Page 14 of The Handyman

"Wait. Why were you at the airport, Coop?"

Coop's mouth opens and closes, his eyebrows reaching his hairline. "What do you mean? I was there for the trip."

"That was a girls' trip. Me, Grace, Jenny, and Tiff. Why were you at the airport, and why didn't any of them call me to check when I didn't show?"

I stay by the door, watching this play out. You don't intervene in the first thirty seconds of a problem. You watch. You listen. You figure out what's happening. Then you act. Right now, I'm watching Katy's face change—the confusion sharpening into something harder—and I'm watching this guy scramble for an answer.

Coop's hands move. He rubs the back of his neck, shoves into his pockets, and pulls out again. His body can't decide what to do with itself. "The trip was for you and me, Katy."

Katy's face shifts in real time; confusion leaves, replaced by something colder. Her arms tighten across her chest. Her head tilts half an inch to the side, and she stares daggers at him. "All those weeks of planning. Grace confirming the plane tickets and the hotel. The group chat about what to pack. They lied to me? My friends lied to me?"

Her voice doesn't break. Doesn't crack. It goes flat. Yesterday, Katy was a motor that wouldn't stop—rambling, asking questions, filling every silence. Now the motor has cut off, and the silence coming from her is the loudest thing in the room.

Fuck me. I never, ever want to be on the receiving end of her ire, ever.

Coop steps closer to her, his hand reaching toward her arm. "I asked them to. I knew you wanted this."

"Wanted what?"

"Alone time with me."

Katy's nostrils flare, her lips press together. And she tosses her head back and laughs. "What the fuck does that even mean? I don't even like you, Coop."

Coop's face does something that would be funny if it weren't pathetic. He blinks slowly, flicking his gaze from Katy's eyes to her bare feet and back to her eyes. I've managed guys like this on job sites. Guys who are so certain they're right that being wrong doesn't compute. They don't argue. They glitch.

"But you always found ways to talk to me, to be where I was."

"You were my classmate and the president of the debate club. I talked to you because I had to, not because I wanted to."

Katy's chin is up. It was up yesterday when she crouched next to me in the bathroom. It was up last night when she grabbed my shirt and kissed me. It's up now.

This woman does not drop her chin for anyone, and fuck if that doesn't make me hard.

Coop steps forward and his hand goes toward her wrist. Hell no.

My arm snaps forward. My hand closes around his forearm before his fingers touch her.

Coop's arm is solid muscle, but my fingers still overlap when they wrap around his forearm. He's six inches shorter than me, probably sixty pounds lighter, and he spent his muscle-building time in a gym while I spent mine carrying lumber, pulling pipes and swinging hammers.

His fitness build and my work physique are not the same thing.

Coop tries to shove me. He plants his feet, puts his free hand on my chest, and pushes. I don't move. Don't shift my weight. Don't brace. He pushes, and I'm the same amount of there I was before he pushed.

The only thing that changes is my grip on his arm, which tightens a fraction.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Coop looks at me for the first time, taking in the height, the width, the shoulders, the fact that he just tried to shove me and it didn't register. I say nothing. I look at him the way I'd look at a subcontractor who showed up late to a job site—no anger, no heat, just a flat assessment of someone wasting my time.

Before I can decide whether to answer, Katy's voice comes from beside me.

"He's my boyfriend."

Well, damn.

Boyfriend.

I release Coop without taking my eyes off Katy. My jaw loosens, and my free hand uncurls from the fist I didn't know it had formed.