling her she can’t do something is a surefire way for her to lose a limb trying to prove she can.
“Could I take a look at what you’re trying to cut down? Maybe it can be saved. Maybe I should call someone.”
“Someone like a gardener or a team of professional landscapers? That would probably be a good idea. It’s disastrous down there. It’s so, so freaking sad. I think it must have been beautiful. I…oh.” She stops, and when I look at her again, she’s studying me. Hard. She’s remembering what I should never have blurted out earlier, down there in the kitchen. I don’t know what I was thinking. One sniff of compassion, and I lose my freaking mind? Keeping this girl at arm’s length is what I need to do, and I can never forget that. I’m no good for her. No. Good. At. All. “Even if you don’t want gardens, I think someone might have to come and clean it up properly. I put real effort into it, but I barely made a dent, and I don’t want to make things worse. If you don’t want gardens, you could just cultivate, uh…a lawn?”
“Or a pool,” I add.
My grandfather absolutely abhorred pools.
Aspen brightens. She’s sweaty, and there are streaks of dirt on her forehead and jawline that I’m just noticing now. I’m also struggling against noticing how her clothes are clinging damply to her body like she just had a humid, hard workout bath out there. The bits of dead leaf matter in her wheat-colored braid do nothing to detract from her hair’s shiny, lush allure.
I bet she still smells good.
Maybe even better for being sweaty.
Get it the fuck together right the fuck now.
“I think the pool will add value to the house whenever you decide to sell it,” she says cautiously. “Plus, it’s California. Doesn’t everyone have a pool?”
It’s decided then. A pool it is. “I’ll call a team to come in and start clearing the place out.”
“Alright, well, it’s your house and your decision. I’m going to go and take a shower.”
I should just let her go, but for some reason, I have to blurt the most embarrassing thing I could ever say at her retreating back. “I really wasn’t twizzling my bacon up here.”
“Garp.” That would be her choking on her own spit. “Yeah,” she coughs. “I believe you.”
She races away, and goodness help me, I don’t know if she really believes me or not, but I’ve just embarrassed us both thirty-four times more than if I had just let it go.
I jump up, grab my phone, and nearly keel over as I swear my dick gets a cramp from being cramped in my jeans. They’re not even that tight. I don’t know what’s going on. I think the only medical emergency with erections is when you’ve had one for longer than a day?
I dial the first landscaping company I find after doing a quick search. I don’t care if they have a zero-star review. They can come and get rid of everything out there, and it would be a vast improvement to the place.
After they promise me a crew within a few hours, I fall back onto my chair.
I take the first deep breath I’ve taken in years.
Someone is going to come and wreck the place, and then it’s going to be transformed. It’s going to be changed. It’s going to go from something a man—a man who should have wanted me, cared for me, and loved me—loved a thousand times more to something he would have abhorred, and I couldn’t be happier.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing it before.
And now that I’ve started, what else can I tear down, get rid of, and transform in here?
Chapter six
Aspen
“What the nuts is going on down here?”
I woke up to an extraordinary amount of clanging, banging, grunts, and curses. It sounded a lot like me in the backyard yesterday. I threw on my possum T-shirt and a pair of jeans and went flying down the stairs, only to find Rick literally ripping apart the house.