Ouch. I guess I haven’t done much to prove I’m not that man. I never want to be that man again.
“How do I get you to leave?” she asks.
“That depends.” I lean against the doorway and cross my arms to prevent myself from dragging her into me, which is all I can think about with her this close, smelling like cookies. “Do you really want me to leave?”
Her eyes drop down to my chest then back up. “Of course I do.”
“Go on a date with me? Let me erase my past mistakes by making it up to you.”
“No.”
I’m getting awfully sick of that word. I push away from the wall. “Okay, I’ll just keep being your personal handyman then. Today, tomorrow, the next day. Every day until you decide to go out with me, I’ll be here.”
“That’s, like, backward coercion.”
“I know. You get all the good stuff. And I just do whatever you want.”
“Sean,” she groans, but until she says the words I’m looking for, she’s stuck with me. I’ll have to work slower. Eventually I’ll run out of things to fix around here and won’t have a reason to keep coming back. “You’ll get tired of it,” she says.
That’s where she’s wrong. This isn’t a game to me. Sunny isn’t a game to me. In high school, I gave up too quickly. I believed what her dad said and I didn’t fight for her. I won’t be making that mistake again. This time, I’m staying.
“No, I won’t.”
“Want to bet?”
I blink, stunned for a moment. Then my lips curl. A bet? She’s speaking my love language.
“No, wait. That’s not what I meant,” London says, waving her arms in front of her. “It’s a phrase, I wasn’t being serious.”
I drop my chin and step closer. “I take bets very seriously. And I agree, we should make a bet on who gives in first.”
She jerks back. “Wha-no! I’m not making a bet with you about…this.”
I take the step she placed between us. “Scared you’ll lose?”
She stomps a foot and folds her arms. “Fine. You’re on. Once you get bored here I’ll never have to see you again.” She tries to step through the doorway but I place my hand on the wall in front of her and she freezes. Her skin brushes mine.
“I should warn you, I don’t often lose. AndwhenI win, I’ll let you kiss me.”
“I’m not kissing you,” she splutters and it’s adorable to watch her stumble over the words.
“That’s what you say now.” I step closer, just enough to test the chemistry between us. I’m not imagining the way she catches her breath or the faint pink that touches her cheeks. “We can make another bet on it.”
Now the red in her cheeks is fury. “Agh!” She pushes past me and I drop my arm, watching her go. I’ve never been so determined to win a bet in my life.
Chapter 13
London
Iinitiatedabetwith Sean Bentley. What kind of stupid person does that? I should have just agreed to go on a date with him. I’m still kicking myself for that one because it’s possible I was a tad over-optimistic about how long I could hold out and allow him to fix my shop for free. It’s been a week and he hasn’t given up yet.
He shows up every day like clockwork five minutes before I can close my shop door and lock him out. He saunters in with an easy grin on his face and his tool belt around his waist looking like the lumberjack in myvery recentdreams. And each time, like clockwork, my heart skips a beat. Which is a complete betrayal. But the worst part of it all is the carvings. Not because they are awful, which to be clear, they are, but because each one tugs at my heart in a way only Sean could. Each cabinet he works on ends up with a new carving. Sometimes on the back of the door or hidden on the top of the cabinet. I noticed the first one five days ago: a duck hiding below the silverware. A daisy in my sugar cabinet. A donut on the edge of a door. Each of his carvings corresponded with the sticker I put on my prosthetic the day before.
So I stopped wearing stickers.
The next day there was a sun. The circle was awful, but I couldn’t help loving it anyway. Yesterday he left a bouquet of the most gorgeous pink and yellow flowers in the middle of my worktop and when I picked it up, I found the tiniest heart engraving with “S + L” inside it.
My heart can’t handle any more of that, so today I’ve got a new sticker in place. A little red devil I’ve been saving for the perfect opportunity. Let’s see him carve that.
