Gray shoots me a look where Mr. Bates can’t see him, and I can’t help it—my mouth cracks into a smirk at how his own Good Samaritan notion got him saddled with more basketball when this was supposed to be his break to clear his head of the game.
“Maybe once wouldn’t hurt,” he tells Mr. Bates.
Mr. Bates positively glows, rocking back and forth on his heels. He elbows Gray in the side before collecting his things and starting toward the stairs.
“I’ll collect you from your room tomorrow afternoon,” he says. “It’s a date!”
Miss Hales squeaks, and I have to hold back a chuckle.
CHAPTER FIVE: GRAY
It’s been a minute since I’ve had to work on a lawn. I’ve lived in a tiny city apartment for years now, and before that I used to have a lawn guy that would show up once a week to keep my neighbor’s dog crap out of my yard and my bushes from eating the sides of my house.
The back lawn of the Little Haven Inn is beyond typical yard work. Like most of the buildings in town, the inn backs up to a patch of forest. Massive trees line the edge of the property, still loaded down with the icy remnants of yesterday’s snowstorm. Their branches bend, occasionally sluicing off melting loads of snow that gather as a mixed-up slush. At least the overwhelming Georgia kudzu isn’t in bloom this time of year, but that seems only a small blessing when I consider the insidious crabgrass growing across every open surface, as well as themountainof leaves that need to be raked and collected.
I glance down at the meager rake in my hand and the lone black trash bag in my left. Maybe I should have looked out my room window to the backyard before I made a cute girl any big promises about fixing up her inn.
“It’s not too late to bail on this.”
I jump at the sound of Molly’s voice. She’s approaching from behind the barn, her own rake and bag in hand. I’m surprised to see her here; the morning is still cold and early, and I hadn’t even considered she might be down here with me when I started work.
She wipes her brow with one arm, sweating despite the cold. Molly has her hair wrapped up into a messy bun with a red bandana, and she’s swaddled to the nines in scarf and coat and work gloves. Despite the marshmallow aesthetic, though, there’s still something adorable about her. Her cheeks are rosy red, and her lips match from the bite of the cold. Her eyes shine bright, somehow made bluer by all this white around us.
“Maybe we lean into the overrun jungle aesthetic?” She proposes, leaning with one elbow propped on her rake. “Maybe folks will take pity on me and donate more money if they’re forced to traverse like Hobbits on the road to Mordor just to get to my barn.”
“Don’t you have paperwork and errands? I’ll handle the terrain. You get your butt inside.”
And stop grinning at me with those rosy cheeksand pink lips.
I ditch my trash bag and position my rake in both hands. “Alright, Moore, I’m going to have to insist. I haven’t worked on a lawn in years, and even when I did, I have distinct memories of sweating like a whore in church. I might coach a professional sport, but lawn work brings out the fat bastard in all of us.”
“You’re just making more of a case for me to stick around and help out.” She grins. “My workload is light today, so I figured I’d get the lawn going and then make a late start at the front desk.”
She trots past me toward a small wall of leaves deposited by the tree line. I grit my teeth as I watch her get to work. You had to volunteer to help the cute small town girl do back-breaking yard work in the freezing cold, Gray? Really? You chose this option when you could have just offered to cut her a check flat out or even pay for a lawn team?
Something tightens in my stomach. Molly wouldn’t have wanted that, and I know it. She wants to save pennies where she can, and she’s always been the type to put in the labor herself to better enjoy the reward. I can’t fucking help but want to please that side of her, to show her I can still get my hands dirty despite years spent in the city.
I follow her over to the leaves, setting in on my own pile.
“I’ll admit,” she starts. “Maybe I should have hired someone back in the summer to get this lawn under control.”
I glance back at her, raising one eyebrow as I work. “The independent Miss Molly Moore admitting she could have used help?”
She bristles at that, but still smiles. “So, I got a quote from Alan Hardy. You remember him from high school? He was in yours and Hunter’s grade, I think.”
“I remember that guy,” I tell her. “Douche bag. Did he ever outgrow the confident swagger and allusions to his dick size?”
“He did not,” Molly assures me. “Majordouche bag. Anyway, he runs his own lawn care business now. I got him to come out back when I first inherited the place, and he made some comment about all the weeds being a ton of work for such a little girl. And then when he went off on this monologue about how his tractor lawn mower would do just the trick for me and Ireally ought tofeel the horsepower of that thing between my legs…”
I snort at that and grin. “You told him to go packing?”
Those pale cheeks redden again. “Um, I think my exact words were that he could take his dick metaphor and screw off. I would take care of the lawn work myself, thank you very much. Only I never exactly did.”
I laugh, returning to rake my pile of leaves. “God, you’re still a firecracker, Moore.”
She shrugs, smiling, too. “This is my place. I knew from when I was little that Grandma was going to leave it to me and Hunter, and that I’d be the one who ran it. If it was always going to be my birthright, I was going to make damn sure I did things right.”
“Well, I think you’ve done a pretty great job so far,” I say. “Fancy landscaping or no.”