“How about this?” Jake said. “We already drove all the way up here to get this house. We’ve got all of our tools. We walk through the place and just bang out a few of the really hard labor jobs for you.”
“What do I owe you for that?”
“A date with Jasper.”
“Fuck no!” Jasper sputtered. “I mean—I’m sorry—that wasn’t what I—“
Jake started laughing, a low, confident laugh that seemed to start in his gut and rumble up through his thick chest before escaping. “I’ve had enough of it!” he said. “You like her; just stop pretending already. Helena, while I might prefer a more traditional, feminine kind of girl myself—“
“Oh, that’s charming,” I said sarcastically.
“My brother likes ‘em tough. You said you wished she would wear more jeans so you could check out her butt—“
Jasper growled at Jake and made a move as if to punch him, which Jake blocked, and then they were wrestling and grabbing at each other’s shirts. I took a step back, holding up my hands.
“Calm down,” I said. “I’m never dating a wolf because of this sort of thing! You’re acting like kindergarteners!”
Jasper immediately backed off and avoided my eyes. I still managed to notice how gorgeously amber his eyes were, and the chiseled jaw under a layer of sexy scruff. Jasper was a tiny bit smaller and softer than Jake—but only a tiny bit.
“I am so pissed off at him, that’s all,” Jasper said. “I don’t want to trade a date for work. That’s cheap.”
“I agree.”
“It’s just a date, for crying out loud,” Jake said. “Go bowling or some wholesome shit. You need help and I’m trying to come up with some excuse to help you because I am pitying you so deeply and I don’t want you to ruin this house you insisted on buying!”
Jasper threw up a hand. “I’d rather just do it for the good karma. Let’s do a walkthrough and see what we can help Hel with quickly.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jasper
I WAS GOING to kill my brother.
Kill. Him.
Twinicide. He deserved nothing less for revealing my crush like we were in grade school.
Was Helena hot? Sure.
Was she good at house flipping? Well, she definitely paid too much and I was sure an elegantly built girl like her couldn’t possibly be able to get all the work done as efficiently as we could.
But was it impressive she was out here trying? Definitely. She genuinely enjoyed the work, that I could tell. In fact, she would probably make more money if she didn’t get so emotionally invested in the houses, but having been a restoration enthusiast since Jake and I used to help our dad do work around our hometown, how could I not find that charming either?
Was she trouble on two lean legs? Abso-fucking-lutely.
We were werewolves, and so basically considered the barbarians of the magical community, and anyone who saw my family at our annual barbecue would know it was an accurate assessment. Helena, on the other hand, was wizarding royalty. Her mother was a Habsburg, as in the European ruling family. Her father was of a famous vampire hunting dynasty. Her cousin was on the warlock council. Her sisters were marrying into other famous families or joining illustrious witch guilds. Her parents owned two mansions, one on the Hudson and the other in Palm Beach, where she had grown up when she wasn’t at an upscale boarding school.
None of this impressed me; actually I found it pretentious and annoying, and it was a testament to how impressed we were (Jake too, I know, he just wouldn’t admit it) with Helena herself that we didn’t actively try to run her off. No wolf gave a shit about wizarding royalty. They had spent plenty of time trying to wipe us off the face of the earth.
She was trying her best to run away from all of that. That was one reason I liked her, the other being how tight her ass was in jeans. I mean, I’m not a beast for nothing. I was not going to date her, though. If word of that got back to her parents I wouldn’t be surprised if an assassin was hired shortly afterward.
“So…the parlor needs tons of help,” Helena was saying. “And then the dining room—“
“You’re knocking down this wall, I assume?” Jake slapped the wall between the kitchen and dining room.
She stopped cold, her feet marching together as her mouth fell open. “Knock down the wall!? But it has the original magical paintings on it! No way!”
“You’ve got to open up this kitchen somehow,” Jake said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you want to own this house forever?”
“No, but—I didn’t ask for your opinion on walls,” she said. “When I flip a house, I maintain the historical integrity, and I would never in a thousand years tear down a be-spelled wall painting.”
I was waiting for her to pull out the, You’re wolves, what do you know about wizard history? To her credit, she didn’t go that far.
“But you still would have this whole entire wall,” Jake said, spreading his arms wide across the other wall. The paintings spanned the entire room, with detailed hand-painted berries and game animals. “This is the best part, with the deer and pheasants. You keep that, and then you open up this kitchen so you have a great living space.”
“If that wall isn’t structural,” Helena said. “I don’t have the money for that.”
“You should look into it. That’s my advice.”
“I don’t want your advice.”
“Well, we could help you strip down the parlor. That won’t take long.”
“That’s easy stuff,” Helena said. “I could rip up carpet in my sleep.”
While they were arguing, I noticed an odd smell that seemed to be emanating from the floor. I was sure it wasn’t there when we walked in. Then I started to smell it just a little. Now it was getting undeniably stronger. “Hey, Jake…”
“What?” he snapped back, as I interrupted them talking about the tuck-pointing
