Doin' a Dime Vale, Lynn (best beach reads of all time txt) 📖

going to do a bit of grocery shopping tonight, and I want to look at houses with you as well.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I want to look at houses with you,” he continued. “I want one that you’ll love. One that we’ve picked out together.” He paused. “Unless you want to build, because I’m okay with that, too.”

Build.

Houses together.

That sounded pretty darn final.

And permanent.

It made me want to scream in glee.

“Okay.” I paused. “But honestly, I’m okay with the commute. It gives me a chance to listen to audiobooks. I have a couple of irrational attachments to a few audio book narrators.”

His eyes narrowed as he turned back from the trash can. “Men or women?”

I grinned. “Men. I like all the deep growly ‘fucks’ they say. You’d be really good at it.”

He snorted out a laugh. “Reading aloud is a nightmare for me. I read but end up skipping words. Don’t pause long enough on periods. Things like that. I would make a terrible narrator.”

I searched for the fork so I could eat the cake but came up empty.

“There a fork in that bag?” I asked curiously, jerking my chin in the direction of the bag he’d just thrown away.

“Probably.” He paused. “But I shoved it down in there hard and heard something plastic snap. Likely, it’s broken. But I shoved it into a pile of what looked like old pizza. I’m not touching that bag with a ten-foot pole.”

I eyed the cake.

Popping the top open, I reached in with my fingers and broke a piece off.

Luckily, since the slice was still slightly cold, it broke off easily in my hands and managed to stay in one piece while I did.

So that was the way I ended up feeding myself with my fingers while Hunt watched.

“You’re slowly killing me,” he grumbled when I finished.

When I went to suck my fingers into my mouth, he caught my hand and did it himself again.

“Yum.” He winked. “My favorite. Chocolate cake with the hint of alcohol.”

I giggled.

Sadly, I’d already had more than my allotted ten minutes for a lunch break—hell, I was lucky to even get that without an interruption since we were so short staffed—and I needed to go.

“Thank you for lunch, Hunt,” I said softly, looking up into his eyes.

He ran a calloused finger over my brow.

“You’re welcome, babe,” he said. “See you at dinner.”

Then, without another word, he left me standing there watching him go.

And I was left wondering if there would ever come a time where I didn’t hate seeing him leave.

CHAPTER 16

Question: when stirring up some shit. Do you start clockwise, or counter-clockwise?

-Text from Wyett to Hunt

HUNT

“Where are the dogs going?” I asked, staring at the empty room, the dogs with their leashes attached, and the half-eaten bag of dog food at their sides.

“Laric has a place,” Wyett answered. “He volunteered to keep them when I asked him about possible kenneling options.”

“Okay.” I looked around the foyer, taking in the multiple suitcases.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

And would she care if I brought my computer to work? Because I was onto something with her aunt, and I didn’t want to take the time off because I knew that a breakthrough would be coming soon.

“Umm.” She paused. “Well…” She turned her face away from me and started to mumble.

“You what?” I asked in curiosity, loving the way she was trying not to let me hear, but explaining nonetheless.

“I signed you up for a motorcycle training course,” Wyett repeated. “You said that you needed to learn how to ride. And it doesn’t seem smart to me to just get on it without the least bit of knowledge on how to ride it. Knowledge is power. Isn’t that what you always said to me when you tried to justify why you hacked into my life?”

She did have a point.

But still.

“Okay,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “You at least did it out of town, right?”

She gave me a look. “I’m not dumb. I signed you up for a course in Gulf Shores, Alabama.”

I blinked. “Why so far away?”

“Because if I’m going to be forced to be out of town for three days straight doing nothing, then I’m going to hang out at the beach while I do nothing,” she answered.

Her answer made a lot of sense, too.

“Okay,” I hesitated. “When is the camp?”

She looked at her watch, then gestured to the dogs that were behind us. The dogs that couldn’t decide whether they wanted to hang out with me or her. Honestly, I was really kind of jealous of her attachment to them at this point. “Now. They could come with us, but Laric offered to keep them.”

I looked at the dogs, then at her.

“I don’t have a motorcycle,” I told her.

She grinned wickedly. “I know. But… I have a friend at the hospital that I work with. She’s a really great lady. Her father is a mechanic and does custom bikes. I called yesterday and told them that I wanted one. Explained a little about you. Told him your likes and dislikes, and then made arrangements for the motorcycle to be delivered to Gulf Shores for you.”

I scratched my head. “But…”

“No more excuses, Hunt.” She pointed at me. “I want to ride on the back of a bike. And I can’t do that unless you’re okay with me getting on one, wrapping my arms around another man, and being pressed close to him.”

I really, really didn’t like that option.

“Let’s go.”

• • •

I was at a motorcycle driving course.

Feeling like a complete dumbass.

“You’re in a motorcycle club, and you don’t even know how to ride a motorcycle?” the instructor asked the man at my side.

I side-eyed him.

Other than him being a dumbass and me not being one, we really did have a lot in common.

Other than he’d worn his ‘cut’ while I’d worn jeans, a long-sleeved Henley t-shirt, and a bomber jacket that was the only thing I could scrounge up at such short notice.

Though, my ‘short notice’ outfit