WYATT
Leaving Exeter in my home, naked in my bed, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in the whole fucking world. I did it, though, and I just have to get through today’s workday, then I can have her again.
It’s new, which is extra exciting, but I also know that she’s real. I don’t think she’s playing, or faking anything about herself. She hasn’t told me a lot, but what I’ve seen is genuine and I have completely enjoyed everything about her, even her bout of jealousy, which was hot as fuck.
Checking my rubber gloves, I look up at the pole and let out a sigh. I’m going to be spending the day up in the bucket again. I know my entire body will be aching by tonight. I grin, wondering if Exeter will give me a massage, then I shiver, imagining her small soft hands rubbing my entire body.
“Your rubbers good?” my foreman asks, walking up to me.
I finish my check, then lift my chin. These rubber gloves and sleeves are my lifesavers. If a wire happens to be hot, and there’s a hole, even a pinhole in these, then I could be electrocuted and die, or lose a limb.
I’m pretty sure Exeter would like to keep me whole, so even though I always check my rubbers, today I double check them.
“They’re good,” I grunt.
“Get this shit up and running. You been watching the news?” he asks as we walk away from the rest of the crew and toward my bucket truck.
I frown, honestly, I haven’t been looking at the weather reports at all, which is unlike me. I’m a lineman that keeps his pulse on mother nature, she’s a fickle bitch, but the weather can make or break a man in my line of work.
Some years it’s feast or famine, and we’ve had hurricanes consistently in the past couple of years so we’ve been on a steady incline workwise. We just came home from one, and now I’m wondering what else is on the way. By the look on my foreman’s face, it’s nothing good.
“Hurricane’s coming, it’s headed straight for Florida and they’re saying it’s going to make its way all the way up the east coast and to New York. It’s fucking huge already, due to hit in a week,” he explains.
“Fuck,” I groan.
He nods. “Could be two weeks before they even let us go, you know they don’t like to send us long before it hits.”
Lifting my hand, I place my palm on my hard hat and let out a sigh. “Yeah.”
Shit.
“Worse yet?”
I hold my breath and wait. “There’s another one formin’ right behind it, could be two in a goddamn row, in the same fucking path.”
“Damn,” I whistle.
“No fuckin’ shit,” he grunts.
I lift my chin, my silent thanks for the update, then I head toward the truck. The rest of the day, my mind is completely preoccupied, not only with Exeter, but now with this news of these hurricanes. I don’t want to leave her for a few months, not when we’re still getting to know one another.
Mentally, I decide to push our relationship on an even faster path. I don’t give a fuck what that says about me. I know that I want her, that she wants me, and that’s that. She’s going to be living with me eventually anyway, I’m just going to speed up the timeline. She’ll have to get over it.
I don’t really talk to anyone for the rest of the day. Once we’re at the yard, I wave to the rest of the crew and me and Rylan walk over to my pickup. We climb inside, hot and dirty from a long day’s work.
“You okay?” he asks.
Shrugging, I start my truck. “It’s that Exeter chick?” he asks.
I almost tell him everything, that I’ve been fucking her and I’m going to demand she moves in with me, but something stops me from telling him. I don’t know what it is, but it almost feels like if I talk about her, I’ll jinx it.
“She’ll come around,” he murmurs.
Driving him home, I think about the fact that he’s getting married tomorrow. I don’t know how he turned into the man that he is sitting next to me. He was always the stoner in school, my goof-off cousin that was too smart to be dealing dope and acting like a goddamn fool.
Then, his life changed in an instant, that car crash changed everything and five years later he’s sitting next to me, about to marry a woman who is pregnant with another man’s baby. He’s taking on that woman, and that baby, and doing it proudly. He’s going to give them his last name and he’s clean and sober.
“Rylan?” I call out, pulling up in front of his house after our silent drive.
He stops, turning his head to look over at me. “Really fuckin’ proud of you, cousin,” I murmur.
A slow smile spreads on his face and he shakes his head once. “That girl is turning you into a bitch,” he chuckles, but he doesn’t leave, he levels me with a look, and I can’t decipher it immediately. “Thanks though, Wy. Couldn’t be this man without you.”
He doesn’t allow me to respond, and I’m fucking thankful for it. I watch him jump down from the truck, then jog inside of the small duplex where his woman is waiting for him. Pulling out onto the street, I grin as I head toward my own house, where I have a woman of my own waiting for me.
Chapter Thirteen
WYATT
Exeter’s car is parked along the curb in front of my house when I arrive, and I let out a sigh of relief. I haven’t been able to really text her today, and I wasn’t sure she would be here like I’d asked. She seems a bit hesitant, and I can’t quite read her yet.
Climbing out of the truck, I send Cindy a text letting her know that I’ll be at the first address in twenty minutes. She confirms with a kissing face emoji. I roll my eyes as I climb the steps to the house. Wrapping my hand around the doorknob, I push it open.
“Sugar, it’s me,” I call out, wondering why she didn’t have the front door locked.
Frowning, I move through the house, but she’s nowhere to be seen. That is until I hear the sliding back door. Walking from my bedroom, I see her standing in the kitchen, a glass of water in her hand, her head tipped as she drinks.
“Where were you?” I bark.
Anger courses through my veins, a type of anger that I’ve never experienced before. She jumps, holding her water glass out and spills some on the floor, but is careful not to spill on herself. Her wide eyes find mine and she lets out a heavy exhale.
“You scared me,” she points out. I grunt. The feeling is very fucking mutual, but I don’t say that. I wait for her answer. “I was out in the back, soaking up some sun before you came home. Your yard needs some work,” she says, scrunching her nose.
“Don’t give much a fuck about a fancy yard,” I state, my anger subduing a tiny bit, but not much.
She rolls her eyes, setting the glass in the sink, then shuffles her bare feet toward me. “You should, it’s a cute little yard.”
“Not planning on living here after the weekend, so it doesn’t much fucking matter,” I growl.
Exeter tips her head back, her eyes round as she looks up at me. “You’re not?” she asks.
I shake my head, lifting my dirty hand to cup her cheek. “I’m not,” I nod.