But he’d never said anything back then about enjoying himself, not explicitly anyway. Oh, they’d cuddle and all that. He was pretty sure she knew that she turned him on. But why had he never said anything?

Fast forward ten years, and Evie was still pretty damn spectacular when it came to blow jobs.

She was also better at talking.

He loved that.

So he would be, too. “That was fun.”

He was understating it entirely. The truth was closer to You have ruined me for anyone else for all time. But there was embracing the idea of talking, and there was scaring the lady away.

“Mmm,” she agreed, her voice muffled by his chest. She was limp. He liked it. Later he would remember what a huge mistake this had been, but for now he was in no hurry. He banded his arms around her.

They lay there for a minute, but then her head popped up. Her eyes, inches from his, were open wide like a thought had just landed in her head. “Remember how we said friends with benefits?”

He remembered how she had said friends with benefits. But…“Yeah?”

“Can one of those benefits be that you jump-start my renovation? I know I questioned earlier why you were helping me, but, dude, I need you to help me. Everything has just ground to a halt.”

He sighed. “Yeah, about that.”

She wiggled out of his embrace, and he had to force his arms to go lax. He didn’t want her to go yet. But she was wrapping the afghan around herself and moving toward the dryer, which had long since stopped. She paused with the dryer door open and looked at him over her shoulder. She was waiting for him to speak. He’d mucked about too long in his own head. That was the real danger here, confusing the world in his head—the world he wanted—with the world he had in front of him.

“I thought I was greasing the wheels of your reno—and I was—but it turns out the old folks were, too, except with the opposite aim.”

Her jaw dropped. “You mean Karl and Pearl and everyone are sabotaging my reno?”

“I just found out—the night of the murder mystery play. I’m getting it straightened out.”

“But why would they do that? I thought they were trying to help by sending you over all the time.”

“They changed tactics. I think they really don’t want you to leave town.”

She tilted her head like she was considering. “Is that really sweet or really infuriating?”

“Maybe a bit of both?”

She sighed and pulled on her jeans.

“I’m going to take care of it.” As much as he didn’t want to. As much as he suddenly got what Pearl had been saying about how he shouldn’t be helping hasten Evie’s departure.