Джей Крауновер - Built

“I’m happy to help. It’s not often I know for a fact that the parent fighting so hard for custody is the absolute right choice for the child. We are doing the right thing here, and you just have to have faith that the court and the powers that be will see it. One battle at a time, Zeb. That’s all we can tackle, okay?”

He was quiet for a long moment, but I could hear him breathing and then finally he grunted a little bit and replied, “Well, then the battle I need to tackle right now is those god-awful walls. Thank you for talking me off the ledge. It’s impossible not to hope for the best when I talk to you.”

Maybe it was the overwhelming quiet of my house or it was the wistfulness in his voice. Or maybe it was the fact that no matter how hard I tried to keep a clear divide between the two of us, I was always going to be too eager to cross over it when an opportunity presented itself.

Like a goddamn fool.

Calling myself every kind of name for fool there was in the book, I blurted out, “I’m not doing anything tonight, and Poppy went out with Rowdy, so if you need an extra set of hands to help with the paint I can swing by the house.” I wanted to groan. I was the least handy person in the whole world and I don’t think I had ever even held a paintbrush, but the idea of getting to spend some one-on-one time with him was just so tempting that I ignored all of that and secretly hoped he would ignore it, too.

He chuckled a little. “Are you serious?”

I shrugged even though he couldn’t see it. “Sure. Why not?”

“Well, I’m not going to turn down free labor, especially when that free labor looks like you. Do you even own anything that you won’t be pissed to get paint on, Say? What I do tends to get dirty.” His voice dropped a little bit and there was a husky timbre to the words that made me shiver.

There was a double entendre there that was impossible to miss and it made all of my skin heat up from the inside out. Not to mention no one had ever shortened my name before. I wasn’t exactly the cutesy nickname type. My father wouldn’t have approved and as such I was always just “Sayer.” Zeb’s shortening of my name felt intimate. It felt far more familiar than I should be allowing myself to get with him. Still I didn’t say anything other than “I’m sure I can find something. I’ll change and head over.”

He told me thank you again and I was eternally grateful no one was around to witness the way I ran up the stairs so fast that I tripped, or the way I started pawing through all the clothes in my closet like a deranged person. Things fell off of hangers and off of shelves, ending up in piles on the floor that got tangled around my feet and had me tripping all over again. Finally, out of desperation, because I really didn’t own anything that was worn out or already stained, I decided that what I wore to the gym would have to be good enough. I left on my stretchy yoga pants that I had changed into after work and added a tank with a built-in bra—both were colored a sedate gray—and shoved my feet into my running shoes. Those were black with hot-pink stripes on the sides. Overall it was as boring and uninteresting as the stuff I wore to the office, but at least I wouldn’t cry if I had to throw any of it out if it ended up paint spattered and ruined.

I yanked all of my hair into a messy braid at the back of my head and practically ran out the front door. I told myself to calm down the entire drive over, lectured myself sternly that appearing this eager and excited to see him outside of CASA or my office would send the wrong message. I could be his lawyer and his friend. I was strong enough, my heart cool enough from the deep freeze I kept it in, to put all the heavier, denser things I felt for him to the side and simply enjoy some casual time in his company while I offered a helping hand. I was just a friend helping out another friend.

Yeah, right. I wasn’t buying it, which meant Zeb would see right through me.

Despite the embarrassment that my out-of-control hormones were bound to cause, I strolled past his gigantic Jeep with my head held high and my breath trapped deep in my lungs. The front door was propped open and there was light and music coming from somewhere inside the house.

I picked my way carefully over the still littered and messy floor because the lighting was faint and only coming from the front room of the house. Even though things were still torn apart, it was amazing to see how much work Zeb and the guys had put into the house in just a few short weeks. In places where there had been holes, there were now openings to other rooms and I could see they had started on the kitchen. All the old stuff was gone, leaving blank walls and a clean slate for Zeb to do his thing.

I followed the twangy, bluesy sound of whatever he was listening to into what I assumed was the living room of the house. I expected him to already be hard at work on the “god-awful” blue walls—really they weren’t that bad. I kind of liked how bright and cheery they seemed, but he was sitting on a white bucket, focused intently on his phone. There was a slight smile stamped on his mouth, and I had a moment in which I was tempted to turn around and run back to the car and head home. I didn’t want to intrude, but while I waffled, his head suddenly snapped up and those green eyes pinned me on the spot. Some of my indecision must have shown on my face because he held the phone up and told me, “My niece keeps texting me from my sister’s phone. Beryl has a new boyfriend that she isn’t ready to introduce to the family, so I’ve been covertly bugging Joss for info.”

I cleared my throat a little. “That isn’t very sneaky if you’re texting her on her mom’s phone. Your sister is guaranteed to see it.”

He chuckled. “I want her to see it. My sister hasn’t dated much since all that stuff went down with her ex. I want her to be happy, and if this guy is the one to do it, I want to meet him. It’s my brotherly right.”

I walked farther into the room as he climbed to his feet. “Zebulon and Beryl? Your mother named you both after famous explorers.”

He lifted a dark eyebrow at me and his grin got wider within the beard that covered the lower half of his face. “Not many people pick up on that. I think she wanted great things for us. Too bad she just got stuck with a couple of normal kids. What about you? Where did ‘Sayer’ come from? That’s pretty unusual.”

I blinked up at him stupidly as he moved even closer to me. I wasn’t prepared for the way his very innocent question threw me headfirst into a place I rarely visited since my father had died. I inhaled a sharp breath and winced at the way it made my nostrils flare. “It was actually my mother’s maiden name—Abigail Sayer. I think passing it on to me the way she did was a small way for her to keep a part of herself alive after my father took over her whole life.” I never talked about my mom. It was too hard, and all those things I tried so hard not to feel threatened to overwhelm me when I thought about her.

His eyes narrowed a little bit as he considered me thoughtfully for a second. “I know your dad passed away not too long ago, but you’ve never mentioned your mom. Is she still around?”

This was the last thing I wanted to be talking about, but considering I knew each and every single thing about him and the mistakes that had shaped him, I figured I could give him a brief glimpse into the train wreck that was my own past. I shifted my weight on my feet and let my eyes drift to the worn floorboards under the soles of my tennis shoes. “My mom died when I was a teenager. She committed suicide.” She left. Abandoned me knowing good and well the kind of monster she was leaving me with. A monster she had loved up until her dying breath. A bastard she had begged for love and affection until it killed her. To this day the memories still burned and the image of her blue, unmoving, and so obviously dead in the bath where I found her was etched forever into my mind. It never went anywhere, holding on to me just as tightly as the way my father had chastised me for crying hysterically at her funeral. I was making a scene and it was undignified. He was already mortified at the disgrace my mother had caused him by taking her own life, he wouldn’t abide by his child embarrassing him further. He told me to stop crying, so I did—forever. Instead of questioning how he handled me, or my mother’s passing, I had clear recollections of everyone at the funeral, friends and family telling my father how proud they were of him for handling the death so stoically and how impressed they were with how well behaved I was. I was conditioned and trained to be that way.