Nicole Hartmann

Project Details TITLE: Wyatt - Amber CUSTOMER NAME: SAMPLE DATE: DUE DATE: n/a LENGTH: 2,000 Words HEAT: n/a GENRE/TROPE: LOL Rom-Com OTHER: First Person, Heroines POV Heroes 34-42, Heroines 26-34 “You missed a spot,” I couldn’t help myself from teasing him. Wyatt craned his neck up, glared at me, and then put his dark head back down to finish sanding down the table he was working on. I went back to the thesis I was typing up on my laptop, folding both legs underneath me so I was sitting cross-legged on the stainless-steel bar stool. Thank god for yoga pants on Sunday afternoons. And wine. Copious amounts of wine helped writing a thesis on what should be my day off. “What’s a word that means a lack of results? Like frustrating, but in a more uh…professional…sense?” I asked, inserting the gold-tipped pen into my high messy bun to scratch absentmindedly. “Amber.” I looked down at him, trying not to stare at the muscles that were highlighted by the tight-fitting black cotton shirt he was wearing. God, he was hot. It was annoying how hot he was. And the best/worst part was that he had no idea. He was a genuinely nice guy. He was one of those few guys that weren’t assholes that were more focused on notching the bedpost than having relationships. I knew from what I’d heard from my brother than Wyatt had definitely had his share of hookups, but it wasn’t just to rack up his number. “What?” “It’s called Amber. Or maybe an Amber-ism? Amber-ing?” Wyatt wasn’t even looking at me, but I could tell without seeing his face that he had a stupid grin on his face, mentally patting himself on the back for that one. I rolled my eyes, then realized he couldn’t see. “I just rolled my eyes at you. Like a lot. Here I am, giving up my Sunday to help you –“ “Hinder me.” “—Making suggestions—” “Ordering me around.” “—Handing you tools—” “Giving me the same screwdriver no matter what tool I ask for.” I stopped talking. “Are you going to keep interrupting me? Not sure if anyone has ever told you this, but it’s rude.” “You tell me on a daily basis that I’m rude. I really appreciate the feedback. I’ll put it in the ol’ suggestion box. File it away for future use.” I fought a smile. If I smiled or laughed, he’d know that he’d won. And he’d definitely not won this rough. “Hey, how’s that girl that you went out with on Friday? Bubbles, was it?” “Her name was Betsy, and you know this. She was part of your cheerleading squad in high school,” Wyatt said, clearly irritated, and then cranked on some kind of tool that, admittedly, I didn’t know the name of. Then swore as it swung back and hit his hand. “That’s karma for being mean to me when I was trying to help,” I said in a sing-song voice. He stood, grabbing the tool and slamming it into his toolbox. I smiled. “Temper, temper, Mr. Jackson.” I saw the look he gave me and knew I was in trouble just before I felt the stool give way beneath me. I squealed, my long limbs flailing before landing on something solid and warm. Wyatt was holding me, his handsome face grinning. “What’s the matter, Fuller? Got a case of the Bambi legs again?” I grumbled softly into his shirt. “What was that?” He asked, leaning in towards me until I was wrapped completely in his arms. The smell of him was intoxicating. Like a combination of Abercrombie cologne and wood shavings. I tried to breathe in while appearing mad, which I totally should’ve been at the way he was manhandling me. “I said,” I started, yelling into his clearly deaf ear, “that I don’t have Bambi legs!” We both looked down my long legs, currently wrapped over top of his muscular forearm. I admitted, “There may have been a time where I was ummm…uncoordinated…but I grew into them!” “I’m not sure uncoordinated is the right word for it. More like a walking disaster on two legs.” I tried to swing and hit him, but instead, he grabbed my arm and held it against his chest, which left me clambering for purchase on his chest, being held up by only one arm under my legs, and my arm wrapped around his neck. “Wyatt, if you drop me…” “I would never drop you,” he said, his voice dropping into a deeper pitch than I’d heard from him before. I looked up at his tanned face, the gray eyes that I knew so well. His pupils were dilated, his eyes almost black. “Put me down,” I whispered, meaning it. If he didn’t put me down, then I was going to do something I would definitely regret. But my body was telling me to go for it, to move that extra twelve inches until I felt first hand what his kisses felt like. And that would a mistake. A mistake, I kept repeating to myself. This was Wyatt Jackson. He was off limits. My brother’s best friend. My friend. He dropped his arm slowly, dropping my bare feet onto the wood floor almost silently. His arm slid to my lower back, helping me to stand upright but instead all I felt was a blaze of heat through my thin shirt. I shuddered involuntarily. If he felt it, he didn’t say anything. He looked at my laptop screen, nodding in its direction. “What are you working on?” “My thesis papers. I only have a few more days before I have to turn it in, and I want to make sure it’s perfect.” It had to be perfect. My financial aid had dried up two semesters ago and waitressing was only a viable option for so long until it just became weird that I was still waitressing at the same place in my hometown since I was a freshman in high school. Wyatt walked past me, going into the kitchen. He opened the cabinet door to the right of the sink, grabbing a textured glass and filling it up with water out of the tap. He tilted his head back, looking like a model for some kind of fancy water filtration system. The sunlight came through the window, highlighting his bronze face and the dark sheen of his hair. I fought to swallow, my eyes fastened on his profile. He finished, putting the glass down on the counter. “What? Oh, relax. Yes, Ma, I’ll put it in