Page 10 of One Little Favor
“Don’t worry,” she says, not even looking up, “I heard you come in. You’re not going to surprise me this time.” She pauses. “Thanks, by the way,” she says, but she continues right on painting.
“For what?”
“For listening, and not telling me I shouldn’t be helping my parents like this.”
“I know you guys are really close, so I get that you want to help them. It just seems like a lot of responsibility.”
“My parents are the best,” she says with a sigh. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them.”
I can’t say that I understand that from experience, but I’m glad that’s the relationship she has with her family.
I start gathering up the containers of food that we’ve left spread around the floor, and I’ve just put them in my fridge when my brother’s text comes through.
Jeremey
Anne wants to know your girlfriend’s name so that she can pretend like we at least have heard about her before we meet her.
Tom
I already told you that you aren’t meeting her. She has plans with her parents.
Jeremey
And I already told you that she’d better be there.
You’d think moving halfway across the country and essentially ignoring my whole family would put enough distance between us, but no, they still try to stick their nose into everything I do. Judging. Comparing. Complaining. Trying to lure me back to their crooked world. Hell no.
Tom
I’m not going to ask her to cancel her plans for this dinner.
“Why the big sigh?” Avery asks.
I glance up and it’s only when I see her watching me closely that I realize how tense I am, how my entire body is practically rigid at the idea of seeing Jeremy and Anne. Maybe I can just fake a stomach bug or something?
“Just family stuff,” I say.
Her brow furrows, then relaxes. “Want to talk about it?”
Do I? I never talk to anyone about my family. Shepherd is a common enough last name that most people don’t associate me with them when they hear it. Avery doesn’t seem to know. Would she understand the pressure that comes with being a part of my family?
“You don’t have to,” she adds when I’m so lost in thought, I don’t respond. “But I feel lighter after talking about my family issues with you, and I’m happy to listen if you want to talk about your situation with me.”
She’s so goddamn earnest. It’s one of the things I like about her, but it’s also one of the reasons I can’t stop thinking about fucking her. I wonder if she’d be so eager to please in bed, too?
“My family is really difficult,” I say. “But unlike yours, we’re not close.”
As I speak, she bends to dip the paint roller in the paint, and I force myself not to focus on the way her ass looks in those high-waisted leggings she’s wearing—but it’s impossible, and I feel my zipper pressing up against me as my cock grows hard just imagining all the things I want to do to her body.
She stands, asking, “Why not?” And it’s not until the question knocks me out of my ass-obsessed stupor that I realize she’s looking straight at me, watching me focus on her body. And there’s no way she didn’t notice the tent in my jeans. She gives me a little snort as she turns away to roll the first coat of paint over the primer. Yep, she just noticed her boss checking her out.
Fuck.Do I call HR and warn them about the potential lawsuit now, or should we finish painting the office first?
She doesn’t seem bothered at all, though. It’s more like she wanted me to know that she noticed, and I’m not quite sure why.
“Because my family is difficult,” I say, as if that answers anything.
“So you said. Is that really all you’re going to give me?” she asks, still rolling the paint onto the wall. Somehow it feels easier to talk about this when we’re not face-to-face.
