Boom - Sabrina Stark Page 0,65

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