Page 25 of Just A Date


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I can’t stop thinking about Juliet. I’m so distracted, I almost shoot myself in the foot with a nail gun and try to cut off a finger on the table saw. I knew I liked her from our conversations online, but it scares me how much I wanted—no, needed—her to give me a chance. Maybe I’m finally growing up. Or maybe—and this is what terrifies me—for the first time, I’m dreaming of the possibility of more.

Sean slides another board onto the table for me to cut. “Have you been swept off your feet and into the arms of love yet?” he asks.

I scoff. He’s so dramatic. “Of course not. It’s only been a week and a half. That wouldbe dumb.” I need at least a few more days.

“Well, you might want to pick up the pace. Time is ticking.”

I clench my jaw. Sometimes I think Sean’s sole purpose in life is to annoy me.

I fold my arms and face him, ignoring his board. “Come on, man, you know you don’t want to be foreman.”

“Sure do.” He lines up the board and cuts it himself.

I wait until the machine dies down. “Why?”

He rubs his chin. “Let me think, a pay raise? A chance to boss you around? The list goes on.”

Everything with him has to be so complicated. I run a hand through my hair and sawdust falls around me. “I’m going to need more time.”

Sean picks up the cut board. “Why? Did you get catfished?”

I knew I wouldn’t be able to reason with him.

“No.” I grunt. “Her parents are divorced. She’s not going to fall in love easily.” That’s why I took her to the bridge last night, and why I didn’t want to admit how I knew her. I’m treading lightly. “I have to be sensitive.”

He stares at me, deadpan. “When I broke my nose, you told me to ’stick a tampon in it’.”

I lift a shoulder. “As I recall, it stopped the bleeding.”

“Do you know how bad it hurt?” He snaps.

I fight a smile that will no doubt get me into a headlock. Too bad he can’t reach. “I can see you’re still bitter about thi—”

“Bitter? My nose is crooked because of that tampon!” He points at the small jut in his nose.

I snort. “It’s not my fault you pushed it halfway to your brain.”

“Because that’s what you said to do!” he yells.

A few of the guys in the shop turn their heads but appear unsurprised by his outburst. It’stypical Sean stuff.

“Anyway…” He takes a breath, trying to calm down. “I never said she had to fall for you,just that you had to fall in love with her.”

I study the motionless blade of the table saw. Well, that makes this easier. I’m already halfway there. But I’m falling for a girl who once swore to me, whether she remembers or not, that she quit love. I may as wellthrow my heart on the saw blade now.

Sean takes my frown as a win. “See? I’m not a hopeless heartbreaker. Unless it’s your heart, then I’m okay seeing it broken.”

“Gee thanks.”With brothers like him…

He studies me, his smile growing. “You should invite her to family dinner.”

“Why don’t I drop her into shark-infested waters instead?” The last person Juliet needs to meet is Sean. And maybe Grandma. That woman’s mouth can’t be trusted.

“I have to meet the girl you fall for at least once,” Sean says, as if heread my mind.

I line up a board on the table. “That was never part of the rules.”

He shrugs. “Rules are meant to be changed.”