the dishwasher when I’m done.” I scrambled to gather up the brain cells I still had. What was he talking about? Oh. I saw the glass on the counter. He was right, I did usually nag him about putting his dishes directly in the dishwasher instead of leaving them out on the counter for someone else to put away. “Be sure that you do.” I attempted a lofty tone, but he just grinned at me. “How come you always seem like the mom in this relationship? Shouldn’t I be the dad?” I shuddered at the thought of him being related to me. I’m not sure even a shared set of genes would be able to make him unattractive in my mind. “It’s because I’m so much smarter.” He didn’t even fight me on that, which made me irritated. “Wyatt? Did you hear what I said?” “Yeah, I heard you. You’re definitely the smarter one. It didn’t really brook a conversation.” He walked back to his toolbox, pulling out some kind of black gadget that looked like a lobster shell cracker. Pretty sure he wasn’t about to dine on fancy seafood, so I made a mental note to try and learn some tools while he was here working in my parents’ house. “Wyatt, don’t even give me that. Have you forgotten the fact that you tutored me through math in high school? I never would’ve passed without you breaking it down for me in those late-night study sessions.” I could almost smell the Chinese food from those sessions, hear that bad pop music I’d been so intent on playing just to annoy him. He laughed. “Amber, you’ve never failed anything in your life. I don’t buy that. I used to think you just had a crush on me.” His words were closer to the truth than I cared to admit. “What? On you? Yeah right.” He looked at me from a few feet over. “Geez, hurt a guy’s ego, will ya?” I scoffed. “Your ego is still very inflated and very intact.” He smiled teasingly at me. “Besides, I’m pretty sure that backfired on me.” I tilted my head, seeing his eyes goes to the messy blonde bun on the top of my head. For some reason, he had always been fascinated with my hair and the way that I styled it. Sometimes he’d come up to me just to touch it or play with it. It wreaked havoc on my senses but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to stop. He flushed, looking down almost embarrassed. I grew interested. Wyatt was never embarrassed. Confident, yes. Arrogant, hells yes. Super annoyingly always right, definitely. But he was never embarrassed. “Ooh, this must be good,” I said, my eyes gleaming. “What’s got you so red?” He cleared his throat. “I’m not red. I was just saying that those study sessions backfired.” I motioned for him to continue, but he didn’t. Just looked down at the table leg and started to adjust some screw thingy. “Wyatt. Focus. What backfired?” “Amber, come on. You know,” he said, clearly mad that he had to say whatever it was that he apparently thought I already knew. “Knew what?” I asked, sitting back down on the stool but swiveling it so I could stare directly at him until he answered me. “You knew I like you back in high school.” My mouth dropped, and I was glad he refused to look at me. He was spared my catching-flies facial expression. Then I realized he must just be teasing me. My heart hurt a little that he could be so cruel. After all, he’d just admitted that he’d thought it had been me with the crush on him. And of course, I had. He’d been the hot, older guy that was friends with my brother. He was on the football team, had the dirt-covered truck, and was always flipping my hair or doing something else to irritate me. “Wyatt, don’t tease me like that. It’s not funny,” I said quietly, hoping that my cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. Normally his jokes were fun and light-hearted. This was one of the first times it had struck a little too close to home. He looked at me, dropping the tool and getting to his feet. “I’m not teasing. I thought you knew. Adam always teased me mercilessly about it. Said that it was the only reason we’d even started becoming friends.” “But Adam said that you were annoyed by me. That I was always trying to break up the thing that you had going.” I was trying to mentally piece together the bomb he’d just dropped on me. I felt like I was in some alternate fantasy universe. This was not real. I had to wake up. Wake up, Amber, I urged myself. But I was still in the kitchen of my parents’ house, and he was still standing on the drop cloth under the kitchen table that my brother, Adam, had broken just a few nights ago when he’d decided to go full on 10-Things-I-Hate-About-You on our childhood dining room table. Wyatt laughed, his eyes bright. “I’m not sure annoying was the right word. You irritated me – distracted me. When I was around you, it was all I could do not to start stuttering and Adam just laughed at me about it. He hated our little sessions because for a week, all I’d talk about is you.” I felt like one of those cartoon characters with the big eyes that just sat there, blinking. My addled brain was still scrambling to keep up. “You. Had a crush on me. In high school.” He chuckled. “Is that really so hard to believe? You were on the cheerleading team. You were cute and blonde and so annoying peppy about everything. It drew me in.” I had a million questions that I wanted to ask him but my mind raced trying to come up with one that wouldn’t sound stupid. The only thing my mouth kept wanting to blurt out was kiss me. Make out with me. Let’s do it on these stupid broken table. In order not to let any of those crazy thoughts escape, I kept my mouth shut and let him continue. He sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I know we’re friends now, and that’s awesome. You don’t know how much it means to me to have your friendship. That’s way better than some high school crush, right?” I just stared at him, my stomach dropping but a fake smile already growing on my face out of habit. “Yeah, friendship. It’s…awesome.”