Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
It’s been a month since she threw down the gauntlet in the kitchen and two weeks since the bedroom incident. I’m mentally wiped from sleeping with one eye open. Is she going to deflate my tires? Short-sheet my bed? Put plastic over the toilet? Remove all the labels from my cans in the pantry? Or seduce me so we get kicked out of the house?
“Fitz, here are your clothes from the dryer. I’ve folded them for you. I’ll set them on your bed and hang your shirts so they won’t need to be ironed,” Jamie announces in a honeyed voice while toting a laundry basket up the stairs in her usual weekend leggings, pink fuzzy socks, and oversize sweater.
“Dude . . .” Will drags out the word without taking his eyes off his game. “Are you sleeping with her? You’d better stay out of her pants, or Maren and I will fight over who’s going to kill you. It’s a rule. A hard line that can’t be crossed.”
I keep my head bowed to my phone. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Because she’s been cordial to you—dare I say flat-out thoughtful? If you’re not giving her regular orgasms, then it makes no sense.”
“Sometimes I do push-ups in the kitchen and let her watch.”
“You’re an idiot.” Will laughs.
“Maybe she’s more magnanimous than we give her credit for.”
Will grunts his skepticism.
He’s not wrong about Jamie. Not only has she failed to retaliate, she’s been outright generous to me. It’s disturbing. My distrust grows exponentially every day.
“Fitz, I noticed one of your shirts has a missing button,” Jamie chirps, skipping down the stairs. She has entirely too much bounce in her step for a Sunday afternoon. It’s unnatural. “I can find a button and mend it for you.”
Will snorts. “Jamie, Fitz spends most of the winter at a sewing machine when he’s not down south. I’m sure he can sew on a button.”
“I’m not following.” Jamie stops behind my chair and tucks in my tag.
I stiffen when her warm, delicate fingers brush my nape. What the fuck? She’s softening me up for the kill.
I despise her method of revenge. She makes me hard and soft at the same time.
“Smoke jumpers make their gear and repair their parachutes,” Will informs her before tossing his remote aside and grumbling about the game.
“Seriously?” Jamie rummages through the kitchen on a scavenger hunt for ingredients to bake something. It’s her weekend MO, along with wearing a light-pink apron that matches her socks and looks like something from 1960. She wears her hair braided down both sides when she bakes.
Goddammit! I need to stop noticing so much shit about her.
“No joke. If you need something repaired, just send it to work with Fitz.” Will heads up the stairs.
“That’s some sexy stuff, Fitz.” Flour puffs into the air when she plops the bag onto the counter beside her mixing bowl.
“Sewing is sexy?” I navigate to the barstool at the counter. It’s weird, I know, but I enjoy watching her work in the kitchen. Also, I have to make sure she doesn’t put something in the baked goods to poison me.
“In and of itself, no.” She measures the dry ingredients on the scale she bought a few weeks ago. “But sewing your gear, then jumping out of a plane to fight a fire . . . that’s sexy.”
“So we agree I’m sexy.” I can’t hide my wry grin.
She keeps her focus on the scale. “No. Smoke jumpers are sexy. You’re my roommate—a brother of sorts. You’re disqualified from ever being sexy in my mind. Separation of church and state.”
“So much for Will thinking we’re sleeping together.”
Clunk!
She drops the measuring cup onto the floor. “W-what?” Fumbling to pick it up, she then rinses it off and dries it.
“He thinks I’m giving you orgasms, and that’s why you’re being so nice to me.”
“Pfft . . .” She tries to blow off my comment, but her cheeks flush, and she can’t focus on me for more than a second.
“We both know you’re being nice to throw me off.”
She clears her throat and wipes her forehead with her arm. “Throw you off?”
Is she sweating?
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your threat.”
“My threat?” She cuts the stick of butter into cubes.
“Payback’s going to be a bitch. Sound familiar?”
“Not really.” Vanilla fills the room while she pours it into a measuring spoon. “I’m a nice person.” She twists the lid onto the bottle.
“Nice people never have to say they’re nice people. They’re too humble to feel the need to put themselves on a pedestal by saying they’re nice.”
Jamie crinkles her nose like she has an itch before rubbing it with her arm. She mixes, scrapes, and lines the baking sheets with parchment paper. By now, she has streaks of flour on her face and hair.
I can’t turn away. I want to crawl onto the counter with a pillow and fall asleep while watching her. She could make a visual meditation app. This shit’s my crack.