Distracting myself with thoughts of my favorite house, I closed my eyes against the blood. It didn’t make me faint or anything, but I didn’t need to see how badly I was banged up. Of course that opened me up to a flashback of all that wood and stone coming at me.
“So, truck guy bought my house.”
“What?” TJ clapped and gave a gusty cackle. “That’s so rich.”
I opened one eye.
“Sorry, sorry. Go on.” TJ sat back, her lips twitching against a smile.
“I saw the sold sign and heard someone demolishing the back of the house. If the shock of finding out my house was sold wasn’t enough, I ran around the back to see this behemoth of a man whacking at the posts of the porch with a sledgehammer.”
Suddenly serious, TJ grabbed my knee. “What?”
I opened both eyes and nodded. “Yep.”
She’d been out to the Barrows Mansion, as well. Her carpenter heart had been just as enamored with the details as I was. Okay, maybe not quite as enamored, but she appreciated the craftsmanship.
Luckily, she’d grabbed my good knee.
TJ glanced down at my ripped skirt and snatched her hand back. “Girl, you are a mess.”
I sighed. “Believe me, I know. Anyway, he’s all black pants and tank top and covered in dust with a respirator on. Oh, and headphones so he didn’t hear me.”
Shelby gave me a look. “Quite the details on him.”
“I notice things. I can’t help it.”
“Mhm.”
“Anyway, I didn’t know it was truck guy until I screamed at him to stop hitting the post. You don’t just whack away at a porch like that with no supports or without anyone else with you. It’s dangerous. Well, I was so busy getting him to listen to me, I didn’t realize how close I was.”
I managed to resist a shiver due to the memory of Nolan with all those muscles showing. Totally different kind of shiver, but not the point. He was a beast of a man, so it didn’t matter if he was also unreasonably attractive with all that dark hair and tanned skin and surprising muscles.
Hmm. I’d already mentioned muscles in my own brain and out loud. It wasn’t important, dammit. This was about my house.
“So, of course, with the state of that porch, you needed a lot of support. Half of it is stone and the other half is wood, so that crumbling arch came down with the quickness.”
TJ covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God.”
“I know. My poor house.”
TJ dropped her hands. “You could have been hurt, you idiot! What were you doing getting that close?”
“I wasn’t thinking. And I certainly wasn’t dressed for it. That stupid man finally heard me and after he ripped off the respirator, I recognized him. So, of course, we got into it again.”
Quietly, Shelby listened as she cleaned up my arm. She did give me an arched brow look of reproach in her mom way.
I resisted the urge to hunch my shoulders. They hurt too, dammit. “Yes, it was stupid, I know. I kept trying to get him to stop whaling away at the posts as if he was trying out for a strong man role at a carnival, but we pissed each other off. Shocker.”
TJ’s eyebrows shot up as she sat back in her chair. “Hmm.”
I rolled my eyes. “He cannot be destroying Harriette’s house like that.”
“Oh, here we go.” TJ got up and went to our mini fridge hidden in one of the cabinets next to the conference table. A bunch of design books of paint, wallpaper swatches, and fabrics were neatly stacked beside the fridge. She grabbed one of her Diet Mt. Dews and a Diet Coke for me. She set the can in front of me. “Drink. Tell me this isn’t going to be a ghost story again.”
“No.”
TJ didn’t believe in my Harriette sightings. She was much too pragmatic for that kind of thing.
“But it is her house,” I said with a huff.
“Now it’s this new dude’s house.” She cracked the top of my can, then hers, and took a loud slurping sip.
“Don’t remind me.” I reached for the can with my good arm. I glanced at the forearm with a sigh. No, that one wasn’t in any better shape, actually.
“So, you were screaming at Little Dick. Go on.”
I winced. That name was so going to stick even if that was far from the truth. At least based on my quick encounter with said…appendage.
Would I stop calling it an appendage? Probably not. Especially considering the girth of it. Jeez.
“First, I was yelling at him for using a sledgehammer like a kid with a sword—shitty form, by the way.”
TJ shook her head. “Girl.”
“I know. But if he’d done it more carefully, we probably could have saved some of the stone. Now it’s just freaking dust.”
“We?” Shelby paused as she was dabbing at my forearm.
