Page 3 of Big Dill

Turns out, the building I found and secured could be yanked out from under me the second some girl who looked better in yoga pants—pants I designed and sewed, by the way—walked in.

An early childhood education degree does not an entrepreneur make…

Yeah, yeah, I get it, Mom. Enough already.

That’s what I get for trusting a jock with all the legal paperwork.

Did I mention I hated jocks? Minus my brother of course. But he’s more like a professional athlete.

I’d sworn off jocks after Tristan—the fiancé who I trusted to run the business side of things—only for him to put everything in his name, including my apartment and steal everything right out from underneath me while he sent me on an errand.

Bastard.

And I stood by that ‘no jock’ vow, right up until last month. But what’s a girl to do? Lauren, my bestie, dragged me out to mourn my collection of recent life failures, and that’s when I saw him. Quite possibly the hottest man on the planet. Big. Strong. Gorgeous. Definitely a jock, but also giving full lumberjack vibes. You know, physical strength.

Packing wood.

Yeah, he was the kind of guy who could chop wood, carry it, stack it, build you a cabin, and wreck you on the rug in front of the fire.

My girlfriend encouraged me to go for it.

A going away present.

A lumber-snack…just for me.

It’ll be fun, she said.

She was not wrong.

I was reluctant at first. Well, slightly reluctant. Okay, like a miniscule. Probably a molecule. Is that smaller than a miniscule? I don’t know but hey, don’t judge my choices and yes, I realize I haven’t been making good ones.

Come on, though. I was a month away from moving to the land of the frigid, where my girlie parts were undoubtedly going to freeze over. I glance down to check on them. Only half frozen.

Didn’t I deserve a small (big) delicious distraction to keep my memories warm at night? Sure, my nether regions might go dormant in this subarctic nightmare, but at least I’ll have the sweet recollection of Broderick—if that was even his real name. Heck, I used an alias too—to help get me through the cold lonely winter.

Broderick the lumber-snack.

God, his hands…

He said something about being a pickleball player, but my brother, also being a competitor, never came up, because well…something else did. Something south…

Seriously though, when I first heard about such a sport from my brother, I thought it was some kind of competitive pickle-eating event. With a background in tennis, maybe I’d be good at it. Or terrible. Hard to know.

But what I do know is that Mr. Lumber-snack, the pickleball player, was…dill-icious.

A real big dill between the sheets.

I let out a laugh—half exhausted, half delirious.

Yep, I need sleep.

My phone pings again and pulls me back to reality. Goddammit, I hate this reality.

* * *

Jaxon: I’m inside waiting. Can’t wait to see you.

* * *