Page 36 of On the Ropes
Tabitha
The very next night, I was rushing out the front door with my phone in one hand and a photo album in the other. I was late, as usual, for dinner with my sister and Eric at dad’s diner. But I also had an email in my inbox, from that hotel in Austin, with the subject line: Contract Proposal Follow-Up.
“Now that’s interesting,” I murmured, eyes on my screen as I scrolled. I flew down the front steps and hit a brick wall that smelled amazing. Strong hands gripped both of my elbows, keeping me steady. They were a fighter’s hands, turned gentle. I looked up at Dean Knox-Morelli, and my knees were grateful for the extra stability.
“Hiya, neighbor,” I said, breathlessly.
His brow furrowed, dark eyes lingering for a beat too long on my lips. “Are you okay?”
He released me and took a step back, putting a decent amount of space between us.
“Ah, so the brick wall I hit was your chest,” I said. “You should keep an eye on those shoulders of yours. They’re a real danger to the common person.”
His answering smile was a little crooked and a lot adorable.
It was official. I had a crush.
My instant attraction to this handsome boxer had me dreamy-eyed and dazed. Dean the Machine was 100% summer-fling material. And if that swooping feeling in the pit of my stomach felt a little different from all the other times, I sure didn’t dwell on it. At some point yesterday, Dean had started openly laughing and smiling at my jokes. Although this glimpse of openness was only muddling my many, many sexy thoughts about him.
Luckily for me, one of the only things I did own was a high-end vibrator. That thing worked orgasmic wonders on a regular day, but with Dean as erotic inspiration, I’d broken some kind of personal record in orgasms last night.
“Tabitha?”
I blinked, refocused. “I’m a little spacey today. And still a little dazed from being attacked by your chest.”
His lips twitched. “Or you could watch where you’re going.”
“That’s never going to happen,” I said, brushing past him. “I prefer to rely on you to catch me with your shoulders or lap.” I hooked my thumb toward the street corner. “I’m meeting my family at dad’s diner. Do you want me to pick you up anything to eat?”
He shook his head, then glanced back toward Eddie’s house. “If there’s any extra…”
I touched his arm. “I got it. And it’s no problem.”
“Thank you,” he said.
I paused, mid-step, in front of the lot. There was significantly less trash in the small quadrant Dean and I had worked through yesterday. “Whoa,” I said. “It’s already looking way better. Who showed up after I left?”
The hint of pride in his face gave me for real butterflies. “Natalia and Martín. My parents, who brought along a few of their friends from church just to help. And Rowan’s nonprofit arranged getting a dumpster for us in a couple days so we can get most of it cleared out.”
I chewed on my lip, feeling almost absurdly intrigued. My editorial instincts were clamoring for attention now, even if I didn’t want to give in.
I did allow my brain to frame out a few shots and piece together a tiny arc of narrative. The transformation here was primed to be dramatic. And this street was a mixture of everything South Philly represented—tough older folks and nosy gossips and younger families and new immigrants. A blend of language and food, cultures and traditions, all jammed into brick row homes and front stoops.
“You know what…wait here a sec. Do you mind holding these?” I shoved the photo albums into his very capable arms, raced inside, and snatched my camera from the dining room table.
When I returned, I snapped a few shots of the lot from a couple angles and checked their quality on the digital screen. “We should have evidence of what the space was before. It’ll really blow people’s minds when they see what we do with it.”
His brow lifted. “What are we going to do with it?”
“We’ll figure it out, don’t you worry,” I said. “But I didn’t want this historical moment to go undocumented.”
He gave a pointed look at my camera. “Have you ever worked on any film projects about Philly?”
As a rule, I did not. Filming was intimate work. It was much harder to hide the truth. It was much easier to expose every sneaky vulnerability or complicated family secret.
“I haven’t, and I don’t have an interest in doing so. Part of the appeal of freelancing is that I get to see so many new and different places,” I said, lifting the strap over my head. “But I can take a few photos here or there while we’re working together on it.”
His eyes darted back to the space. “What if I…we, mess it up somehow?”
