On his first pass, as if he had tunnel vision, he rode right past me. My gaze took in the sweat that was running down the length of his body and disappearing into the waistband of his jeans.
His crew continued to work, too. Mowing other parts of the grass and weed-eating farther down from where I was standing.
On his second pass, he finally looked over and spotted me.
The hum of the mower’s motor died, and all of a sudden he was grinning full out at me, white teeth flashing, as he jumped off the platform that kept him aloft.
He reached me in about two point five seconds, then I was up and moving, being swirled around regardless of the drinks and cookies I held.
I squealed, causing him to chuckle as he finally set me down on my feet.
His eyes took in my breasts, which luckily only had water on them from my cup, rather than tea, and tilted his head.
“Whatcha got there, darlin’?” he wondered aloud, touching the wet spot just above my left nipple with one dirty finger.
When he moved his finger, a brown fingerprint was left in its wake.
I shook my head as I held out the tea to him, then changed my mind and offered him the water.
“Actually, both of these are yours,” I said. “I was going to grab a coffee from the Starbucks inside Target to go with my cookie.”
At the mention of a cookie, his eyes lit up. “One of those mine?”
He batted his eyelashes—those insanely long, insanely well-formed eyelashes—at me and caused me to scoff. “Of course. I’m not eating two of these. Do you know how many calories are in one?”
He shrugged and took the water I was still holding out, downed half of it, then handed it back to me and grabbed the cookie from my hand.
I bent down and set the water cup down on the curb, noticing that the moms of Target were still gathered outside watching the show.
“You have a big fan club here,” I mused, opening the cellophane from my own cookie as he did the same to his.
“I do,” he grumbled. “That’s why I didn’t notice you at first. It gets kind of old, to be honest.”
It got old being that beautiful.
Damn, my man was hot AF.
He groaned when he finally bit into his cookie. “Damn, these are good. Did they just make them?”
I nodded as I licked melted chocolate off of one finger. “Yeah. They were literally putting them into the saran wrap after pulling them off of the cookie sheet when I walked in the door. I only got two, though. If you want more, you’ll have to go in there yourself. I haven’t worked out in two days, and I’m already stressing the button of my jean shorts.”
He snorted, his eyes going to where my shorts dug into my belly a bit.
“I think you’re imagining things,” he mused, taking another huge bite of cookie. “I like you just the way you are.”
Something sweet and thick started to slowly move through my veins.
I felt all warm inside at his compliment.
“Yo, vato!” one of Callum’s workers called. “Stop feeding that fat ass of yours and get movin’! I’ve been late home three days this week, and if I continue, my Maria is going to eviscerate me!”
My lips curved into a small smile as I held out the tea to him.
He took it, shoved the rest of his cookie into his mouth, then held the trash out to me with a pleading look.
I snorted, but took the trash, then leaned into him and waited until he dropped his mouth onto my own.
“Bye, Sunshine.”
He scoffed. “Don’t call me that.”
I backed away from him until I knew I was safe enough to say what I said next.
“You could always try to make me.” I teased.
He took a step forward, acting like he was going to chase after me, and I squealed and ran into Target, looking back over my shoulder twice to see him staring at me. Watching to make sure that I got into the store all right.
It took me an hour and a half in Target.
I walked out with three hundred dollars’ worth of shit that I didn’t need, including an espresso maker that supposedly made coffee as good as professional coffee shops.
Fifteen minutes after arriving at home, Callum sent me a text message.
I opened it, and immediately burst out laughing.
There was a photo of a very familiar mailbox—one that was custom made by my own mother—and on the front of a mailbox was a duct-taped Post-it Note that said, ‘No, you’re a cunt’ in cursive handwriting.
I burst out laughing, because right before I’d been blocked on all social media accounts, my sister had sent one last message: you’re a cunt.
God, I loved this man.
And I didn’t care that it’d only been a few weeks since I’d met him.