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In response, I gave him a small shake of my head. “Gotta pick up Larry in about an hour.”
“Who’s Larry?” Ian asked.
I arched an eyebrow. “Larry the barn cat? The black one with the white patch on his chest. He was the only one we kept this round.”
My brother’s face bent in confusion. “Who named him? That’s a terrible name for a cat.”
“I believe Olive was in charge on this last litter,” I answered.
“Ahh. That makes more sense. Why’s he at the vet?”
“Poor Larry got snipped,” I said, picking up the stack of invoices and clacking them into a straight line. The moving box on the top hadn’t been taped shut yet, so I pried it open and tucked the papers away, then yanked the tape dispenser across the top with a loud zip.
Ian grimaced. “Poor guy indeed. I hope they give him good drugs afterward.”
“I will be sure to ask the vet for a male-approved painkiller. Lord knows you need them stronger than we do.” I smiled sweetly.
With a dry look, Ian ignored my jibe. “Why isn’t Mom picking him up? I saw her car at the house.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes slightly as I sat back down in my chair. “I think Mom is playing matchmaker. She’s told me seventeen times in the past month how cute the new vet is.”
“Seventeen, huh?” Ian asked.
“Close enough.” The door outside my office pushed open again, and when I heard low voices, I called out, “Boxes are in here, guys.”
One of the younger Wilder Homes employees came in first, tipping his head deferentially. “Poppy.”
I smiled. “Hey, Rob, thanks for moving these for me.”
His cheeks reddened, and Ian snorted quietly. I narrowed my eyes in his direction. Rob glanced behind him and nodded when the person behind him spoke.
All it took was the sound of his voice, and I sucked in a quick, sharp breath at the immediate pounding of my heart.
Jax’s eyes swept the office when he walked in, and my throat went dry at the way his black shirt stretched across his chest and the dark line of stubble across his knife-sharp jaw. When his gaze finally settled on mine, I couldn’t help but wonder if my cheeks had turned bright red too. What an inconvenient time to replay what my name sounded like in his sex voice as he came.
News flash—it sounded really fucking good. I’d only allowed myself to indulge in that memory twice over the past week when I couldn’t sleep. Okay, fine. Three times.
Get it together, Poppy,I hissed in my head.
“Jax,” I said coolly.
There was no hidden heat in his eyes. No lingering glance loaded down with subtext. Jax Cartwright, the absolute masterof keeping his emotions in check, gave me a short nod. “Poppy.”
Rob took the first two boxes and left the office, and Ian asked Jax a question about the jobsite they’d just left. After answering, he took one of the heavier boxes and walked out.
Was that it?
Was that … all we’d be now?
I hadn’t really taken the time to form any sort of expectation, not enough that warranted this kind of empty disappointment.
This was what one night was like. And why he’d always been so careful in who he slept with. Because of moments like this.
The three of them emptied the boxes from my office in less than five minutes, and when Rob came back in for the last one, he gave me another smile. If he wasn’t fresh out of high school—seventeen, if I remembered right—it might have been sort of sweet.
Probably not the time to remember that the span of years between Jax and me was only one year different from the one between Rob and me. I blew out a slow breath through puffed-out cheeks when that math bomb dropped in my head.
With my arms crossed on the desk, I let my head settle on top of my stacked hands.
