Chapter 11

Hayden

What the fuck had my brother done?

Jamie marched out of the garage like her arse was on fire, and I shot Brock a dark look before taking her over to my ute. Her body slammed into the side as she sucked in one breath then another.

"Hey… Hey…" I moved in close, closer than I'd ever dared and shoved aside that feeling of pleasure, focussing on her. "What did he do? What did Brock do?"

She blinked, looking like someone who'd just emerged from a deep sea dive, but she seemed to come to quickly. A smile was there to cover for her little lapse, but I wasn't convinced.

"I'm fine, I just…" She started to pull away, but I put a hand down on the side of the car, hemming her in. "I just need to get away from the garage."

"Well, jump in. I was coming to see if you wanted some lunch anyway." She went pale at that and I wondered what the hell I'd done wrong. "I mean, just to talk strategy, for when your mum arrives?"

"Oh, yeah, right." She nodded sharply and when I unlocked the car, she climbed inside, filling the cab with the scent of flowers and engine oil. I breathed it in as I put the key in the ignition and started it up.

"Lunch at Kendall's Bakery work for you?"

It was a place all of us had started to frequent since it opened. The bread, the pies were to die for, the little bakery always packed because it'd won national awards for its baked goods.

"That'd be perfect," she replied.

"So…" We were out on the main road now, surrounded by trucks and cars, houses and shops a blur as we drove past. "Want to tell me what's got you looking like you've seen a ghost? Brock lose his shit again because someone put the toilet roll on the wrong way?"

"He used to get cranky about that when he still lived at home?" she asked.

"About that, dropping dishes in the sink when he was washing them, if you didn't clean the mop bucket out at least two times when doing the floors." I felt a little disloyal bagging out Brock as I smiled her way, but the colour coming back to her cheeks had me continuing. "He's tightly wound, my big brother."

"Yeah…"

She stopped gripping the oh-fuck handle by the doorway and let her hands fall loose into her lap.

"But that usually means he doesn't make a lot of mistakes," I said. "Left that to us, I think." She smiled then, really smiled. "So what did he do?"

"What I asked." Some of the tension was back, but I had to think this was necessary. "That's the stupid thing. I need him to be my fake date, so of course he'd bring me coffee in the morning, do PDA in front of the other guys."

Public displays of affection, the thought of that was a gut punch. No, make that two. One, because he'd taken upon himself to touch my girl, and two, because he'd dared to. My eyes slid sideways, taking in the way her hands started to turn to claws. With my heart in my throat, I grabbed one, giving in a squeeze. Her hand felt so damn small inside mine, delicate and utterly feminine, despite the grease caught under her nails.

"So he bought you a coffee and held your hand?—?"

"Held me," she corrected and then, I could just see it. Her pressed against him, nothing ever having felt as right as this. His nose dropping down, wanting to breathe that scent in deeper. "Put on a big show for the guys."

Yeah, a ‘show.' Brock would've loved every damn moment of it.

"We talked through how we'd do things and… I thought I was OK with it all, but then I walked into the break room. It was actually clean for once, and everyone knew he did that for me, then food started arriving. The guys were taking the piss, telling me what to make Brock order next time and I… I…"

She frowned and I waited patiently, unable to work out what had her running out of the garage.

"I felt like a dickhead. I know it was all just for show but…"

Jamie turned to stare into my eyes and I stared back far too long, forced to wrench them back to the road or risk a car crash. Not for the first time, I cursed her mother. Jamie had a couple of brothers, that was something that Millie and her bonded over, but it was a totally different dynamic. Millie was the princess in our family, and we all jumped to when she gave an order, whereas Jamie? Her mother would've been called a boy mum now, because she only had good things to say about her darling boys. The guys weren't even bad blokes, the youngest of her brothers in the same year as us at school, but it was like to give them a break, her mother had to focus all her critical energy on Jamie.

"But what?" I said, kicking my own arse for saying this, because I could take advantage of Brock's fuck up. "Big brother made a fuss over you?"

"You're making me sound like an idiot," she grumbled.

"Nope, just someone who seems way too uncomfortable with other people being nice to them. You deserve it, you know. Millie would've just looked at the spread a guy put on for her and then wondered out loud where the Veuve Clicquot was."

That was apparently the right thing to say because she started to laugh. Get ‘em laughing, Dad always said, and you'll get into their pants. While I wanted that more than my own breath, Jamie's shift in mood was more important.

"Though I dunno if you need to be a bitch on wheels like my darling sister, you could just y'know… be cool when someone does something nice for you." She snorted, then shot me a rueful smile. "Even, and I say this with great hesitation, be grateful?"

"Fuck…" She sat back hard against the seat and shook her head. "That was so ungrateful. I need to tell him sorry." Her head rolled my way. "You sure you want to fake date me? There's a reason my relationships never last longer than a month or two."

Because they were never the right guys for her, I thought furiously, but I would be.

