Page 69 of Apparently, I’m Trouble

“I’m sorry, what?”

“He should be here any minute. And I really need him to fix the set because I just don’t know if I can wait for Lilly’s volunteer to finish painting everything else.”

Theo was going to walk through that door any minute.

I gripped her forearm. “Gem, Theo can’t watch his daughter kiss Miles.”

She smirked down at me from her towering, horn-rimmed height. “Kira said he was fine with it.”

“Being fine with it and watching it happen are two totally different things. Someone should warn him.”

Gem focused on something behind me. “All right. You can warn him.”

She jutted her chin toward the door, and I turned just in time to watch Theo step through it.

The universe was playing a dirty, dirty game, and I hated that I liked it as much as I did. The look on Theo’s face should’ve been illegal.

He walked in and skimmed the room, pausing when he caught sight of his daughter. She lifted her hand and waved. He nodded at her with a soft smile and kept scanning the room.

Then his gaze landed on me. The warmth in his blue eyes and that gentle, uneven smile—I was a puddle. An absolute puddle. Which was ridiculous. As ridiculous as ice cream and pickles.

But then, my legs stalked toward him as if they weren’t made of jelly, and my stomach flipped as I watched his smile widen.

He nodded, greeting me with a gravelly, “Miss Walker,” and I was launched right back into that bookstore before the beginning of school when I thought he could pass as a sexy, sweaty, bull-wrangling cowboy.

“Oh, universe help me,” I whispered, but no one was coming to save me. Like some divine goddess was out to prove a point, heat pooled low in my belly.

“I didn’t take you as the type to ask for help,” he teased.

My nipples hardened at the sound of his voice, and I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hide the perky little traitors.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t need to ask for anything if you kept your distance like you’re supposed to.”

He smirked. “And I wouldn’t need to be here if you didn’t break my porch.”

Oh. Right. The porch.

I pictured Theo’s tattooed biceps straining as he lifted, sawed, and hammered, and felt a blush creeping in. I made a show of blowing out a sigh and tried to sound irritated, but it came out breathy and soft. I had to pull myself together. “So it’s my fault you’re back?”

His gaze drifted over my head, and I knew he was looking for his daughter again. “No. It’s Kira’s. She needed me here, so I’m here.”

Oh, well, damn it. Now he was the one playing dirty. My heart slid south and landed in my ribcage.

I pointed at the stage. “We’re about to do the kissing scene. Are you sure you want to be here for that?”

His attention shot back to me. “Does she know she’s supposed to kiss him today?”

“We’ve told her, and she seems fine with it.”

The sweet pot of hormones was beside herself with excitement, actually. She wanted to kiss Miles since she saw him in his bad-boy Patrick outfit.

Speaking of, Theo’s daughter came out of nowhere, barreling into him with the kind of force that would’ve tackled me to the floor. But Theo held his ground and gathered her into his arms.

“I’m fine with it,” Kira echoed, and I hoped that was the only part of our conversation that she overheard. “But you cannot watch me do this, Dad.”

He snorted as he let her go. “Hey, it’s not like I want to watch you kiss some kid.”

“Then you’ll wait outside?”