Desperately Seeking Epic(43)

“How were you coping with the news about Daisy?”

I let out a long groan. “I wanted to hate her. She had the life I’d wanted. I was so sad, and I wanted him to feel that, too. I wanted him to hurt like he’d hurt me. And I felt like Daisy was keeping him from feeling any pain. She was his distraction. But I didn’t hate her. I refused to. Hating her would make me a smaller person, a petty person.”

“So how did you do it? Moving away from your job, your friends, and your life. It doesn’t sound like you had a great welcoming committee here.”

I run my finger along the arm of the chair. “No, I didn’t.”

“Did it get any better?”

“Over time. It took a few months. I think he started trying harder, but we still butted heads on quite a few things.”

“Well Paul described the gun incident night as a turning point for him. What was yours?”



I’d lived in Virginia for a month and a half. I had no friends. My staff hated me. Marcus really hated me. I’d put an end to his shenanigans with our clients and he did not take it well. With Paul, it was day to day. Some days we got along just fine, others, he thought I was a raging bitch and I thought he was an entitled *. I sold my shitty car to the junkyard and bought another shitty car that looked way uglier. At that point, I didn’t really have anywhere to go, so the appearance of my vehicle didn’t matter much so long as it ran and got me to work and back home every day. I was more alone than I’d ever felt in my life. But I had my house. My beautiful, shitty house. When I wasn’t at work, I worked on my house. Business was good, thanks to some new methods I’d implemented, and I was finally starting to get a paycheck and since I had no life, my money went to my home.

With each job; painting walls, replacing windows, and so on, slowly, I felt myself finding peace. It was a Saturday, the first one I’d had off since I moved to town, and I’d planned an “exciting” day of staining cabinets for my kitchen. The weather was unseasonably hot for April in Virginia, or so everyone said. Every window in the house was open, box-shaped fans in them, since I hadn’t had enough money to add central air and heat yet. The oil heat got me through the cold nights, but eventually it would have to go. With my stereo blasting and the fans running, I didn’t hear Paul’s truck pull in, nor did I hear him enter my home. I was standing on my counter, smearing wood stain on the cabinets, when he touched my leg. I nearly fell off of the counter, it scared me so bad.

“What the hell?” I hissed, my chest rising and falling dramatically as I attempted to catch my breath.

When he laughed, I couldn’t hear it because the music was too loud. He turned and hit the power button, then I could hear him chuckling.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be doing dives this afternoon.”

“Well, hello to you, too,” he said dryly.

“Hi, Paul,” I uttered exaggeratedly. Then, putting a hand on my hip, I asked, “Again. What are you doing here?”

“The last group canceled today. Their church bus broke down and they couldn’t make it.”

“Damn,” I sighed. “That sucks.” That was a lot of money we just missed out on.

“Good news!” He beamed. “The day is not lost. I come bearing gifts. Well, a gift.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. He brought me a gift? What kind of gift would he have brought me, and why?

“It’s in the back of my truck.” He stared up at me, his dark eyes flicking down for a moment to my legs, before meeting my eyes again. I pretended not to notice. When I didn’t move, he asked, “Would you like to see it?”

“That depends. What is it?”

“You have to come outside and see.”

Rolling my eyes, I bent down and hung my stain rag over the edge of the bucket and climbed down. I hated that he showed up unannounced, for the obvious reasons, like, we weren’t friends. But another reason, which I hated to admit, was I knew I looked like hell. And staying true to Paul James, he looked amazing, as always. I was covered in sweat, no makeup, and my hair was knotted up on the top of my head. I’m pretty sure with the heat and the massive amount of sweating, my deodorant had already worn off since I had applied it that morning. So I probably didn’t smell that great either. He was finding something funny as he watched me, a humored smirk across his face.

“Something funny?” I sassed.

“You’re just cute when you’re annoyed.”

Cute? Why didn’t that word feel quite right? No woman wants to be cute—not really. Cute is for little girls and babies. Women want to be beautiful; sexy. Deciding not to acknowledge it, I followed him outside to his truck, noticing what looked like a table in the back. Dropping the tailgate, he spun around to me with a grin and motioned his hand as if to say, look at this.

“It’s a table,” I noted. It looked like a nice table, newly built, without any finishing to it. But what was I supposed to think about it?

“It’s yours,” he said.

I looked at him like he was nuts. “Mine?”

“I built it for you.”

I made an effort to school my expression. Was he serious? “You built this?” I asked, pointing to the table.

Scratching the back of his neck, he released an awkward chuckle. “You don’t like it?”