“Ruin.”
“Sorry I’m late. I had to take care of business.”
“Oh, you’re not late. This is not really astrict kind of meetup. You can come and go as you please.”
Was she rambling?Ruin seemed to be sitting very close. A little too close. She licked her lips and tried to calm her racing heart.
“Got it. I wanted to show you something.”
“You do?” she asked.
He pulled out some knitting and she was amazed to see a rather large piece.
“Wow, you got the hang of it.”
“Yeah, but I don’t havea clue what I’m doing.”
“What are you wanting to knit? Asweater? A cardigan? A, er, blanket?”
“How about a sweater?”
“You can totally knit a sweater.”
“Will you teach me?” he asked.
“You want me to teach you?”
“Yes. You’re using different yarn, so I’m guessing you’ve already finished the cardigan you were knitting a week ago.”
“I did finish.”
“Do you think you can help me?” he asked.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him no, but then, she didn’t have a clue why she would be turning him down. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. “Sure. Of course I’ll help.” She leaned toward him and couldn’t help but notice just how good he smelled. It was even better than she imagined.
Damn it.Why had he been in her thoughts this past week? Even through work. It was crazy. She never had feelings for a guy, or thoughts about him.
For the next twenty minutes,she attempted to calculate in her head exactly how best to do his sweater without looking at a pattern. One glance at him, and she had already decided it wouldn’t be a raglan sleeve, but one that connected at the shoulder.
With each new row of knitting,he had to start a decrease. Of course, there were several times he got it wrong and she tried to fix it, but it wasn’t long before he had to start again.
“Great,” he said.
“Hey, don’t be disheartened. It happens to the best of us, butyou might want to check out a pattern first before you start casting on stitches. The pattern will give you guidance on how to construct a garment.”
“A pattern.”
She nodded, putting down her own knitting and leaning over. “Look.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, and brought up the app for the Internet. She did a quick search for men’s sweater patterns, and then leaned in close. “See, there are plenty of them, and some of them are free.”
Ruin took the phone from her, and Callie looked at his fingers. Not just looked, but admired them.
What is wrong with you?
He turned to look at her and she tried to show him an encouraging smile, but she had ahorrible feeling it came off as more of a grimace. This had to be boring to him.
When she was a child, her mother had done all of this with her, and she had loved every single minute of it. The truth was, she had always loved watching her mother knit, creating garments or toys. It had always been a lot of fun. She remembered how excited her mother would be when her father would come back from work with a bag full of wool. There were always so many different projects to work from.
She had stayed a littletoo close to Ruin, but as he looked through the list of free knitting patterns, she slid away, creating distance. He didn’t need her to be that close to him. Even if he did smell good. So good. Even better than she imagined. Not that she’d imagined a whole lot. Just a little.