Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(48)

Damn you, situational physics.

“Erm, sorry,” she said awkwardly, “for slowing you down today—”

“Actually,” he cut in, “I accounted for the possibility that things would take a bit longer. We’re not behind schedule.”

“I’ll be better tomorrow,” she offered. “I’m always better at new things once I’ve had a while to wrap my head around it. Or daydream it. Or break it down or—you know.”

He gave her a strange look and said, “Funnily enough, yes. I do know. But—listen . . . Eve . . . you did . . . acceptably . . . today.”

She stared. “Pardon?”

“At breakfast.” He paused, pulling the sheet even tighter—probably tighter than necessary. Possibly so tight he was in danger of ripping the thick, high-quality cotton. At some point during the conversation, his face had become a rigid mask of awkwardness. She had no idea why. “You . . . Good food.”

Dear God, he’d stopped using verbs.

“And you multitask,” he continued. “You . . . you talk to guests very well, you know. As you work. I couldn’t do that. You . . . impress me, when you do that.” He almost choked on the word impress.

But, to be fair, Eve almost choked, too.

You impress me when you do that. Well, all this explained why he sounded so bloody uncomfortable. She tried to remember Jacob praising anyone, ever, including the local milkman who delivered his product in clearly labeled glass bottles and of whom Jacob seemed very fond, and came up a complete blank.

“And the meeting we attended,” he continued. Good fluff, he was still going. He’d straightened now, rubbing his palms against his trousers. He was all raspberry ice cream and diamond-hard jaw and uncertain flicks of those frosty eyes, as if worried Eve might throw his tentative compliments back in his face. But he was still going.

“You were . . . good,” he said. “You—just—you’re not a hot mess, that’s all. Not as far as I can see.”

She looked up at him, dazed and confused by this sudden barrage of what could only be called reassurance. Compliments would be one thing—one strange and unexpected thing—but what really got to her, what hooked her with compelling claws, was the suspicion that he’d started reeling off positives to make her feel better.

He was worried she felt bad. He was trying to comfort her. He’d listened to what she said about bad choices, about being a failure, and he was trying to . . . to disagree.

“Thank you,” she said softly, a smile spreading across her face.

He shot her a look of mild alarm. “Well. You don’t need to sound so pleased. I am simply updating you on your professional performance.”

A laugh crept up on her. “I can’t believe this.”

He snorted, looking down his nose. “Believe what?”

“I can’t believe that beneath all the indelible rudeness, you apparently possess great buckets of emotional intelligence. Far more than I do, anyway. Where in God’s name have you been hiding that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Evie.” But the words couldn’t erase his blush. “This corner is done. Now, lean here so I can do this side.”

She obeyed in silence, still watching him with a hint of disbelief. Waiting for someone else to rip off the Jacob-costume and jump out at her. But that didn’t happen; of course it didn’t. Because he’d been this way all along.

He just saved it. Like a secret. For those who made him want to share.

The idea that she made Jacob want to share had Eve uncomfortably close to a swoon.

“Thank you,” she said finally. “You’re sweet, you know. Thank you.”

“If you ever call me sweet again, I’ll report you to HR.”

“Who’s HR?”

“I’m HR.”

She grinned, and, judging by the glimpse she caught of his profile as he turned away, so did Jacob.

Then he ruined a perfectly platonic moment by bending over the second corner, this time with Eve standing behind him. Now, she didn’t just assume the action displayed his arse beautifully; she saw. It was a high, tight peach filling the dove-gray trousers he wore today, stretching their seams with its curve as he leaned forward. Eve felt vaguely hypnotized. Her mouth may have hung open. Drool threatened like the promise of rain in May. This did not bode well.

Eve Brown was a generally horny woman; she knew this about herself. She appreciated all kinds of maleness, such as overlong eyelashes or fingers peeling off a beer label or legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. If she tried, she could get going over just about anything. So noticing Jacob in certain ways shouldn’t technically be a cause for concern.

Except she wasn’t simply noticing him. Sometimes his smile drew her eyeballs like fucking gravity, and that was a serious problem. She liked it here at Castell Cottage, liked working hard and feeling semicapable for once, liked acting like a bloody grown-up. She wasn’t going to fuck it up by developing a completely juvenile crush on her boss. Especially not when said boss might also be—kind of—sort of—her friend.

“Are we friends?” she blurted out, just to make sure.

Jacob looked up at her, appearing genuinely startled. Which made sense, since this was kind of a subject change. “Er . . .”

“Sorry, I was just thinking—you know. We get along much better now.”