rest of the movie with her head half-turned, nestled in the crook of his arm.
You couldn’t have paid him to leave.
This morning, things were decidedly less cozy, judging by the way she’d shot out of bed. She met his eyes in the mirror and said, “I’m going to go for a run.”
All right. He knew when he was being dismissed. He levered himself out of her bed. “Thanks for…Walsh-giving and zombies.”
He’d meant it mostly sincerely, but it also made her smile, which had been his other aim.
“Do you have time to bring Mick over for lunch today? Poor guy spent the night alone because we were so sleepy.”
“Sure thing.”
He felt bad about Mick. As he made his way down the stairs, he vowed that Mick was going to get an extra-long lunch break, complete with a stop at Jenna’s General for a fancy, handmade dog treat. Even though he had to roll his eyes at the peanut butter and bacon “Doggie Donuts” Jenna sold for five bucks a pop, Mick had—
“Jake.”
Oh, shit. Sawyer.
Sawyer and Eve were due back today, he knew, but it hadn’t occurred to him that today could mean six a.m.
He gave a moment’s thought to trying to come up with an excuse. A reason why he would be coming down the stairs of the Mermaid this time of morning. He had nothing. He was fully busted.
Sawyer didn’t even look surprised. Just stood there with his eyebrows raised.
Well, whatever. Sawyer might look like a dad busting a kid sneaking around, but Jake was not a kid. He didn’t owe anyone any explanations.
So he just said, “Hey,” brushed past Sawyer, and got the hell out of there.
He was going to pay for this later, though.
The payment came six weeks later. Karl really had gotten them an order for a canoe for the Toronto douchebag, so Jake showed up at Sawyer’s garage on a Saturday morning in early December.
Though they rented a warehouse space on the outskirts of town for most of their off-site work, they always worked on the canoes in Sawyer’s garage, and they had an unspoken agreement that they only worked on them together. At first they’d worked in tandem because they’d been learning as they went—Sawyer had been building a canoe for Eve based on YouTube videos. But they had it down now, so he wasn’t sure why they persisted, given that they were fine to divide and conquer on all their other jobs.
But whatever, it gave him something to do. Nora had made good on her plan to spend weekends in Toronto hanging out with her grandma, which was turning out to mean that he was bored out of his skull on weekends.
Which was a little bit odd. Also a little bit alarming. It wasn’t like he used to require his weekends to be full of distractions.
It was all the sex, probably. His body had been jolted awake, and now it was no longer content with working on whatever project he and Sawyer had under contract, fixing stuff in town, or making his weekly fishing trip.
It was also not content with this whole weekend-celibacy thing. Back when they’d first started sleeping together, when Nora was still around on weekends, they’d had a lot of sex. So much that she’d asked him, that one time, if it was too much. But now that she wasn’t here on weekends, they only managed a couple times a week.
Which felt like not nearly enough.
Which, in turn, was a slightly worrying sentiment. And if he avoided thinking about it by filling his weekends with tasks, so what?
Mick started whining from the passenger side of the truck. Jake had gotten out but had been standing staring into the distance, pondering his newfound devotion to weekend plans, and Mick must have thought he’d been forgotten.
“All right, all right. Hang on.” He ran around and lifted Mick out. He’d been noticing a slight limp. Nora had said she’d had it checked out a year ago and been told it was arthritis. And it didn’t seem to be bothering Mick particularly. But all the same, Jake set him on his feet gently and gave him an extra head rub. “There you go, old man.”
“Ahem.”
Ah, crap. When he stood up, Law and Sawyer were there.
Law wasn’t usually part of their canoe sessions. He only came around when he wanted to exercise his jaw about something. As if he didn’t get enough time to do that at the bar.
Jake sighed and followed them around the house