“Is it a good time to head over and get to work on the deck? I need to stay busy for the rest of my life.”

“Yeah, it’s a good time. I’m off today. I can give you a hand.”

I straighten and take hold of the phone. “All right, cool. I’ll be over in ten.”

Something on the top of my shoulder catches my eye before I disconnect the call. “Hang on.” I reach back to run my fingers over it, and the sticky consistency clings to my skin.

The jar of honey on the counter.

Nice. I’m probably coated it in.

My hands drop to the front of my jeans after securing the phone against my ear again. I lower my zipper. “Give me an hour. I need to take a shower first.”

“YOU WANT A BEER?” BEN asks, setting the nail gun down and walking over to the cooler.

I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. More alcohol? Fuck no. “Nah, I’m good. Do you have any water in there?”

Ben laughs quietly, then tosses me a water. “Pussy. What happened last night?”

Shit.

We’ve gone two hours without a mention of anything personal. Manual labor tends to keep chatter to a minimum, which I was expecting, and grateful for. I was also pleased to find out when I arrived that Mia had taken the boys to the grocery store. There was no way in Hell she wouldn’t ask me about the party. I had no idea if Ben knew about it or not, but I guess married couples talk to each other about shit like that. And now that he’s in need of a fucking beverage, he’s asking me about it.

My silence spurs him on.

“I know you took some girl to your ex’s engagement party. You don’t take girls to anything,” he pauses, smirking. “Besides the clinic after you’ve fucked them.”

I glare at him, lowering my water bottle. “Fuck you, man. I’m clean. I always wear a condom.”

Except for last night, during my marathon sex.

I shake that unwanted thought out of my head before I continue. This is not the time for a hard-on.

“I’ve even doubled up on chicks. You don’t really get much sensation, but some of them . . . Yeah, I wasn’t taking any chances.”

Ben leans his back against the support beam and takes a long sip of his beer, staring at me over top of it. His gaze is relentless, baiting me to give him information he can take back to Mia, I’m sure.

Well, not today. As long as I stay busy, my mind stays off of Beth.

I toss my water bottle onto the grass and pick up a piece of lumber, carrying it over to the work bench.

“You know,” Ben starts up again behind me.

I hold the saw steady with my one hand, the piece of wood with the other, and try to zone him out as I cut into the wood.

“She’s going to ask you when she sees you. You might as well tell me now so I can give her something, which will in turn give me something.”

I pause, glancing back at him over my shoulder. “What, do you need my help now getting laid?”

He raises an eyebrow, still perched against the beam. “Do I look like I need your help getting laid?”

I turn back around, trying to focus on my cutting while he rambles on behind me.

“Mia asked me to ask you. So, here I am, asking. If I go back to her with details of whatever the fuck you did last night, which is strictly something only my wife gives a shit about, I will be greeted with a very, very grateful Mia. And grateful Mia drives me fucking wild.”

I blow across the wood, removing the sawdust. “And regular Mia doesn’t drive you wild?”

If he says no, I’m calling major bullshit on that. Ben only sees Mia. He’s only ever seen Mia since she showed up here two years ago, and it wouldn’t matter what version of her she was giving him. He’d still only ever see her.

I like to complain that I was pussy-whipped nine years ago. But this motherfucker right here . . .

He makes an amused sound in the back of his throat. “Every version of Mia drives me wild. I just know giving her this information will make her very happy. She wants to know how things went, and she’s not here to ask you herself.”

“It went fine,” I grunt out, my voice suddenly thick. The saw splits the wood into two, and I set the pieces aside. I grab another 2x8 and toss it on the bench, picking up the saw and lining it up at the mark I drew earlier. My hand remains stagnant.

Fuck. Why did he have to play the Mia card?

I let out a heavy sigh. “It was awkward, okay? I didn’t know it was going to be at the same place I proposed to Molly at, and it was. On top of that, she’s marrying the douche-bag I caught her cheating on me with. Seeing him with her wasn’t really something I was prepared for. I’m hung-over as fuck.”

“You proposed to her? When?”

I begin sawing, concentrating on the mark. “Before she left for college. I didn’t tell anybody.”

Great. Now this shit is going to get out. I’m sure Tessa will have a field day with this information, and then bitch at me for an hour for not telling her about it.

“She said no, and you stayed with her?”

My skin begins to tingle, my shoulder burning from the force I’m putting behind my hand. “She didn’t really say no. She laughed, told me I was crazy, which I fucking was, and then sucked my dick to distract me. Or to ease the sting of her rejection. Whatever. It wasn’t that great from what I can remember.”

“What about the girl?”

I break through the wood. Ben breaks through my resistance.

“Are you sure I’m not standing here talking to Mia? Shit!” I throw the saw down and walk over to the water bottle I threw out into the yard.

Goddamn it. I’m losing it. Losing. It.

What the fuck is wrong with me? Okay, so I may or may not have had the best sex of my life last night. Shouldn’t that be a good thing?

No. It can’t be a good thing. Because it was with Beth.

Beth, the woman I can’t stop thinking about.

Beth, the woman who had me reeling from the memory of a goddamn kiss, and who has now completely fucked my world over from a hand-job and whatever the fuck else.

Beth. Beth fucking Davis.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to remember, trying not to remember . . .

“Reed,” she begs, thrashing about on the bed, grinding her pussy against my hand. “Please, now. Please . . . I can’t wait . . . fuck me. I need it. Need you.”

My eyes fly open. Jesus Christ. She said she needed me.

I hear Ben’s rough laugh from behind me, which has my hand squeezing the empty bottle, smashing it up. I turn around and toss it into the trash. It doesn’t matter that I’m ignoring him. I know without even looking into his pussy-whipped face that it’s lit up with amusement.

A sharp sting cracks against my shoulder as he slaps my back. He looks down at me, grinning. “You’re fucked. You know that, right?”

I shrug him off, watching him walk over to the nail gun. “I’m fucked because I’m hung-over, and I have a friend who all-of-a-sudden grew a vagina. Can we please go back to not speaking? I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

He holds his hands up, backing away slowly.

I turn away and grab my drill and a few screws, stopping to pick up one of the 2x8’s I sawed in half. I think I get thirty, maybe forty seconds of silence before I hear Ben’s laugh building from a muffled grunt to a full-blown, throwing his head back, all at my expense laugh.