Boom

by Sabrina Stark

  Still, as I marched toward the back of the house, I felt like a giant toad for being so rude to this latest brother. After all, he'd been the only Blastoviak who hadn't acted like I was some sort of psychopath, even if he had called me a pyro, which admittedly wasn't much better.

  As I walked, I gave Roy a nervous glance. Sure enough, he was filming my march of shame like it was the most interesting thing he'd seen all morning, even amidst all the other commotion.

  Ignoring the camera as best I could, I picked up the pace and kept on going. Probably, I looked like a total idiot.

  But this was exactly what I'd signed on for, wasn't it?

  Still, my thoughts churned like the waves crashing against the shore. The construction project had just barely begun, and already I was asking myself a serious question.

  What on Earth had I been thinking?

  Chapter 35

  Brody

  Next to me, Chase said, "You never mentioned she was hot."

  He'd just sidled up to me after nearly colliding with Arden. On purpose? Maybe.

  Ignoring my brother's bullshit, I watched Arden as she stalked around the side of the house, heading toward the beach. She was wearing jeans and a plaid long-sleeve shirt – just like your average construction worker, except she didn't look average to me.

  She looked like apple pie and homemade cookies – assuming the pie was poison, and the cookies were filled with sand.

  She was trouble.

  Even the way she moved was getting under my skin.

  From the sidelines, Roy and his video camera captured her movements in one long, candid shot. When Arden gave the camera a worried glance, I had to stop myself from jumping between her and the guy wielding it.

  Not my problem.

  And yet, I was still looking.

  I watched in silence as she turned and disappeared behind the house. When Roy turned away, seeking another target, my shoulders relaxed, and I let out a long, unsteady breath.

  Chase said, "Nice ass, too."

  I felt my fingers clench. Arden's ass was none of my brother's business.

  A dumber guy would've told him so. But me? I knew better.

  I knew what Chase was doing. He was trying to get a rise out of me.

  I wasn't biting. Without turning to face him, I replied, "If you want her, go ahead."

  But even as the words left my mouth, I knew that if he put the moves on her, I wouldn't like it. I wouldn't stand for it either.

  And I wasn't the only one.

  If Chase hooked up with her, Mason would lose his shit long before I did. He wasn't a forgiving guy, and Arden had committed the ultimate sin. She'd messed with something important to him – and I didn't mean the truck.

  Chase laughed. "Nice to have your permission."

  He didn't need it. He didn't even want it. He was just stirring the pot, as usual.

  I looked to him and said, "Don't you have a hammer to swing or something?"

  "Sure," he said, glancing at his watch. "But not for ten minutes."

  As part of the show, we'd already restored nearly forty houses now. We had a system, and it worked well enough, even on days like today, when my brothers were sticking their noses where they didn't belong.

  On the upside, they'd be gone by noon.

  I'd done the schedule myself. Mason and Chase would spend the morning ripping down drywall or taking a hammer to something or other.

  And then, when the crews broke for lunch, my brothers would go back to their primary gigs – Mason running the company and Chase making sure that our products kept on selling.

  And me? I'd be staying here to get the job done.

  I wasn't complaining. The show made our company a shit-ton of money, and the job was important. I liked what I did, and wouldn't trade places with anyone. This included my two brothers.

  Next to me, Chase said, "She's not as crazy as I hoped."

  I stiffened. "Who?" As if I didn't know.

  "Arden," he said. "I figured she'd be giving off that crazy vibe, like a freak in the sheets, you know?"

  If he meant his own sheets, I didn't want to hear it.

  But I still wasn't biting. "Trust me," I said. "She's crazy enough." I frowned. "But not that crazy. I mean, she's no freak, if you know what I mean."

  "You never know," he said. "Sometimes, it's the quiet ones."

  My jaw clenched. "She's not quiet."

  "So…" His tone grew speculative. "You think she's a screamer, huh?" He gave a slow nod. "Nice."

