Rascal (Rascals Book 1)(7)

Then, suddenly, there was silence.

“Thank you!” I cried out, pulling off my headphones. I wanted to dance for joy. Sweet, blessed relief! I’d be able to finish up in silence, and then maybe even

—

RREEEEEOOOOWWWWWWWRRRRRR

They brought out the electric saw.

No!

My phone started vibrating with a call. The office line. “Hello? Arthur?” I answered, but I could hardly make out what my boss was saying on the other end.

“Filing . . . assets . . . leveraged . . .”

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you?” I pulled a towel over my head, but it didn’t help.

“We’ll talk about this on Monday,” Arthur finally shouted.

I agreed quickly and hung up, immediately dropping my phone onto the floor and my face into my hands.

“Dammit,” I muttered to myself, not that I could even hear it over the noise coming from downstairs.

The last thing I wanted was for Arthur to think that I was difficult to get a hold of or inaccessible on the weekends. I knew that most people drew a strict line between their work life and their personal life, but that was not how my firm was. And I was perfectly willing to play by their rules.

But not the bozos downstairs, playing havoc with my Saturday.



Enough!

I grabbed my keys and stormed downstairs. I’d seen the workmen around and all the construction materials stacked in the hallway, and I assumed they were renovating the condo beneath me. Maybe someone would be able to give me a timeline, how much longer the racket would last.



But when I got downstairs, I saw what had been making all the noise.

They’d taken the wall out. The front wall, separating the unit from the street. It was gone, and instead, they were building big, iron-paned windows and wide double-doors. I could see inside for the first time: the condo was gone, and in its place, was a wide-open area with polished concrete floors and custom shelving along the wall, with furniture stacked under dust sheets.

I began to get a sinking feeling.

I stepped inside and went looking for the source of all the noise. Instead, I found an extremely attractive guy bent over a table saw.

He had blonde hair, the kind that looked like it had been naturally lightened by a lot of time in the sun, which also probably explained his tanned skin and ripped physique. He was wearing jeans and a ratty T-shirt, but it was pretty clear that he was built. But despite his undeniable sex appeal, I didn’t get nearly the same thrill I had gotten when I saw Emerson the night before.

He gave me a smile as I entered, but held up a hand to halt me.

“Sorry,” he said. “We’re not open.”

“Yeah.” I pointed towards the front. “The lack of a door kind of gave that away.”

He laughed and snapped his fingers. “Darn it, I knew we forgot something.” He mimed writing something down. “Note to self, buy door.” He glanced up and gave me a wink.

He was charming. Very charming.

But my sinking feeling just grew.

“I’m your upstairs neighbor,” I told him, and the smile faded a little.

“Ah,” he said, understanding dawning on his handsome face. “Let me guess, you’ve come to yell at us about the noise?”

“Not yell,” I corrected. “Just discuss,” I told him, in my most lawyerly voice. “Do you know about the city regulations regarding noise pollution on weekends?”

I didn’t, but I was betting he was in the dark, too.

His eyes widened a little bit.

“You’ll want to talk to the boss,” he said, backing away from me. “I just work here.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “Why do I have a hard time believing that?”

He shrugged. “Must be my natural skills as a leader,” he said before hurrying off and out of my sight.



I looked around. The inside of the building was just as nice as the outside. The whole place had a bit of an old-fashioned kind of feel—classic meets industrial. The wood on the shelving, the detailing on the ceiling . . . it was all subtle, and rustic. There were framed pictures on the wall, the one closest to me showed five guys, college-aged. They were all decked out in Cubs gear, their arms slung around each other, grinning from ear to ear.

One of them looked a little familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it. Until I heard a familiar voice from behind me.

“I think you owe me some beef jerky,” Emerson said.

I whirled around, hoping that I was hearing things.

I wasn’t. There he was. The guy from the drug store. The guy from the ATM. The guy from the greatest kiss of my entire life. Standing right in front of me, smirking like he knew my secrets.

Which he kind of did.

“I didn’t take it,” I said, the words spilling out of my mouth. “You gave me that beef jerky!”

He cocked his head to the side, doing that annoyingly sexy slow examination of me.

“I suppose I did,” he finally said.

“I’m not stalking you,” I blurted out, belatedly realizing that it was practically the same thing he had said to me after showing up in the ATM vestibule.

“That’s too bad,” he teased. “Because if you had given me your last name or your number, I definitely would have been stalking you.”