He took out his electric drill, then propped open the door with his toolbox. Then he opened up the annoyingly sturdy ladder and climbed to the top step. With two screws held between his lips, he drilled in the first screw.
“That can’t be sanitary. I’ll hold the screws for you.” She walked up to the ladder and held out her hand.
Without answering, he drilled in the second screw, then the third in quick succession. He climbed down the ladder with a smug smirk. “No need.”
“Show-off,” she croaked.
The air in the bookstore turned stifling, and Lizzy tugged at her blouse, which suddenly felt a size too small. Something about Jack’s competence with tools made her… hot. The movements of his hands were so sure and confident. She blew out a slow breath, resisting the urge to fan her face with the to-do list.
Her appreciation for his skills was blown way out of proportion. All he did was hang up a shopkeeper’s bell, not build a bookshelf from scratch. But apparently, three screws were all it took to make her warm and achy. There was a dirty joke in there somewhere, but she was too flustered to appreciate the humor.
Now he was bending over to retrieve his toolbox from the doorway. His jeans clung to his perfectly sculpted ass, and his T-shirt rode up for a scintillating peek at his lower back. Oh, my God. She wanted to jump him. Jack. Her oldest and dearest friend. Something was very wrong with her. It had to be some hitherto undiscovered handyman fetish. It wasn’t Jack she was attracted to. It was him as a handyman. This was good. Yes. Because Jack wasn’t really a handyman. She buried her nose in the list just as he straightened up and turned to her.
“What’s next on the list?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet, but you should definitely put away your toolbox and ladder.”Please make Jack the Handyman go away.“I don’t think we’ll be needing those.”
“I’ll keep them in that corner just in case.”
“Whatever,” she said with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. But it should be okay as long as they weren’t in his vicinity.
Lizzy could never see Jack with a tool in his hand again. Their friendship depended on it.
“By the way, where were you this morning?” Jack asked as he stacked a pile of nonfiction books into a box.
Based on some sort of internal algorithm, Lizzy decided the most productive and efficient task after installing the shopkeeper’s bell was lining up the massive bookshelves, currently occupyingthe center of the store, against the walls. The end goal was to open up the space to make it more inviting for customers to browse. They decided to start with emptying the nonfiction books from the shelves.
“Oh, my gosh. Our jog. I’m so sorry.” She spun around, finally meeting his eyes.
Relief rolled through him. He thought she was acting strangely around him because she’d noticed the goose bumps on his arms earlier in the hardware store. He must’ve imagined it. Thank God for that. This getting-over-her business was hard enough without Lizzy figuring out how he felt about her.
“I called my mom to tell her about my leave from work and—”
“She freaked,” he finished her sentence with a soft grimace. His relief was replaced with a spurt of frustration. Mrs. Chung wasn’t a bad person per se, but she had always been way too hard on Lizzy.
“It could’ve been worse.” Her careless shrug made his heart ache. She wanted her mother’s approval more than she let on. “But afterward, I got carried away with a bottle of Shiraz Shannon left in the apartment as a welcome gift.”
“How carried away?”
“I finished the bottle,” she said, tucking her chin in.
“Were you hungover?” He dipped his head to catch her expression.
“Yeah, but some cup ramen with Tapatío took care of it.” She patted her stomach with a sheepish smile.
“Attagirl.” Sometimes she was so adorable, he couldn’t stand it.
Without thinking, he reached out and ran his thumb down her cheek, and her lips parted on a sharp indrawn breath. His heart hustled into a sprint as his brain came to a sluggish halt. Her skin couldn’t really be that soft. As her wide eyes held himcaptive, his hand moved of its own accord and cupped her face. She immediately leaned into his touch as though it was the most natural thing to do. It really was. Soft. Her skin.
Her expression reflected the wonder and bewilderment he felt, but neither of them pulled away. The air between them sizzled and sparked, and their breathing quickened. An invisible rope of tension tightened around them and drew them closer together… and closer yet. The warmth of her breath fluttered against his lips, and a tremor racked through him.
The cheery tinkle of the recently installed brass bell rang out like a clap of thunder, and they jumped apart as though struck by lightning despite being hidden behind the bookshelves. Before more storm metaphors could cloud his mind, Jack bent to retrieve the pile of books that had just tumbled out of Lizzy’s limp fingers.
“Sorry I took so long,” Shannon said as the door closed behind her with another ring-a-ling. “I had to drop Elliot off at his friend’s house for a playdate. He has a busier social calendar than I do. By far.”
“No worries,” Lizzy called out before kneeling down beside Jack.
While surreptitiously studying her downturned face, he reached for a book and ended up grabbing her hand. He practically threw it back at her as heat shot up his arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t…”
