He touched her casually, as if he had a right to do it, as if they were like that now. She supposed they might be like that now, because she knew him, at least a little bit. And somehow, despite his many infuriating qualities, she liked what she knew.
“You have to be quiet in the storeroom,” he murmured. “We both do. There’s a very thin connecting door to the bedroom beside it, and a shared air vent.”
“Oh,” she murmured back. “So . . . we whisper?”
“We whisper,” he agreed. Then he grabbed the big old ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the storeroom door. The room inside was small and cramped, filled with well-stocked shelves, lit only by a high, round window on the far side. “You’ll have to grab the sheets,” he said, nodding at a fresh stack on those shelves, “since a dangerous driver recently incapacitated my right hand.”
A dangerous—?! Well, perhaps that wasn’t entirely inaccurate.
Pushing down a now-familiar wave of guilt, Eve shot him a glare—purely on principle, obviously—and took the sheets. She managed a basket of cleaning supplies, too, just to show off. Then a distracting hum of voices drifted in from the next room, and Eve willed herself not to drop a bottle of bleach or knock over a shelf or anything like that, because Jacob would probably murder her. He would bludgeon her to death with the box of little biscuits and tiny milks he was currently balancing in his left arm.
“Grab a blanket, too,” he said, nodding toward a separate pile of bedding.
Eve followed instructions—which was a rather novel experience for her—and asked, “What’s this for?”
“It’s weighted.” When she raised her eyebrows in question, he sighed. “Some people prefer weighted blankets, Eve. Such as the gentleman currently occupying the Peony Room. Let’s move on.”
“Fine,” she muttered, and made a mental note to research what the bloody hell weighted blankets were for. “You know, you should really have a trolley for all this stuff.”
“I do have a trolley. I just can’t push it at the minute, because, arm.”
“I could push it for you.”
He whisper-shouted a laugh. “You think I’m going to let you run around my B&B with a bloody trolley? You think I’m going to facilitate your reign of terror like that?”
“Oh my goodness. You run a man over once—”
“You will have to earn the trolley, Ms. Brown,” he said dryly, shoving his box of biscuits at her. Then he turned and reached up to the highest shelf for what looked like the world’s hugest spray bottle of glass cleaner. Good God, she hadn’t even thought about glass. He would be beyond anal about glass.
Haha. Anal.
“What are you smirking at?” he demanded, shooting a suspicious sideways look at her. He was still reaching, his left hand fumbling about on a shelf too high for him to actually see. But Eve, standing feet away, could see it fine, and he was nowhere near the bottle. She decided not to tell him just yet.
“I was thinking about you being anal,” she whispered instead. “It’s funny, because, you know. You’re anal, er, anal-re . . .”
“Retentive,” he supplied. “Wait—no I’m not. I’m thorough, thank you very much. I am thorough and committed and—”
“Jacob.”
He scowled. “Fine. I’m anal-retentive. Please, continue to thrill me with your bonkers train of thought.”
“Gladly,” she beamed, leaning back against a shelf. At the same time, a door slammed somewhere, and she jumped.
Jacob smirked.
The prick.
“You’re anal-retentive,” she continued, “and you’re an arsehole. So. It’s like a pun. Or a double ingenue. Or something.”
“Do me a favor,” he snorted, “and shut up before I am overwhelmed by the urge to sack you.”
“But it’s so much fun watching you restrain yourself.”
He opened his mouth, but whatever he might have said was cut off when a voice floated through the grate, faint but clear. “You were a dick at breakfast.”
A pause. Then a low, baffled response. “Huh?”
“You. Were a dick. At. Breakfast.”
Eve widened her eyes at Jacob. “OMG. Drama.”
“Shush!” he hissed. Then he fumbled about for the window cleaner with renewed vigor, grabbed it, and was clearly readying to leave when the voices grew louder.
“What the fuck, Soph? What’s your problem lately?”
“What’s my problem? Do you know why I booked this holiday, Brian? I thought it was the pressure of work making you such a fucking bastard all the time—”
“Oh, don’t go there, Sophie.”
“But it’s just you—”
“You think this is a holiday? Coming to the fucking Lake District and staying at some shitty B&B?”
Jacob, who had been in the process of quietly shooing Eve toward the door, froze. Then he turned his head slowly, slowly, slowly, and glared daggers at the vent.
It turned out, every evil look he’d ever shot at Eve had been nothing. Practically heart eyes. She’d had no idea one man could produce this much tangible malevolence with nothing but his eyeballs. If Brian collapsed at this very second, she might have to report Jacob as the cause of death. “Shitty?” he repeated quietly, with the air of a volcano about to erupt and burn everyone in the vicinity horribly alive. “Shitty?”
“See, that’s your problem!” Sophie was saying. “You think you’re above everything. You can’t enjoy anything. This place is adorable.”
Jacob closed his Eyes of Violence. “Yes,” he muttered to himself. “Adorable. Fuck you, Brian.”
Eve knew this was not an appropriate moment to giggle, but she might have to do it anyway.
As if he’d read her thoughts, Jacob cracked open one eye and ordered, “Keep. Quiet.”
She stuck out her tongue.
“Maybe my problem is that you’re boring,” Brian was saying, although he sounded as blustery as a hurricane and nowhere near as impressive.
Eve rolled her eyes and mouthed, Men.
Jacob, to her surprise, gave her a look of approval. “Quite.”
“You don’t like men?” she whispered.
“It depends. I don’t like imbalanced relationships, and men are frequently the perpetrators.”
“I’m boring?” Sophie sounded like a woman on the edge. “Brian, you haven’t made me come in six weeks and five days. You think Fish and Chips Wednesday at Wetherspoons is a decent date night and you missed my best friend’s thirtieth because fucking Holby City was on. You’re boring as shit and I’m sick of you acting like it’s me!”
“Not a fan of the romance thing, then?” Eve asked.
“Not exactly,” Jacob said. Honestly, she was surprised he’d admitted that much. But then he added, the words low and quick, “I’m not principally opposed. I’m not opposed at all. There’s nothing wrong with—with love. I just think truly happy relationships are hard to find. Often, someone’s disappointed, which makes their partner the disappointment. You’re either Brian or Sophie, and I’d rather be neither.”