  He was my brother. And I loved him. But man, he could be such a dick.

  I gave him a long, irritated look. "Just what the hell is your problem?"

  He laughed. "I knew it."

  "What?"

  "You've got a thing for her."

  "Oh, fuck off. I do not."

  "Why?" he laughed. "Because you told me to give her a go? Get real. You didn't mean it."

  He was right about that. But it didn't matter. If I had my way, nobody – including myself – would be putting the moves on Arden Weathers.

  Chapter 36

  Brody

  Two weeks into the project, Roy pulled me aside to say, "Hey, there's something I want you to look at."

  It was nine o'clock at night, and the others were long gone. This included Waverly and Arden, who'd both returned to the crew house across the street – Waverly at four o'clock, and Arden just an hour ago.

  I asked Roy, "What is it?"

  "Some footage," he said. "I was wondering if you'd give me an opinion."

  Reviewing footage wasn't my thing, but hey, like a lot of stuff, it was part of the job. And the truth was, the longer it kept me here, the better.

  I'd been spending far too much time with Arden, and the more I got to know her, the harder it was to hate her.

  Like tonight, the reason she'd stayed so long was because two laborers had gone home sick, and she'd jumped in to finish what they couldn’t. This included hauling debris out to the dumpster and sweeping the construction site from end to end.

  It was a dirty job that needed doing. Tonight, not tomorrow.

  Tomorrow morning, we'd be filming on the ground floor, and the last thing I wanted was someone tripping over shit that didn't belong there.

  I hadn't asked Arden to do it. But according to Roy, she'd volunteered after hearing that I was looking for someone to pick up the slack.

  It was nice.

  And it was a problem.

  It was hard to hate someone when they were doing you a favor, and even harder when they looked so cute doing it. By now, she had her own hard hat and her own safety glasses, too.

  She should've looked ridiculous, but she looked adorable as hell, even when pushing a broom.

  Oh yeah. It was definitely a problem.

  As Roy set up a video monitor on a nearby work bench, I grabbed a bottle of water for each of us and waited for whatever he was going to show me.

  It wasn't what I expected.

  The footage was over two weeks old. It featured Arden walking through the house, reacting to its sorry condition.

  Five minutes in, I looked to Roy and asked, "What's the question?"

  His ruddy face was all innocence. "What do you mean?"

  "You said you wanted an opinion. An opinion on what?"

  "The footage," he said. "What do you think of it?"

  It was an obvious setup. Roy had been nudging Arden into my path from the beginning. Whether he was hoping we'd fight or fuck, I had no idea and refused to speculate.

  Still, I glanced at the monitor, where the footage was still running. What did I think? I thought Arden was easy on the eyes and more interesting than I cared to admit.

  The current footage was taken in the kitchen, before we'd gutted it down to the studs. On the monitor, Arden gave a shaky laugh as she pointed to the oven. The thing was old, ugly, and the most putrid shade of green I'd ever seen.

  It had to be at least forty years old – not vintage, just ugly as hell. It was one of th
e first things we'd ripped out during the demolition phase.

  Now, I listened as Arden talked about using that oven to make oatmeal cookies with her grandmother. "Except," Arden added with a laugh, "she was the real brains of the operation. I just followed her instructions, you know, on account of her arthritis."

  Arden's eyes grew misty as she added, "I still have her cookie sheets in storage. And her recipe box, too." Arden smiled through unshed tears. "As soon as I get a place of my own, I'm gonna make a big batch of them in her honor."

  Watching, I got a funny feeling in my chest.

  Shit.

  The whole thing made for some great television. But that wasn't the appeal. Not for me.

  I was more interested in the way Arden looked, the things she said, and the way she made me feel. I didn't know what it was, but it was warm and sweet, like a homemade cookie fresh out of the oven.

  I'd never had one, but I could imagine it just fine. Hell, I could imagine a lot of things.

  This wasn't good.

