I don't know if it's the "darling" or the "a lot" that has me breaking out in a sweat, but I barely swallow the urge to ask A lot of what?
"Okay, let's start."
It takes all of four trips to get my boxes downstairs. However, it takes quite a few more to get my furniture out.
We load the furniture in the moving van Blake brought, the boxes in my car, and drive separately. An infectious energy fills the space, and I sing out loud to the music blaring from the radio and clap my hands to the rhythm while I'm waiting at a red light. I know I'm being ridiculous, but I don‘t care. I'm enjoying this too much. My life is too damn good not to be celebrated every step of the way.
When Blake pushes the door to the apartment open some twenty minutes later, I'm prepared to see a cleaner version of the same apartment, but instead I'm flummoxed. The southern wall has a new coat of paint, in the exact shade I've told him. And my dream bookshelf is exactly where I want it too.
I turn around. "Blake-"
"Stop right there."
"What?"
"Sounds like you're about to admonish me."
I chuckle. "Not at all. Thank you for the paint and the bookcase. Let me know the costs, and I'll reimburse you."
"No need."
"Ah, see, but then I have to admonish you. You can't-"
"No arguing." His tone is strong, and his body language can only be described as intense. Never in my life have I equated intense with sexy, but Blake makes it sexy. I have a hunch he can make anything seem sexy as all get-out.
"I see. I'll have to put this on my list of things I still need to negotiate with you, which includes rent. For now, thank you. You really shouldn't have gone through all this trouble."
"No trouble at all. I wanted to do this for you. I was going to order what you said for the balcony too, but I'd rather you help me pick them. I'm not good with furniture."
"Of course."
"Good. Let's bring in your stuff."
There are two flights of stairs and no elevator here, so my skateboard isn't of any use. Having Blake help me has its perks. Chiefly, the irresistible manly sounds he's making while we carry the furniture. Several times I have to stave off the urge to ask him to move something just for the sake of it so I could hear more of those sounds.
We join forces when we're down to the planks to my bed because damn, those things are heavy.
"Okay, you grab that end," Blake instructs while we survey the load, side by side. "I'll take this one. Shout if it gets too heavy and we'll stop on the way."
"Can we take a small break first?"
"Sure."
Before I get the chance to say anything else, my phone beeps. I pull it from my back pocket. Predictably, it's a message from Quentin.
"Wait, I have to text back. It's my boss who doesn't understand boundaries or weekends."
"How did you end up working in television?"
"Luck."
Blake tilts his head, shifting into a presumably more comfortable position against the van and shielding his face from the sun by holding up a hand.
"Mind expanding on that a bit? I've known you for two years, but there's so much I don't know about you. I'm at a distinct disadvantage. You know much more about me. Come to think of it, given your close friendship with my sisters, you probably know a lot more about me than I'd like you to."
I smile coyly to escape having to either confirm or deny his suspicions. Yes, Pippa and Summer do talk a lot, and I love fishing information out of them. We're a match made in heaven. Blake is looking at me with genuine interest.
"Once I turned eighteen, I was out of the group home. Needed to pay for food and rent, so I took any job that came my way. Had zero skills, so I started at the bottom with waitressing and cleaning. That lasted a couple of years. I got a bit desperate because I wanted to move on to better paying jobs but didn't know how. College was out of the question."
"Why?"
"I didn't have the grades, extracurriculars, or the money. I took a few classes at a community college, but that was it."
I took bookkeeping and data organization, basic computer programming and, on a whim, children's book illustration. That last one turned out to be an unexpected gem. "Then I got very lucky, and one of the companies I was doing cleaning for needed a back-office assistant for the week. The one they had was sick, so I helped them for a while. Then they offered me a job. A few years later, I met Nate. His assistant had just ditched him, so he asked me if I'd like to work with him. See? Luck."