"I wouldn't worry." I couldn't believe I was going to say this. "I think this is why Millie suggested us for the job." I flicked my eyes her way. "We know you, Jamie. There's pretty much nothing you can do that'll piss us off. Brock will be fine when you get back to work, but maybe you could practise being good with someone buying you lunch by letting me grab you a butter chicken pie."

A park opened up right out the front of the bakery and I pulled into the spot, then looked at her expectantly. I needed her to say yes, to just move those sexy little lips and say that one word. Trying to play it cool fucking failed me the minute she smiled.

"I'm not that bad, I just don't deal with surprises real well. You want to buy me a pie?"

"Two if you want it." I winked, pretending like this was no big thing. "That's how special you are to me."

Even though she thought I was joking, her cheeks still flushed a pretty pink. I watched her shake her head and then say what I needed to hear.

"Sure, but I'm buying the coffees."

I jerked open the door, jumping out and rushing around her side of the car to get hers before she could make a move. That flush got a little brighter, but she took my hands and let me help her out. Pretty sure she didn't expect for me to keep a hold of one as I led her into the packed bakery, but when she went to pull away, I gripped them tighter. If she fought me, I'd have let her go. I didn't want to ruffle her feathers any more than Brock had.

Well, maybe a little…

I stole a sidelong look at her, catching the way her eyes flicked around the bakery, taking in the people, then me. It wasn't hard to persuade myself that we were just a guy with his girl, grabbing a bite to eat on their lunch hour. The yeasty aroma in the air combined with her scent, creating something I wanted to bottle, just so I could sniff it again later, but we lined up and waited for our turn, everything all neat and orderly, until someone burst in to mess with that.

Little kid cackles are the best things. There's a kind of wild glee that adults just can't match, and that's what she did right now, bursting out of the swinging doors that led into the kitchen and ran through the front of the shop.

"Emma!"

I assume that was her mother calling out, a flustered looking lady with a smudge of flour on her cheek stomping out, just in time to see a customer with a tray full of coffees on collision course with the little girl. Little girl, coffee, there was no good end to this. Forced to let go of Jamie's hand, I leapt forward.

If they kept going the way they were, she would get hit by six boiling hot coffees, somehow I knew. I shouted something at the coffee woman, but she stopped too slowly. I swept in, shoving my hands under the armpits of the little tearaway, her giggles turning to open mouthed fear, right as I carried her out of the way and to safety. Emma stared at me, wide eyed, and then burst into tears.

"Emma!"

As her mother rushed over, I placed the little girl on my hip, making the rhythmic shushing sound my cousins always told me worked with their babies. I bounced her up and down, watching her bottom lip quiver, then still, when her mother arrived.

"Emma! Oh god…" The woman took the little girl from me and turned to see the coffees had been splashed across the floor. The customer just stood there blinking, hands still hovering in the air. "Bailey, can we get a mop here and a refund? Some new coffees?" The mother was desperate to resolve the situation, but her focus quickly shifted back to her daughter. "Emma, you can't go running off like that! You could've gotten scalded."

The little girl stared at her mother, eyes shining as they filled with tears, then she threw her little arms around her mother's neck.

"Goodness…" She rubbed her daughter's back. "It's alright, darling. Everything's alright. You're alright."

Bailey appeared with a mop and bucket, but the crowds waiting at the counter were only getting thicker.

"Look, I'll mop this—" I said.

"Oh no, you can't." The mother shook her head sharply. "I'll just… Emma will…"

She was flustered, I could see that plainly, so I stepped forward and grabbed the mop.

"If you could grab us a couple of sausage rolls and…" I turned to see Jamie standing there. "A butter chicken pie?" She nodded. "I'll get the floor cleaned up. Maybe some coffees for that lady."

"On the house," the mother said in a definite tone. "Get them a whole box of both the pies and the sausage rolls."

"On it," Bailey said with a nod, rushing back to the counter.

"I can't thank you enough for this," the mother said, doing her best to soothe the now wailing child. "Like free pies for life."

"Hear that, Jamie?" I asked as I looked up from mopping. "You're sorted."

"This is your man?" the mother asked her, sidling closer to Jamie, even as she jostled and rubbed the child's back. She glanced down at my girl's fingers. "You need to lock that one down. Cleaning up other people's messes and saving small children? He'd make a good daddy."

"Um… about my coffees?" the woman who'd lost her order said.

"I'm so sorry. We'll replace them on the house and will throw in a box of doughnuts as well…"

I'm not sure how I expected Jamie to react as I went to work, mopping up the coffee until the floor was cleaned, but it wasn't this. She was all pale and wide eyed again, standing there, just staring before Bailey rushed over with a couple of boxes.

"That's enough to feed an army, but thanks," I said to the girl, before turning to Jamie. "My good deed for the day is done. Should we get out of here?"

"Yeah."

She turned on her heel and left so fast I was surprised she wasn't leaving skid marks on the polished wooden floors. I sighed and then hoisted the boxes up, following her outside to find out why.