Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 89978 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89978 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Me in oversized clothes.
Him in black briefs and brown leather boots.
We garner more than a few looks over the mile walk. It’s night, but it’s hard to miss a man in his undies. Lord knows I can’t stop taking a peek.
Abs. Sculpted quads and calves. Tight glutes.
Then Scrot does his part to make the night a little worse. He stops to take a dump.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Koen grumbles.
I snort despite my chattering teeth.
“The uh …” He wrinkles his nose. “Poop bag is in the pocket of my jeans.”
“Oh. I’ll hold the waist; you grab the bag.”
He tries to fish the bag out of the pocket like he’s on the verge of winning a game of Pick-up Sticks. “I’m trying really hard not to enjoy this.”
“Just get it.” I roll my eyes.
“I don’t want to touch you the wrong way accidentally. As a rule, I never fondle someone when their lips are blue.”
I giggle. “Just get it.”
Koen scoops poop, and we continue on our way.
“I’m sorry,” I say when we reach my trailer.
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Because you told me to stop, but I didn’t. And you,” I giggle, “walked all the way back in your boots and underwear.” When we step into the trailer, I pull off my wet shoes.
“No big deal. It’s not my first time.”
With my teeth still chattering, I glance up at him. “It’s not?”
“Okay. It is. I just didn’t want to make you feel bad.”
“I’m going to step into the shower. I’ll toss your clothes out to you, and you can go. If you never want to see me again, I understand.”
A tiny grin pulls at his lips while Scrot sits at his feet. “I want to see you again right now, but I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
“Did Herb fix me up with a pervert?” I cock my head to the side and buy time to take a quick scan of his nearly naked body. He’s wrapped in lean muscles. Hairy, but not too hairy. I’m the perv.
When he doesn’t answer with more than a conspiratorial grin, I quickly open the door to the bathroom and slide inside to remove his clothes. “Here you go. Again, I’m so sorry,” I call, cracking the door just enough to toss his clothes and jacket onto the floor. “Goodnight.”
Once I stop shivering and wash the pond water from my hair, I wrap up in my robe and open the bathroom door. “Oh. You’re still here.”
Koen smiles, glancing up from my kitchen table and my thousand-piece puzzle of the colorful buildings along Cinque Terre, Italy. “Just making sure you’re okay. Thawed out.”
“Are you working on my puzzle?” I ask, even though I know the answer because he’s finished adding the blue pieces of the water.
“Sorry.” He sits back, folding his hands in his lap.
I grin, combing my fingers through my hair. “You like puzzles?”
“No.” He bobs his head. “Well, that’s a hard question. I’ve never purchased a puzzle, and I don’t sit around thinking about puzzles. And when I’m gifted a puzzle,” he squints, “which is oddly quite often, I never open the box. However, if my mom or grandpa opens the box and spreads out the pieces, or if I’m at one of their houses and they have a partially constructed puzzle on the dining room table, I become obsessed with putting them together. Last year, on New Year’s Eve, my mom went to bed at midnight, and I said I would find one particular piece before heading home. She woke up at three in the morning to use the bathroom, and I was still there.”
My eyes widen, as does my grin.
Koen is not that sorry that he worked on my puzzle without permission because, in the time it took him to tell me that story, he found three more pieces.
He hums. “I guess I don’t like unfinished projects. Or clutter. Or loose ends.”
My gaze shifts to the dirty dishes by my sink and my unmade queen bed littered with clothes and bins of essential oils and stones. There’s no way he hasn’t noticed my clutter and unfinished projects. And yet, he’s still here.
Price Milloy thrived on order. I bet he’d say I was a terrible influence on him. Why am I attracted to the tidy ones?
“Want some pistachios?” I pluck the open bag from the counter and scatter some on the table next to the puzzle pieces.
Koen’s brows jump up his forehead while he stares at the shelled nuts. “Thanks,” he murmurs, plucking one from the table before gently sliding the rest away from the puzzle pieces.
He’s a puzzle, a bunch of pieces that seemingly don’t fit until you stare at them long enough. He has calloused hands and fingernails that look clipped at best. He wears a baseball hat to hide his unkempt hair. Those dirty brown boots are probably the same ones he wears to work every day. His flannel shirt is missing two buttons, and his jeans have a small hole in the knee that’s not there on purpose.