“I’m talking about the chick,” he said, smiling over my shoulder at Amanda, waving at her casually.
“It’s called having a conversation.”
“But why are you having a conversation?”
“Well, shit, Derek. When someone walks up to you and starts talking, what do you do?”
His eyes bugged out and he chuffed out a laugh. “If it’s a woman? I run the other fucking way as fast as I can.”
“And why would I do that? She’s asking for help, not for me to eat her pussy.”
“Technically,” Hunter cut in, “we don’t know that. Derek cut in before we could hear her request.”
“Thanks, man,” I nodded.
He shrugged. “No problem.”
“Look, I’m only here because you dragged me here. And the sooner that I find out what she wants, the sooner we can get the fuck out of here.” I turned back around and walked to Amanda. “Sorry about that. What did you need?”
“Um… I was just wondering if you knew anything about paint. I’m painting my apartment this afternoon, but I have no clue what I’m supposed to use.”
“Sure, I can help you with that.”
I spent the next twenty minutes going over all the shit she would need and helping her choose the type of paint she was going to use. She was nice and never once tried to hit on me. And the best part was, I felt fucking useful for the first time in over a month. She thanked me for the help and I left her at the paint counter to get her paint mixed. I walked back to where the guys were standing, arms crossed over their chests with menacing glares on their faces.
“What the fuck is your problem now?” I asked, walking up to them. “Did I take up too much of your time? Did you need to get back to another ass-whooping from Lucy? Or maybe you were supposed to fly in and save Claire,” I directed at Derek.
“Hey, I’ll have you know that I haven’t played Superman in at least six months.”
“Whatever. Can we just finish up and get out of here?”
“Fine, but next time you leave us for a chick, it better be Florrie.”
“I hope you assholes are planning on helping me build this deck, since it was your idea.”
“Uh-”
“Well…”
“No,” I pointed to both of them. “You made me come here. You’re going to fucking help.”
Hunter sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “We’d better stop at the florist on the way home.”
“Why?” Derek asked.
“Because Lucy’s been asking me for a year to build her a deck.”
✯✯✯✯✯
“It looks good, man.”
Derek stood with his arms crossed, staring at the deck in front of us. We had gone a little overboard. Hell, we went a lot overboard. After seeing what the guys had in mind, I decided that I wanted something a little bigger for us, something that would jut out into the yard and give us a nice place to grill and hang out with our friends. I spent the extra money to get a router to make some nice finials for the banister, and did some decorative shit all along the railing. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would to build the actual deck, but that could have been because Hunter enticed a bunch of the guys over with beer. That was built in no time. The rest of the stuff I worked on over the week, and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.
“Yeah, it does look good,” Hunter nodded. “Lucy’s gonna want this same design, so expect my call.”
“But…will it work?” I asked, not sure that this would really scream I love you. Please don’t leave me.
“She’ll love it. I mean, it’s not going to fix things between you, but when she sees the effort you’ve gone to, there’s no way that she won’t soften toward you.”
“Fuck, I hope so. I mean, something’s gotta give.”
“This is it,” Hunter nodded. “I mean, you’re looking to the future with her. This screams that you’re trying to make this a home for the two of you. You’re solid.”
I blew out a breath and started cleaning up the remaining tools, shoving them into the shed that I had delivered to the property in the middle of the week. When I heard the tires on the gravel, I rushed to finish up, and wiped my hands on my jeans and I ran around to the front of the house. Derek and Hunter came up on either side of me, looking just as nervous as I felt.
Derek leaned in closer, “This is gonna work.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. When Florrie stepped out of the truck, I felt like the wind was knocked out of me. She was so fucking beautiful, and I was missing out on all of that. Every day, she was training with Craig and Rocco, away from me, and it was all my doing. I was the one that chose to leave the team. I had put even more distance between us when I should have been clinging to every last shred of time I had with her. God, if I had only realized then what I knew now.
Craig got out and walked up to me, holding out his hand. I glanced at him warily. We didn’t shake hands. Of course, we had always been on the same team and saw each other all the time. Now everything was weird between us. I hesitantly reached out and took his hand. When nothing happened but a handshake, I knew that this was his olive branch, telling me that we would be fine.
“Goddamn, my ass hurts,” Rocco grumbled as he stepped out of the truck. “I swear to God, next time I say I want a break, pull over the truck or I’ll shoot you.”
“You should have gotten out at that last rest area,” Craig smirked.
“I was asleep,” he said slowly. “You should have fucking woken me