  As I continued to watch, Arden talked about helping her grandpa haul in wood for the fireplace and using that fireplace to keep warm whenever the furnace couldn't keep up.

  I'd seen the furnace. The thing was too small for a house this size, and even older than the oven. And this was Michigan, not Florida, which meant that a fireplace wouldn't do much good, unless you were hunkered down right in front of it.

  I kept on watching as Arden talked about painting the living room in her grandma's favorite color, and reading by candlelight on windy nights, when the electricity flickered off and on.

  She'd said nothing about her parents.

  And now, for the first time, I asked myself, "Where the hell were they?"

  In high school, she'd never talked about them. But at the time, it was no big deal. Hell, I never talked about my parents either, and with good reason.

  But Arden had talked plenty about her grandparents, just like she was doing in the footage. And the longer she talked on the screen, the more it became obvious that she'd been living here at the house, not just visiting on Saturday afternoons.

  What did that mean?

  By the time the footage ended, I'd half-forgotten that I wasn't alone. As the screen went dark, I felt a pang of something I hadn't felt in a long while.

  With my eyes trained on the screen, I asked, "Is that it?"

  "From that segment," Roy said. "What, you wanna see more?"

  It was obvious bait to lure me in. But already I'd seen more than enough to get me thinking. And feeling.

  I didn’t want to think or feel – not about her.

  I told him, "Nah, I'm good."

  He paused. "So, uh, what'd you think?"

  I gave a tight shrug. "It'll make for some good TV." As I turned to look at him, I said, "So, what'd Waverly think of it?"

  Roy grimaced. "Don't ask."

  In theory, Waverly was the producer, which meant she had the final say in how the episodes were cut. I asked, "So, is she gonna air that footage or not?"

  "Oh, it's gonna air," Roy said. "You can bank on that."

  I believed him. Roy was bucking for a promotion. And I had no doubt he'd get it. As far as Waverly, with every day that passed, she was taking less of an interest in doing her actual job.

  I wasn't surprised. Hell, I'd seen it coming.

  I knew her type.

  Probably she'd expected it to be all glamor and glitz, when in reality, it was hard work on both sides of the camera – and even harder when you couldn’t keep your head on straight, as I was learning firsthand for myself.

  Chapter 37

  Arden

  During the past couple of weeks, things had gradually improved. Thank goodness.

  Unlike that first awful day of construction, Brody's brothers were rarely on-site. Instead, they showed up for a few hours here and there to look gorgeous for the cameras, before scuttling back to wherever, leaving me in relative peace.

  As far as my dealings with Brody, we'd settled into a shaky truce. We never discussed his flaming truck or that incident with the chemistry lab. In fact, we never discussed anything from back in high school.

  It was a good thing too, because there was more than enough tension floating around already.

  But this time, I didn't mean arguments.

  I meant something else – something that was a lot harder to put my finger on. It might've been friendship. Or might've been something a whole lot scarier.

  Regardless, it was growing by the day.

  Brody and I were living together, working together, and sometimes even laughing together. I discovered that he was a surprisingly fun roommate, and that he loved a lot of the same things I did.

  We both liked toast with crunchy peanut butter, funny action movies, and classic architecture. We both hated McMansions and developers who didn't respect the character of historic neighborhoods.

  And we both loved the house.

  We spent at least some portion of every night pouring over restoration plans, much to the annoyance of Waverly, who kept angling to get Brody alone.

  But for whatever reason, he wasn't biting.

  As far as the house, tonight I'd left the job site later than usual. A couple of laborers had left early with some sort of stomach bug, and I'd volunteered to finish their work so the project wouldn't fall behind.

  I hadn't done it for Brody's benefit. I'd done it for the house – or least that's what I kept telling myself.

  And besides, I was making a terrific amount of money for very little work, so it seemed only fair to balance the scales wherever I could.

  As for Waverly, she was looking anything but balanced. Standing in the kitchen, she looked twitchy and unsettled, like a junkie in need of a fix.

