Willa pulled a buck from her pocket, shoved it into the jar, and moved to the dubious privacy of her office to stare blankly at Elle’s text.
No one had seen her and Keane last night, she was certain of it. But when she’d climbed down the fire escape, she’d run smack into Pru in the courtyard.
Willa sighed and put her thumbs to good use.
Willa:
Going to have to kill her.
HeadOfAllTheThings:
Wear gloves, keep the fingerprints off the murder weapon.
Willa had to laugh as she responded.
My favorite part of this is that you don’t even question who I have to kill.
HeadOfAllTheThings:
The less I know, the less I can say during the interrogation.
HeadOfAllTheThings:
But seriously, where are my deets?
When Willa ignored, and in fact deleted, the texts, Elle simply called her.
“Houston, I have so many problems,” Willa said miserably.
Elle laughed. “If you think having a hot guy want you is a problem, we need to talk. I’m at work right now and swamped, so I mean this in the most loving fashion I can deliver given how many idiots I’ve dealt with since dawn—did Keane screw your brains out on the rooftop last night, and if so, was he amazeballs or do I have to hurt him?”
Willa dropped her head to her desk and thunked it a few times. Because here was the thing about Keane. He was smart. Sexy. Incredibly handsome and virile. And when he looked at her, he sent a quiver through her body in all the best possible places . . . every time.
Being with him so intimately last night had been incredible—but in retrospect, it was a bit scary too because now her heart was invested.
And then there was the fact that Keane didn’t intend to get invested at all.
At least she’d set the ground rules by saying out loud that it’d been a one-time thing. That helped.
Okay, it hadn’t helped at all but she’d been the one to instigate what’d happened up on that roof, and she had no regrets.
“Well?” Elle demanded.
“It was a one-time thing.”
“Great,” Elle said. “Got no problem with that. But it isn’t what I asked you.”
Willa blew out a sigh. “Yes and yes.”
There was a beat of silence. “If it was so great, why won’t there be round two?”
“He’s not round-two material,” Willa said and had to bite her tongue because she immediately wanted to take the statement back. Keane was smart and funny and sexy, and well worthy of a round two. Which meant she’d just lied to one of her closest friends in the whole entire world.
But the truth was too hard to say out loud. The truth hurt. The truth was . . . she wasn’t sure she was round-two material.
“Honey,” Elle said after another long beat of knowing silence. “Let me tell you something about yourself that you don’t know. When you lie, you speak in an octave reserved for dogs.”
“I can’t do this.” Dammit, her voice was so high that probably Elle was right, only dogs could hear her. She cleared her throat. “Not now.”
“Fine,” Elle said agreeably. “Girls’ night. Does tomorrow sound good? Pizza and wine and a little chitchat about believing in yourself, since you’re one of the very best human beings I know and love.”
“You hate most human beings,” Willa said.
“Proof that I mean it then. Shit, I’m looking at my calendar. Can’t tomorrow night, Archer needs my help on a job.”
“Maybe we should have girls’ night to discuss why you and Archer haven’t—in your own words—screwed each other’s brains out,” Willa said. “Everyone knows it’s going to happen sooner or later.”
“Well then, ‘everyone’ should be watching their backs,” Elle said grumpily. “It’s not going to happen. Ever. I’m clearing my schedule for tonight. Pizza and wine and a heart-to-heart.”
“I’m on a diet.”
“Me too,” Elle said. “It’s a fuel diet. I eat whatever’s going to fuel my soul, and tonight that’s going to be pizza.”
Willa opened her mouth to claim that she was busy but Elle had disconnected. “Dammit, I hate when she gets the last word,” she muttered.
Keane was halfway through his morning laying out wood floor at the North Beach house, while playing last night repeatedly in his brain. The good parts, not the part where somehow he’d let Willa put them into the one-night-stand category.
No, he’d shoved that aside. Instead he kept going back to when Willa had come all over him, shuddering gorgeously in his arms, his name on her lips—
Someone knocked on the front door for the second time. He had a crew of ten today but no one stopped working.
“Sass,” he called out.
Nothing.
“Sass!”
Looking irritated as all hell, she stuck her head in from the hallway, jabbing a finger to the phone glued to her ear, reminding him with a scathing look that she was here ordering the window treatments.
He blew out a sigh, dropped his tool belt, and moved toward the door himself. It couldn’t be a subcontractor; they would’ve just let themselves in. He hoped it wasn’t a neighbor complaining about the noise. He tried to keep it quiet but some things couldn’t be helped.
Like the nail gun he’d been using on the flooring.
He pulled open the door, prepared to politely apologize and then continue doing exactly what he’d been doing. Instead he stared in shock at his Aunt Sally.
She was hands on hips. “I’ve had to chase you all over town. Do you have any idea how much I just paid in cab fares?”
He stuck his head out the door, looking past her for the cab. “I’ll pay—”
“Already done.” She sniffed with irritation. “You don’t answer your phone. Which is rude, by the way. Your entire generation is rude with this whole twittering and texting ridiculousness. No manners whatsoever.”
Keane pulled his phone from his pocket and saw the missed call. With a grimace, he shook his head. “I was using power tools and couldn’t hear—”
“Don’t give me excuses, boy. I’ve got one hour left before I have to be back. Where’s Petunia? Where is my sweet baby girl? That thing is scared of her own shadow. All these people and the racket must be terrifying her.”