Page 33 of Cheap Heat

Nev sniffed. “Seems a bit selfish not to, if you ask me.”

“I wasn’t asking you.”

He huffed, tapping his foot impatiently as I unlocked my front door. “If I, as your oldest friend, can’t give you unsolicited advice, then who can?”

“I’d be fine with no one ever giving me unsolicited advice,” I deadpanned, letting him into the house and following. “Okay, put these away for me while I go get changed, then I’ll drop you off on the way to work.”

Nev took the grocery bag I held out and immediately peered inside, no doubt to steal one of the bags of chips I’d bought. “’Kay.”

He wandered into the kitchen as I made my way upstairs, and I rolled my eyes when I heard him trying to very quietly open a chip bag. There was a faint crinkle followed by the sound of crunching.

I couldn’t stop myself from glancing out the hallway window when I passed it, but it looked like Ewen’s living room was empty. I’d developed a Pavlovian response to the view though, and my dick was half-hard as I got undressed to put on a suit for work.

I’d just finished buttoning my shirt when I heard a loud gasp from downstairs, followed by Nev barking, “Rafe!”

I jumped and went still for a second, then strode to my bedroom door with a frown. “Yeah?” I yelled back.

“Rafe!” he called again.

I huffed. “Yes?”

“Rafe!” Nev appeared at the bottom of the stairs and tripped twice in his haste to run up them, spilling tortilla chips from the bag in his hand. “Rafe! Rafe!”

“What?” I asked impatiently, wondering what the fuck was wrong.

Instead of answering, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me down the hallway to the spare bedroom at the back of the house. I tensed and glanced down at myself. I was only in a shirt and my boxer briefs.

“Neville, I have to get ready for work—”

“Shut your face! This is important.”

Almost growling in irritation, I glared at the back of my friend’s head as he pulled me toward the window. “Neville, for fuck’s…”

My voice trailed off pathetically when I saw the reason for his dramatic outburst.

I stared at my neighbour as he straightened in the yard below, holding a piece of fencing. The top third of his long blond hair was tied back in a little bun to keep it away from his face, and the only thing on his upper half was a tiny cropped tank top with ragged hems. “SUN’S OUT, GUNS OUT,” it said across his chest, and it was so short that it barely covered his nipples. The line of dark blond hair trailing from his navel to the waistband of his equally minuscule shorts glinted in the sun, and his abs were just ridiculous. Like, people didn’t really look like that, did they? It was absurd. No one actually had abs like that.

My mouth dried out as I watched him lean over to grab another bit of fencing. I could see that he’d snapped the ruined panel into smaller pieces, and now he was collecting them all.

He was actually fixing my fence.

In the smallest items of clothing I’d ever seen.

There were gardening gloves on his hands, which for some reason made his bare forearms look even more tan and ropey and muscular. Neville and I stood and watched in silence as he paused, wiped the sweat off his forehead, then tucked the pieces of fence panel under his arm and vanished up the side access of his own yard, no doubt to dump them in his truck for disposal.

Even once he was out of sight, it still took a few more seconds for my brain to come back online. I cleared my throat and nervously tugged my shirt tails over my groin. For no particular reason. “Okay, so he’s finally fixing my fence. Great—”

Neville interrupted me with a gasp, grabbing my arm. “He’s coming back.”

I lunged forward and practically pressed my nose to the glass. Ewen reappeared from his own yard, this time carrying a brand new fence panel.

But I wasn’t looking at that.

Emblazoned over his ass on those tiny shorts were, similar to his tiny top, the words, “SUN’S OUT, BUNS OUT.”

And his buns were certainly… out. My tongue felt thick as I allowed my gaze to trace over the crease of his ass cheeks, which appeared with every step he took.

“I would genuinely pay to watch this,” Neville said. “This is top one percent content.” From the corner of my eye, I saw him slowly lift a tortilla chip to his mouth and crunch down as he stared.