Real Men Knit(66)

Kerry had to force the thought that a girl could get used to this from her mind. Just as she had to push down on the physical urge to go in, throw her things down and rush into Jesse’s arms like some heroine at the end of a nineties rom-com or, better yet, a late-eighties porn. Grind up against him and take him up to his room and do all sorts of things not ready for the innocent—well, let’s face it—not-so-innocent eyes of his brothers. She’d kissed him. Kissed Jesse Strong. And now didn’t know how to consider life before kissing Jesse Strong.

Kerry eyed the old farmhouse table that had seen so many loving, sweet knitting circles, looked at Jesse in his tank with his locs twisted up on his head just enough to show off his muscular shoulders to perfection; her eyes seemed to naturally go from his shoulders, to his waist, to his hips, to the table. Lordy. “Oh, you’re here, Kerry,” Lucas said. “Good, we can use the extra hands.”

She blinked and looked into the staring eyes of Jesse. He tilted his head and she could tell he was trying not to laugh while giving her a look of “Could you not!” plus “I know exactly what you’re thinking, you naughty girl. That is not what that table is used for!”

Kerry turned Lucas’s way. “Sure, just give me a minute to change,” she said brightly, hoping there wasn’t too much exuberance in her voice. Lucas’s furrowed brow and nod told her there definitely was. When she had gone back upstairs last night, Lucas hadn’t let on like he’d suspected anything, so everything had seemed normal, but still he was looking between her and Jesse now like he was their dad about to give them the talk. Their hot Korean dad, but their dad nonetheless.

Noah was there today too, tall and lanky, wearing old sweats and a sleeveless tee. He had the small ladder in his hand and Lucas had a roller. Jesse was now shifting a paint tarp. The effect of them dressed down, working hard and loaded up on good looks and testosterone was dangerous and very hot. Suddenly, she got an idea when she noticed how Noah and Lucas looked with the shelves behind them, the old displays ready to be transformed. She took out her phone and started snapping some photos.

“What are you doing?” Jesse said. “I thought you were going to change and help us.”

She looked at him. “I am, but you guys keep working. I’m just going to take a few pictures first to get the work in progress. Who knows—we can have them for posterity, or use them for something later?” Jesse and Lucas frowned but Noah smiled. “Good idea, Kerry,” he said. “We can use the photos for promo.”

“Who says?” Lucas suddenly said, which surprised Kerry. “I said no to the FDNY calendar, and there’s no way I’m doing this.”

“You said what?” Noah said. “Are you crazy? Why would you say no to that? Do you know how much ass you could have gotten from doing that calendar?”

Kerry coughed and he looked over at her. “Oh, no offense, Kerry.” Then he looked back at his brother. “Okay, ass aside. You maybe could have found your dream woman.”

She laughed. “From that calendar, I think not. Though still you would have been perfect for it. Just like you all are perfect in these pics.” She turned her phone his way and he shrugged, not at all impressed over how good he looked, paintbrush in hand, muscles rippling. Kerry shook her head and took some pics of Noah and Jesse. She laughed when the two of them hammed it up. “Well, at least one of you is humble. I think these are great, and once we’re done, we’ll take more of you with the yarns. You never know. I think it will be a great way to drum up business.” She paused. “As a matter of fact.” She took a group shot of the three of them as they worked, with the bins of colorful yarns visible on the side and the old wooden “Strong Knits” sign in the background. “You like?” she asked.

“It’s fine. Why?” Jesse said.

“What better time than now to start marketing?”

She hit a few buttons on her phone and yelled, “Voilà! Our first story!”

“What?” Jesse asked.

“Our IG story,” Kerry said. “I hashtagged it #RealMenKnit. I also made us a Twitter account.”

Jesse moaned. “Shit, Kerry, what did you do?”

“Calm down. It will be fine. I just let the world—well, so far, our zero followers—know that we’ll be having a grand reopening soon, so they should look out for us. And don’t you love our hashtag? You guys are perfect for it.” She grinned.

Lucas shook his head. “Kerry, I already said how I felt about the calendar.”

Kerry turned to him. “Lucas. This shop is not the calendar. And you know we have to do everything we can to get people in here quickly or we’re not going to make it.”

He continued to frown, but Noah raised his hand. “I’m in!”

“Perfect.” Kerry said. She gave Jesse a long look. “Come on. You know it’s a great idea. Lucas, you know it too.”

Noah nudged at his brother’s side and Lucas gave him a hard shove back and looked at Kerry. “Fine, but I’m not taking my shirt off.”

She nodded. “No problem. And we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

She looked at Jesse then and winked. He gave her a grimace as she made her way upstairs to change and come back to help with the painting. She figured she’d pushed enough for the moment and would get more promo pics on the sly later. With that crew and hashtag, who knew, #RealMenKnit just might go viral.