Evasive sarcasm was my only hope.
He shook his head, staring down at his feet—and then finally he looked up. His icy blue eyes were almost too much to handle.
“I didn’t know I was the reason you fell into architecture,” he said.
I didn’t fall into architecture, I fell into Grayson. The two happened to coincide.
I shrugged, highly aware of the prying ears around us.
“Well, I’m really glad you’re here. You’ll like this next part,” he said as he turned to head down the hallway.
I pressed my lips together, concealing my megawatt smile. When he’d invited me to join him on the job site, it had seemed formal and scripted. But, when it was just the two of us in a deserted hallway, the words were real and their meaning was heavy, tangible… the game was definitely back on. I wanted Grayson Cole.
…
When we arrived at a small room near the back of the house, Grayson picked up a sledgehammer off the ground and handed it to me.
“Here ya go,” he said with a cheeky smile.
“What? Why do I need this?” I asked just as I caught the full weight of the tool. It was heavier than I thought possible.
“The crew added sheetrock in here yesterday without my approval. The clients want to hang a massive mirror along that side wall so we need to add a layer of plywood before we put up the drywall.”
“So you want me to demolish the wall?” I asked, my eyes practically glowing.
He smirked. “Exactly.”
He handed me a paper mask to wear so I wouldn’t get dust in my lungs and then left me to it. I thought he’d stay with me, but he had other things to attend to around the job site. For a while, the only sounds coming from the room were my hammer slamming through the drywall followed by my heavy breathing against the thin mask.
Even without Grayson’s attention, I was enjoying the work. It felt oddly therapeutic to lay my hammer into the wall as hard as I could and then rip away entire sections of drywall in one go. There are only a few times in life when you’re given free rein to destroy something.
“Everything good in here?” Grayson asked at the doorway, propping his hands up onto the doorframe.
I nodded, preparing to sink my hammer into the wall again. He smiled at me with a twinkle in his eyes, probably because of how silly I looked with the face mask on. I was mid-swing when I caught sight of his dimple and completely lost track of what I was doing. My hammer made contact with the wall as well as the hidden reinforced beam that lay behind it. The shock of the hit ricocheted through the hammer and up my arm like a bolt of lightning.
“Motherf—”
I dropped the hammer and leaned forward, cradling my arm between my chest and thighs, willing the shock to dwindle away.
Grayson’s hand hit the small of my back and I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. My brain wasn’t sure which sensation to concentrate on: the fact that my arm was about to fall off or the warmth radiating from his touch. Meh, you can regrow arms right? Let’s focus on Grayson.
“Damn, I bet that hurt,” he murmured, crouching down next to me. “Are you okay?”
I kept my eyes shut and nodded my head once.
“Yes, just embarrassed,” I offered through clenched teeth. Everyone knows to check the wall for studs—or random freaking support beams—before you lay a hammer into it. I appreciated the fact that Grayson didn’t try to correct me.
“You distracted me.” Good, put the blame on him.
He laughed under his breath and then he reached to tug my mask down off my mouth.
“Repeat that,” he said.
“You distracted me,” I repeated, not meeting his eye.
“Ah, sorry about that.” He reached for my shoulder and ran his hand gently down my arm. “Let me see your arm.”
My mother used to tell me that if I was ever experiencing pain I should touch or pinch another part of my body. It distracts the brain and tricks you into thinking the pain isn’t there anymore. When Grayson touched my arm, he didn’t just distract my brain, he hijacked it.
I let him take my arm in his hands and watched as he slowly lifted it to check for any injuries. He’d never touched me before, save for a random handshake. He had large hands that were worn from manual labor and I was enamored by the callouses on his palm. He spread his hand over my bicep and I stood stock-still, wishing he’d let his fingers trail to other areas of my body.
He studied me for a moment and then his lips spread into a private smile.
“Looks like we’ll have to amputate.”
“Ha ha, funny guy.”
I pulled my arm back out of his grasp, just in case he was serious about wanting to chop it off.
“Think you’re okay?” he asked, eyeing my arm.