Looking at Brandon, I remember what Bridget told me about his face in particular. About his beard. About the story behind all that happened.

And I can’t hate him. I can’t let him hate me. I can’t believe he’d hate me.

As we’re crossing beside an open foundation, my heel catches, and I totter. I’m far from falling in, but Brandon doesn’t watch me wobble. He doesn’t offer me a hand. Instead, he takes me around the waist as if he’s sure I’m about to plummet to my death. It’s not until afterward when he seems embarrassed, as if he should’ve known better.

I watch his profile and try to see what Bridget told me was there in her early morning whisper — a story written in flesh.

He sees me looking and turns, but this time his eyes are softer. We break the gaze a second after it forms, but that was long enough.

We’re back at the car.

“I guess we’d better get to the office. I have a 1:30 I’m about to be late for.” Marcus nods toward me. “Did you see all you needed to?”

Instead of answering, I look at Brandon as if he holds the answer.

“That’s everything, right, Brandon?” Marcus asks.

Brandon looks at me. There’s a moment that Marcus probably sees as the passage of seconds, but to me it feels like a thousand years. I can’t read his expression and don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if he’s judging me or desiring me or loathing me. I don’t know if he wants me or hates me. If he blames me. If I’m his enemy after so recently being his friend and lover.

The gaze lasts another long beat, Brandon’s expression unreadable.

And then he says to Marcus, “Actually, if Miss James has the time to see the south quarter now, I’d like her to stay.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Brandon

MARCUS LEAVES, AND I FIND myself facing Riley in the little dooryard ahead of the office trailer. I’m immediately sure I’ve read her wrong.

This, in itself, bothers me. It’s not hard for me to read women. Ever since high school, I’ve never struck out much. Bridget says it’s because I radiate confidence, which is odd because there’s so much I’m not confident about. But either way, I can tell which girls will be receptive if I say the right thing — and honestly, if they’re already into me, there’s little I can do, practically speaking, to mess things up. The decision is made. I just need to seal the deal.

But Riley? I can’t read her.

Or rather, she’s giving me something different to read.

Other girls give me fantasy, and Riley is giving me literature.

Other girls give me English language books, and she’s asking me to read in Russian.

It’s foreign. It’s different. This isn’t a bar, and we’re not trading glances down a long expanse of oak or walnut. Her unspoken question isn’t whether or not I’d like to take her to bed. My unspoken question isn’t whether she’d go if I asked.

This is something different, and as Marcus raises dust to leave us alone, I can feel the eyes of my crew upon us.

They’re going to start laughing, I know it.

I had friends who weren’t good with women. They asked me for tips, and I never knew what to say. You just talk to them. If you’re both into each other, you seal the deal. 

But this, here? This must be how my awkward friends felt.

I’m sure I’ve done something stupid. I thought she was saying one thing, but now I’m certain she’s saying the other. There are fluttering nerves in my gut, but it’s more than just my job or promotion I’m fearing for. This is more primal. I’m sure all of these people around me — folks who would have me believe are simply nailing boards, placing siding, and running gutters — are actually peering at me every time I look away, gibbering.

Look at that fool. He thinks the girl wants to talk to him, and he’s about to do something stupid.

I look to Riley, careful not to look too hard. What happened between us — and by what happened I mean the night as well as the sex that capped it — was a drunken indiscretion. Never mind that we didn’t drink all that much or that the night was plenty long for those drinks to boil away and leave our heads clear. It was like that day at the creek. Riley showed something she shouldn’t have, and I was supposed to know enough to look away without taking advantage.

I don’t know why she makes me so nervous. I’ve been on a hundred dates, with or without the actual date. I’ve had many female coworkers, many attractive. I’ve even slept with a few.

But this is different.

I watch her, trying to find the line. I’ve acted. I’ve put myself out there. I asked her to stay, having (apparently wrongly) assumed she wanted to. Which would be nice if it were true because that would let us put the other night behind us. I need her not to give me up, and I’d bet she doesn’t want her father knowing she gave it to one of his grunts.

That’s all I want. To talk.

I think.

But she just stands there, dressed to the nines, covered with a lot of fabric as if she’s working hard not to be sexy. Her hair is up somehow, but not in a girlish ponytail. She’s not fooling me, but it looks like she’s trying to fool someone.

This is not a woman who wants me to touch her. I read those signals wrong, too.

And she’s not a woman who wants to talk about the … well, the thing that I assume we’re both supposed to understand never happened. I was stupid to think she’d want to discuss it. You don’t talk about things like that. You keep on keeping on, averting your eyes.

Now we’re stuck. Because I insisted she stay.

I look at Riley for a sign that I’m wrong (about being wrong; I can barely keep things straight), but she won’t return my gaze.

So I do the only thing that comes to me — show her the south quarter. But first, I have to decide what “south quarter” means because that’s not a term we use, and it’s not something we’ve designated.

“Hang on. I just need to get some paperwork.” I say it professionally. The way I’d say it to someone I’d never met. Maybe a banker, or an IRS agent.

I pace up the short flight of temporary metal stairs and begin to rummage pointlessly through the papers on my desk. I gave Marcus everything I’d prepared, so now I’m going to have to grab something random and pretend she doesn’t ask to see it and know I’m bluffing.

The door closes behind me.

I turn to see Riley with her back to the door. The blinds are drawn because I’ve only got a window AC, and it gets hot if I keep them open, so after being out in the bright sun, this feels claustrophobic, like a cave.

“We should talk,” she says.

“Just let me get these papers.”

“Not about the south quarter. Not about Stonegate Bridge.”

I turn back halfway. She’s still at the door. She looks scared, but I feel even more afraid than she looks.

She’s going to drop the hammer. She’s going to take away the chance of promotion that Marcus so recently dangled, now that he’s out of the picture and she can speak straight. I hauled ass out of that corn shack’s dirt lot without a goodbye, and after I’d recovered from the alarm of trying and failing to make my meeting, I’d thought about that. I treated her like a one-night stand. Because that’s what it was. And I’d convinced myself she understood that: We both scratched our itches, no need for more. But I’d wondered if she felt used, and now I’m looking at proof.