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“Call your landlord if you want to expedite repairs. Maybe if enough people blow up his phone, he’ll realize there’s an emergency.”
Wishful thinking, but he isn’t wrong.
I hold my breath as Mrs. Patty looks him up and down before she sniffs loudly and waddles past him, yelling, “All right, all right, I’ll call!”
No flipping way.
Dexter won.
He defused a standoff with an obnoxious neighbor I’ve had to walk on eggshells with for years.
And suddenly, I’m freaking out ever-so-slightly less.
“Junie.” Dexter catches my arm, his face too close to mine. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just don’t want her as an enemy. She doesn’t just live here because rent’s cheap. She’s a few bananas short of a bushel. She stays up sometimes talking to ghosts.”
“She won’t bother you anymore, sweetheart. I’ll make sure of it.”
God.
When he calls mesweetheartlike that, it’s enough to make me forget that there’s water pooling around my feet and dripping into the apartment below. Plus, the fact that I have to say goodbye to seventy percent of everything I own.
His eyes ignite as he looks at me.
His fingers tighten around my arm.
I can almost sense his temptation, and the potential tingles through me, but nothing compares to the heavy relief in my heart.
No matter how much time we spend together, I never think I’ll get used to his kindness.
Kiss me, I think erratically, beaming the thought at him like he’ll be able to hear it.Kiss me until I’m sick of it and I can’t cry about anything else.
“This everything?” he asks, releasing me and nodding to the collection of stuff I’ve placed on the sofa. “I think we might need to take two trips, at least.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m sure there’ll be a chance to come back here and get the rest tomorrow, especially if your guy stops the flooding.”
It’s not remotely okay.
Nothing about the situation is okay—including the way he’s helping me. He hasn’t complained once, let alone hinted that he might wash his hands of this and leave me to my disaster.
Dexter Rory, the biggest and grumpiest fish I know, has gone out of his way to look after meagain.
The thought makes me warm and nervous and slightly dizzy. The anticipation plays in my stomach along with this terrifying lurch of attraction every time I look at him.
“Hey,” I say, touching his arm as he passes me. “Thank you again. And maybe I will throw together the rest of my stuff tonight while we wait for the plumber, if you don’t mind taking the first load over…”
He looks down at my hand, then at my face.
“You’ll be okay while I’m gone?”
“I can look after myself, you know,” I say with more boldness than I feel. Looking after myself is probably stretching the truth a little. But I know how to keep my head down and not cause more trouble. “I’ve lived here for years, and this is the worst thing that’s ever happened.”
A skeptical eyebrow rises at me.
The worst thing yet,he seems to say as he grabs another plant and kisses me briefly on the cheek as he passes.
He keeps doing that, and it steals my breath every time. “Shut the door and don’t let anyone in unless they’re from It’s A Wrench Plumbing,” he says. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
