The breath she released seemed to ease any bit of tension from her shoulders. "Oh, thank the Lord,” she whispered, before meeting my eyes and saying, “Thank you.”
“You're welcome. I found it in my living room.”
“I was so worried it was gone forever,” she admitted quietly, staring at the necklace in my palm.
“Well, um, you could've just bought another one. I mean, they’re probably a dime a dozen, right?"
Her lashes drooped lower to her perfectly rosy cheeks as she stole the delicate silver from my hand. "It was my sister's."
I shut my stupid mouth and hung my stupid head. "Fuck. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. You didn't know."
I gestured toward her balled fist. "The chain was broken, but I took it to a jeweler yesterday and had it fixed."
The shushed admission struck her momentarily dumbfounded. She blinked for a moment and swallowed hard before opening her hand and silently inspecting her sister's sacred cross.
"Thank you," she whispered, her words ridden with emotion.
"Yeah, it's no problem."
She lifted her eyes back to mine. "I guess you don't have to pay for my dry cleaning after all. You've already done enough."
“Yeah, I guess so.”
She nodded silently, then lifted the cross from her palm. I watched as she undid the clasp, new and strengthened with the better parts I’d paid for, and pulled it around her neck. Moments passed with her hands behind her neck before she laughed uneasily, and asked, “Can you help me with this? My nails are too long and I’m having a hard time gripping it.”
“Oh, uh, yeah. Sure.”
With a smile, she turned around, passing the ends of the chain to me with eager hands, and my fingers brushed hers as I took them. Sharp, electrocuting zaps of energy passed from my fingertips through my nerves and directly to my heart. Every ping and every surge ground my teeth and locked my jaw, as she lifted her hair from her shoulders and I clasped the necklace. My hands dared to linger a moment, barely grazing the nape of her neck, and my eyelids drooped at the reminder that I had kissed her there. I knew the taste of her flesh and the sound of her moan. I knew the flavor of her kiss and the wetness between her legs, and the thought pulsed in my groin and sent my hands away from the necklace to hang at my sides.
“Thank you.” I heard her voice through the echo of my beating heart, and she turned to face me with a smile, her fingertips touching the cross delicately.
“Yeah,” I replied, choked. “You’re welcome.”
“I guess we can go back inside now.”
“Oh,” I answered, taken aback. “I, uh … I thought you were just stopping by.”
Audrey shrugged, her smile stretching her glossy pink lips. “I was. But I promised Jake I’d watch Daniel Tiger, and I really like that show.”
***
Audrey hung out with Jake while I cleaned my space, collected my tools, and packed the autoclave to disinfect. She kept him company, kept him smiling as he reiterated the two episodes they had watched together. Every time I glanced their way, I tried to figure her out. I’d catch myself staring, entranced by her smile and confused by her desire to spend time with me. Jake, I could understand. He was sweet and endearing, but I had done everything in my power to force a hatred in this woman and I wasn’t getting through to her. She was resilient, and she was beautiful.
After the two episodes had been watched, Audrey glanced at her watch and announced she needed to get going. She gave Jake a kiss on the cheek as he wrapped her in a suffocating hug, leaving me with only a smile and jealousy. Where was my kiss? Where was my hug? I watched her back as she walked toward the door with a big, stupid grin on my face, because I couldn’t remember another moment in my life in which I’d been jealous of my brother.
The moment she was gone, Celia was ready with an interrogation, sitting at the front desk with a simpering smirk plastered to her face.
"So, you and Butterfly Tattoo Chick, huh?"
"Huh?" I feigned pointless cluelessness.
"I mean, talk about opposites attracting, am I right?" she teased, her pencil-thin, tattooed eyebrows jumping suggestively toward her hairline.
"I hate you," I muttered, chuckling lightly under my breath.
"For real though," she said, standing from the chair. "What's going on with that? I thought you weren't sleeping with her."
"I'm not—" I cut myself short and thought twice about denying it. "I don't know what's going on. It's just ... going, I guess."
"But you like her," she assessed, bobbing her head slowly. "Like, really like her."
Incredulous, I asked, "How the fuck do you know that?"
Cee's smile teetered somewhere between rueful and encouraging as she said, "Because you never looked at me the way you look at her."
"The way I look at her …" I snickered, shaking my head.
"No, seriously, there’s something different about the way you look at her," she laughed. "And it's fine, Blake. We knew what we were."
"We weren't anything," I admitted, wondering if I should feel guilty for that as I pressed my forearms to the counter. "We were hardly a we."
"No, I know, but it was what we needed, I guess." Her knuckles clipped my arm. "And hey, it was pretty good."
I chuckled. "Yeah," I nodded, agreeing. "It was good."
"But not like her, huh?"
I shook my head. "Not like her."
Chapter Seventeen
THE LOOKS EXCHANGED between Shane and Celia were anything but friendly. Heated glances. Flirty smiles. If it wasn’t for her kids being at her place, I was certain he’d be spending the night in her bed. And as the place filled with pheromones and tension, I wished her ex would take them for the night.
“This is the best tea I’ve ever had,” Shane declared, putting his steaming cup of vanilla Earl Grey down on the table. “I’m not even normally a tea guy, but this shit is good.”
“Blake fanboys hard over Jolie’s,” Cee teased, glancing in my direction with a smirk.
“I like what I like,” I shrugged unapologetically.
Shane took a bite of biscotti and crumbs sprayed against the tabletop. He muttered a “shit” as he quickly used a hand to sweep the mess into his palm. “Totally making an ass of myself today,” he laughed nervously. A hint of blush swept over his cheeks as he quickly glanced in Cee’s direction.
That was putting it lightly.
Shane had been running late this morning, which had been fine with me. With Jake still giving me a hard time about Miss Thomas being out of commission, the extra time to convince him to go to daycare was much appreciated. Then, Shane had announced his eventual arrival by spilling what little was left of his energy drink on the front desk of Salem Skin. The incident was followed by him tripping twice on our walk to Jolie Tea, not to mention the countless times he’d fumbled on his words.
The fact that all of these mishaps had happened while in the presence of Celia wasn’t lost on me, and she wasn’t much better. The woman was a mess of giggles, rosy cheeks, and flips of her dreadlocks.