It killed me how he had spoken to her. Her lush, womanly curves were anything but chunky. And calling a lady a whore? Never. Not even if she were actually a sex worker just trying to pay her bills.
Maybe I was old-fashioned, but I had always put women on a bit of a pedestal. I couldn’t help it. I knew that women were strong, resilient, and powerful. But a lot of them were also half our size and soft-spoken. Sensitive. Equal but different, is what my mother always said.
I honestly thought that men who didn’t feel the urge to be a little kinder, and extra polite to women were lazy, selfish, or both. We’re used to being friendly jerks to other guys, and maybe women who are our sisters or buddies. Maybe I’m just glad that my brawn draws women in until they realize I’m a nice guy as well. Or at least, it’s worked for the few short term girlfriends I’d had.
Wasting people’s time if I’m not sure about someone just isn’t my style. I had to hope that wasn’t what Claire was getting at, and that she was just nervous during this time of stress. Moving was hard on people. I needed to do everything in my power to make things easier on her without frightening her away.
CHAPTER FIVE
* Claire *
Puttering around at work, I felt like my cheeks were strained from smiling so much. My coworkers thought that I was happy to be away from Kyle, but I couldn’t stop thi
nking about Jason. I was absolutely astounded by how I felt about him, which was both scaring me to pieces, and lighting me up inside.
I felt terrible that I couldn’t bring myself to consider a relationship yet. It just wasn’t right. I wasn’t ready. Yet I wanted to be ready to let Jason into my life properly. I wanted to have him as my boyfriend, and introduce him to my friends, and spend more nights together than apart. But I’d wanted all of that before and it turned out to be a prison. I had been under Kyle’s control, and it was always easier to give in to what he wanted rather than speak up for myself.
I couldn’t go through that again.
For a blissful few minutes, I let myself wonder what having Jason as a boyfriend would really be like. In a fit of probable insanity, I looked him up online on my break. It actually took me a moment to remember his last name, because I only saw it once on the moving company paperwork.
This particular Jason Carter from Toronto obviously wasn’t online a lot, but there were a few photos of him with a girl almost two years ago. A tall blonde named Lindsay, who was clutching his arm for dear life, grinning for the photo as if she had just won a prize.
But there wasn’t a lot past that, although he was in university, studying philosophy and law. I was impressed. I knew he was clever, but he was obviously a lot more than that.
Forcing myself to get back to work, I realized I had actually been using a few of the packing tricks that Jason had taught me. My instinct was to call him and thank him, but I needed to make sure he didn’t think of it as a relationship sort of call. Hopefully, I could text him in a few months, and we could have dinner or something, without me overthinking things to bits.
Tammy came running into the back room where I was working, her eyes wide.
“Claire, did you order some shelves? Delivered by the hottest guy I’ve ever seen?”
“You have got to be kidding,” I muttered. I had barely turned around when Jason walked into the room.
“Don’t freak out,” he said immediately. “We were cleaning out another store, and they were getting rid of a bunch of shelving. You said that you needed some. So if you want…” He looked around, squinting for a second as he did some quick visual measurements. “We can put shelves across this corner, and across this wall.”
“Do you mean right now?”
“Yes. Steve can help me bring the stuff in, then he can run the truck back and I’ll stay here to set them up.”
“That’s amazing,” Tammy said. “Rita will flip when she sees it tomorrow.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said automatically.
Then Jason flashed me the sweetest, sexiest grin I’d ever seen, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “Always here to help, honey.”
He took off out the front door, as Tammy helped me push the table, and the orders we were working on out of the way. “How come you didn’t tell me you had a new boyfriend already,” she hissed.
“I don’t, he’s… I don’t even know right now,” I said, quickly running the broom around before the guys brought in a huge pile of planks and metal strips, along with a few tools.
Steve nodded hello on the way by, and all of the supplies were strewn across the floor in minutes.
“Just ignore me, I’ll stay out of your way,” Jason said brightly, getting straight to work.
Tammy shrugged and went back to the front of the store, while I tried to finish up the last of the day’s orders as quickly as I could. In about half an hour, Tammy left, leaving me to finish and lock up after Jason was done.
He was an incredible worker – so confident and thorough. I couldn’t believe how quickly he fastened the shelves to the wall so they couldn’t tip over. Then he even helped arrange a bunch of supplies, half filling the shelves and creating a huge amount of space in our workroom.
“You’re amazing,” I laughed. “Thank you so much.”