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Cleanup was less fun. Wreck was meticulous, even sweeping the pile of sawdust he’d made in the side yard by the saw. He organized all of his tools in the bed of his truck, and let her sit in the truck with the heat running while he did the final walk-around with Drea. When he came back to the truck, he set the check she’d given him on the seat and electronicallydeposited it into his bank account. She accidentally saw the number on it.
She jerked her attention away.
“I don’t care if you look,” he murmured, ripping up the deposited check. “I know how much you make an hour.”
“Gasp! Have you been researching me?”
“Your hourly rate is listed right on the landing page of your website. I wouldn’t call it research. Now that Halloween costume where you dressed as a can of beer back in October of 2017,thatwas research.”
“Oh my gosh, I never post on my social media pages anymore. That account is old.”
He put it into gear and backed out of the driveway. “Why don’t you post? I’m asking for selfish reasons. You are entertaining on there.”
She laughed, and wrapped her arms around herself. She hadn’t realized how chilly it was outside when they were busy working, but now she felt it to her bones. “I stopped posting when all the family stuff went down. I couldn’t post a single thing without them thinking it was somehow about them, and they would blow up my phone. I mean, if I posted a picture of me as that can of beer now, my mom would probably think I was taking a shot at her because it was her least favorite kind of beer.”
“Geez,” he muttered.
“Yeah. It took the fun away from posting.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“I want to know all your secrets!”
Wreck snorted, and took a right at a stop sign. “I have a page.”
“Gasp! What’s the name on it, I want to research you.”
Wreck was handsome when he was broody, but God, when he smiled, he lit up the world.
He told her his handle, which was some random letters and numbers that probably meant something to him, but meant nothing to her, and she opened up his page. It was strange being back on social media after so long! She had to remember how to navigate this.
She scrolled down the pictures he’d posted, and the smile slowly faded from her lips as she realized what the pictures were of.
Destruction.
There were pictures of big burns. Fields. Old, dilapidated barns. Rows of scorch marks etched into the earth. Fire on the side of a mountain. Ashes raining down from the sky. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of pictures. And while they were taken with an artist’s eye, attention to detail, and interesting point of view, she couldn’t get over the destruction in each of them. The moodiness. The dark.
“My shame,” he said softly.
“You made all these burns,” she guessed.
“I go back to some and take pictures so I can remember what the guilt feels like. I keep thinking it’ll make the animal be more careful.”
“You can’t shame him into behaving, Wreck,” she told him, forcing her gaze away from the grid of pictures. “That won’t work.”
“Nothing will work.” He forced a smile. “I followed your page. I’m now following exactly one person.”
“What?” she asked teasingly. “Wreck Itall, the famous phoenix shifter, is following me? I’m basically famous now.”
“Oh please.”
“Hold please, while I follow you back. Ding. Followed. It’s getting serious now.”
He slid his hand over her thigh and squeezed comfortingly.
On a whim, she took a picture of his big hand gripping her thigh, then texted him the picture. “That should be the next post. You aren’t only destruction, you wild, complicated man. You make me feel safe, and cared about, and seen. You should take a picture of the trees you healed last night, and post that. Let your animal see the good in himself. You should post a picture of Ruger catching your green sparks as they rain down from the sky and calling them, what was it? Fuckin’ fireflies.”
A surprised-sounding laugh escaped Wreck. He eased his head back against the headrest as he drove one-handed, that smile clinging to his masculine lips.