  That fix had a name. Brody Blastoviak.

  She wanted him, bad. Even now, this was glaringly obvious by the way she kept glancing at the side door, as if preparing to pounce on him the moment he walked in.

  With an irritated sigh, she said, "It's ten o'clock."

  I'd only ventured out of my bedroom to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. "Yeah? So?"

  "So why is he still working?"

  The answer should've been obvious. Brody was juggling a ton of details. Over the past couple of weeks, I'd gained a new appreciation for how much work went into fixing up such a massive old house.

  Add in a film crew, a prickly producer, and two older brothers who were no help at all, and it was surprising that Brody had any free time whatsoever. Plus, I knew for a fact that he was laying the groundwork for two other restoration jobs in two different states.

  The guy had his hands full and then some.

  When Waverly made some snide comment about him needing a course in time-management, I couldn't stop myself from saying, "Oh come on. He's got a lot going on."

  "So do I," she said. "And you don't see me skipping dinner."

  I bit my lip. Actually, Brody hadn't skipped dinner. Sometime around seven, we'd had pizza delivered to the job site. By then, nearly everyone had already left for the day – everyone except for me, Brody, and Roy.

  When Roy took his pizza to the SUV to make some phone calls, that left me and Brody to dine alone.

  It had been nice, actually.

  Even though we'd taken only fifteen minutes to eat, we'd sat near the beach, talking about color schemes for the home's exterior.

  Waverly would've hated it.

  But I didn't. To my surprise, I was loving the whole project, and not only because it was my grandparent's place. There was something magical about taking something neglected and making it beautiful again.

  Of course, the house was far from beautiful now. In fact, it looked worse than when we'd begun. But that was only a temporary phase – the dark before the dawn, the demolition before the restoration, and the mess before the cleanup.

  I felt a wistful smile tug at my lips. If only my grandparents could've seen the progression, they would've totally loved it.

  Bu
t here at the crew house, Waverly was still griping. "And Roy's been acting all funny. I think he wants my job."

  I almost scoffed in her face. Didn't she see? Roy was doing her job, along with his own. And, as much as his camera irritated me sometimes, I still liked and respected the guy.

  How messed up was that?

  To Waverly, I suggested, "Well, maybe you should spend more time at the job site."

  Her lips pursed in obvious annoyance. "I was there all day."

  "You were not," I said. "You didn't even show up 'til noon."

  "So?"

  "And you left at four."

  "Hey, I'm in management!" she said. "I shouldn’t have to live there."

  I held up my hands in mock surrender. "Fine. Never mind. It was just a thought."

  "Well, next time I'll thank you to keep your thoughts to yourself."

  I smiled. "You're welcome."

  "What?" she sputtered. "I wasn't thanking you for real."

  "Good," I said. "Because I wasn't 'you're-welcoming' you for real."

  "Oh, shut up," she said. "That's not even a thing." She sighed yet again. "This whole job's a total pain."

  Now, I did scoff. "Which is why they call it a job." Even as I said it, it suddenly struck me that it wasn't feeling like a job to me. In some ways, it felt more like a vacation, probably because I hadn't had one in years.

  Waverly said, "I don't care what they call it. This isn't what I signed on for."

  Just then, the side door opened, and Brody walked in, looking surprisingly pensive.

  At the sound of his footsteps, Waverly whirled to face him. "Finally," she said.

  He stopped just inside the doorway. "Finally what?"

  "Finally you're home." She gave him a winning smile. "So, what's for dinner?"

  "Nothing," he said. "We already ate."

  Her smile faded, and she gave me a long sideways glance. "Who's 'we'?"

  Brody replied, "Everyone at the job site."

  "And who was that?" she asked.

  "If you wanna know," he said, "show up sometime."

  She drew back. "What?"

  "And you should know," Brody added, "Roy's been working his ass off."

  "Yeah," she said. "Because that twat-waffle is bucking for my job."