It Started with a Snap by Piper James

Chapter Eight

Ethan

This was bad. I already knew it was going to be a lot of work, but it was worse than I thought.

I’d spent the last couple of hours conducting a thorough inspection of the entire building. In addition to everything Ryder and Chase told me, the interior electrical wiring was a mess, held together in places by what looked like decades-old electrical tape. It was a structural fire waiting to happen, and none of her fucking smoke detectors had batteries in them. The water heater upstairs was leaking, there was a flimsy piece of thin wood covering what looked like water damage in the ceiling of the boutique—covered up, not repaired—so there was a high likelihood of mold.

Every window in the place was drafty, telling me the seals were rotting, and there was condensation between the panes in most of them. I didn’t go into the attic, not knowing what the termite situation would look like, but I leaned through her apartment window and stood on the sill to get a peek of the roof. Dozens of shingles were missing, and the ones that were left showed so much wear and tear, I could tell the roof was way past needing to be replaced.

Did I say I could do this all myself? Shit. I could do most of it, but I was going to have to hire a company to fix the roof. Even with Ryder’s help, that job would be too big.

I was back in the boutique with Ember, and I could see her mutinous expression as I read the list I’d made and shook my head. Her attitude had bordered on hostile since I got here, and I didn’t for a second buy the words of gratitude that dripped from her lips when I arrived this morning.

They’d been forced and laced with the same venom I heard every time she’d deigned to speak to me since that night.

And her obvious lack of appreciation for my time and the backbreaking work I was about to go through grated on my last nerve.

“How did you let it get this bad?” I gritted out, not censoring the disdain in my voice.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” she barked, her eyes flashing with blue fire. “Can you fix it, or not?”

“Not relevant?” I asked, incredulous. I shook my head slowly. “You’re a real piece of work, Ember Moore.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” she growled, and I huffed out a sarcastic laugh.

“It means you expect me to spend weeks fixing everything you let fall to ruin without so much as a shred of gratitude. And don’t think I bought that pitiful thank you I got from you this morning. I know you didn’t mean it, so don’t even try to convince me.”

“What do you want me to do, drop to my knees and worship you?” she shot back.

My heart stuttered, my nostrils flared, and I stopped breathing as a vision of Ember dropping to her knees in front of me played behind my eyes. My dick woke up, twitching with anticipation as I imagined her unzipping my pants and—

What the fuck? No. No! What the hell am I thinking?

I shook the mental image from my head. It was ridiculous. She hated me, and I…I didn’t like her very much. At all.

“That won’t be necessary,” I said, flinching at the crack in my voice. “I’m going to go see what supplies I can pick up at the hardware store. I’ll be back.”

I spun around and stomped toward the exit. My feet halted as her syrupy-sweet voice rang out behind me.

“Do hurry. I so love it when we have these little chats.”

Looking back over my shoulder, I spat, “I’d be happy if we didn’t talk, at all. Just let me do my job.”

Grinding my teeth, I slammed through the door, flinching when one of the hinges squeaked harshly. Another fucking thing to add to the list.

I climbed into my truck and slammed the door before cranking the engine. Turning the air conditioner on as high as it would go, I leaned back and let the cool air wash over me. Even though it was only mid-morning, it was already nearing ninety-five degrees outside. With no a/c unit, it was hotter than hell inside that building.

Replacing the unit was going to have to be at the top of my list. I couldn’t work in there for days in this heat. And Ember couldn’t be expected to live in it, as much as admitting I cared about her comfort pained me.

Truth was, I didn’t actually dislike her. At least, I didn’t before the night I stupidly opened my fat, drunk mouth and let her hear me insulting her. While it was true she was loud and a bit of an attention-seeker, I didn’t find it annoying. She was actually entertaining as hell. Watching her interact with her friends had made me smile more than once. At least, when she wasn’t looking.

And I didn’t think she was slutty, nor would I ever judge anyone for their sexual proclivities. It was none of my business who she had sex with, where she had it, or how many times it happened. It wasn’t the fucking nineteen-fifties. And I wasn’t a judgmental asshole.

I told my brothers I had no idea why I said that about her, but that was a lie. I knew. I just didn’t understand it.

Several nights before my drunken evening with Chase, I’d met him, Sage, Noah, and Dakota at The Watering Hole for drinks. Ember showed up and joined us after I’d had a few beers, and I was thinking about how she and I were the odd ones out at every group gathering. Everyone else had coupled up, and I’d caught Belle’s calculating blue gaze skipping between us more than once.

The thought of us getting together was ludicrous, of course. We had nothing in common. We were polar opposites as far as personality types went, and she had never looked at me with even an ounce of interest.

It was kind of a hit to the ego, if I was being totally honest. I knew women usually found me attractive—I got hit on as much as my brothers did back when they were single. I had the same broad, muscled build as the rest of them, the same dark hair, and while their eyes were all shades of brown and amber, I was the only one to get our grandfather’s blue eye color.

So, yes, women tended to notice me. But not Ember. She showed absolutely no interest in me at all. And while that wouldn’t usually bother me—I rarely engaged with the random women who came onto me at bars—for some reason, Ember’s obvious disinterest rankled me. So much so, when she ended up in the chair next to mine, I leaned in and tried to strike up a conversation.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she repeated, making eye contact for a split-second before turning her attention back to Noah, who was telling a story I’d heard a dozen times already.

“How was your day?”

I flinched at the generic inquiry that tumbled from my lips. If I fucking mentioned the weather, I was going to punch myself in the face.

“Uh, fine,” she said, turning those bright blue eyes back to me.

They were a lighter shade than mine, like the morning sky on a bright sunny day. Shit, now I was waxing poetic. God damn it, what was wrong with me? And why did it fucking matter so much?

Before I could think of something cleverer to say, her face lit up, and she leapt to her feet. I watched her dash toward the bar and throw her arms around some guy’s neck. She pressed her mouth to his, giving him a smacking kiss before pulling away to grin at him with one of the most beautiful smiles I’d ever seen.

Jealousy raged through me like liquid fire, heating every inch of my skin as I fought the urge to go over and put my fist in that guy’s gut.

I quickly came to my senses, silently berating myself for being so irrational. I wasn’t Ember’s boyfriend. Hell, I couldn’t even call us friends with a straight face. We’d barely spoken. But every time we all went out together, I caught myself watching her. The way her eyes sparkled as she teased the others. The way her blonde hair fell in soft waves down her back. The dusting of freckles across her nose. The curve of her neck. The slope of her back. Her amazing ass.

If she ever saw me, I was sure she’d think I was obsessed or something, like a crazy stalker. But she never saw me, because she never noticed me, at all.

And that is what set me off that night with Chase. He’d made some joke about me hooking up with Ember because we were the only singles in the group. My mind went directly to that night at the bar when she blatantly rejected my stilted attempt at conversation to go kiss some random guy. I’d gotten angry all over again, shouted about how I would never date her because she was loud, and obnoxious…and slutty.

Even in my drunken state, I regretted the words as soon as they passed my lips. Then, I regretted them even more when I realized we had an audience—Sage and Ember, herself, stood behind me in the doorway to the living room. I fumbled out an apology, feeling terrible, but she’d rejected it out of hand. She made that comment about the telephone-pole-sized stick up my ass, glared at sloppy-drunk Chase, who was wheezing for air because he was laughing so hard, and gave Sage a terse goodbye before spinning around and stomping out in a blaze of righteous indignation.

Heaving a sigh, I buckled my seatbelt and backed out of my parking spot. I needed to leave the past in the past and get to work. The sooner I could get this job done and put it behind me, the better.