Obsession Falls (The Haven Brothers #1)

Likely story, Audrey.

“That’s not going to happen,” Josiah said.

There was a hardness to his voice that made my stomach tingle. It reminded me of the way he’d talked to Colin at the bar the other night. Trying to ignore it, and him, I picked up the ball and threw it again.

“I don’t care if it’s your most popular color, it’s not what I ordered.”

Max dropped the ball about six feet from me. He loved playing fetch but he wasn’t always good at it. I walked over and tossed it for him again.

“Not my issue,” Josiah said, then paused. “This ends in one of two ways. Either you make it right by tomorrow or you refund my money.” Another pause. “Good. Anytime after seven.”

He ended the call and slid the phone into his back pocket.

That’s when I realized I was staring at him. With my mouth open.

“What?” he asked.

“Sorry. Nothing.” I glanced around, looking for the ball, but Max had left it by his pee tree and was sniffing the ground. “Is everything okay?”

He hesitated, as if he were deciding whether or not to talk to me. “The flooring place messed up our order.”

“That’s frustrating. How did they mess it up?”

“They delivered the wrong product. Instead of engineered bamboo in antique java, I have a stack of vinyl plank in tawny oak.”

“Tawny oak doesn’t sound very appealing.”

“It’s not.”

“And vinyl plank isn’t even the same thing.”

“Exactly.”

Were we connecting? I felt like maybe we were connecting. Or maybe I was just parroting back what he’d said and we were about to run out of things to talk about.

My heart beat a couple more times and neither of us said anything.

This was about to get awkward. What should I say? I wanted him to invite me inside to look at the house but I couldn’t seem to make my voice work to ask. He was so broody and intimidating.

“Do you want go in and see the house?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“Yes.” My voice came out as an overly excited squeak. I cleared my throat and tried again, trying to fake as much chill as possible. “I mean, yeah, sure. Is it okay if Max comes?”

“As long as he won’t pee on anything.”

“No, he’s good about that.” Max chose that moment to pee on the tree. “And he just went. Let’s go, Max.”

Josiah turned and I followed him to the front door with Max trotting along beside us. We went in and our steps echoed in the empty space. A few spots in the ceiling had bare light bulbs hanging precariously and the floor was made up of large, rough-looking boards. But despite how unfinished everything appeared, it had a certain charm.

I took slow steps toward what had probably once been the kitchen. “Wow, I didn’t know a house could look so naked.”

Josiah chuckled, a low noise in his throat that brought the tingles back with a vengeance. Getting a laugh out of him felt like a hard-won victory.

“It doesn’t look like much now,” he said. “But it’s going to be nice.”

“Tawny oak would never do.” I gestured to the floor. “Not that I really know what tawny oak is, but it doesn’t sound pretty.”

“It’s over there.” He pointed to a large stack of long rectangular boxes. “My dad was here when the delivery arrived and he didn’t realize it wasn’t right.”