Jackson rolled his eyes and raised his beer to his lips again. Fine, so maybe hiring Mia was going a little too far, but he didn’t know how else to get her alone. She’d sped off without giving him her number—all he had was the name of the gardening company she worked for.
But come Monday, he was going to have something else.
A date.
Chapter Two
“Danny, time to wake up!” Mia pounded her fist on her brother’s door a few times before hurrying down the narrow corridor while raking a hairbrush through her knotted hair.
They were running late, as per usual. Seemed like their mornings always involved a lot of running around like chickens with their heads cut off. It didn’t help that Danny slept like a rock and was impossible to rouse once he was REM-deep, but fortunately, after two years on their own she’d finally mastered the difficult feat of waking him up. Meaning he had five more minutes of snooze time before she dumped a glass of cold water on his face.
She burst into the apartment’s tiny kitchen, dropped the hairbrush on the linoleum counter and hopped onto a plastic stepladder so she could reach the top cupboards. God, being short sucked. At sixteen, her little brother already towered over her.
Kind of like Jackson…
Sighing, Mia pushed all thoughts of her clients’ sexy neighbor from her head and focused on grabbing a box of Corn Flakes from the cupboard.
“Danny!” she yelled again.
There was no response. Apparently her brother was determined to sleep until the last possible second.
Normally she wouldn’t care, but her boss was sending her to a new client today, and Mia really couldn’t afford to be late. Gillian had called last night and told her the client had specifically requested Mia over the other three gardeners who worked for Color Your Yard, which meant she needed to make a good first impression. Especially now that she was in the running to take Gillian’s place once the boss opened up the Anaheim branch next spring. If she took over for Gillian in San Diego, she could finally quit her second job and live a stress-free life for a change.
“Danny!” she called out. “I’m standing in front of the sink about to pour some water into a glass!”
There was a beat, followed by a muffled groan that echoed through the apartment. “Coming!”
Grinning, she fixed herself a bowl of cereal and leaned against the counter to eat it. She was wearing her trademark gardening “uniform”—denim shorts, a tank top, sneakers and a baseball cap—and she had to admit, she loved having a job that allowed for such a casual get-up. She couldn’t imagine working somewhere that required her to wear pantsuits and high heels. That sounded like pure torture to her.
She was just rinsing her bowl and spoon in the sink when Danny stumbled into the kitchen with a loud yawn and a groggy look. His green T-shirt was the same shade as his eyes and revealed his defined biceps, and the jeans he wore encased a pair of long, muscular legs that continued to startle her.
Somehow, in the span of two years, Danny had transformed from a scrawny kid to a well-built young man. He was fourteen when he’d moved in with her, a lost, skinny boy who was dying to stay at one school long enough for him to play football. Now he was a sixteen-year-old heartbreaker, a junior at Madison High who’d just landed the coveted starting varsity quarterback position. He was over the moon about it, and Mia was thrilled for him. If anyone deserved to live his dreams, it was her baby brother.
“Eat your breakfast and make it snappy,” she told him. “We’re late.”
“We’re always late,” he answered as he dumped a monstrous amount of cereal into his bowl.
“Yeah, and whose fault is that?”
“Yours.” He smirked through a mouthful of cereal. “If you were a more responsible guardian, you wouldn’t set your alarm for twenty minutes before we have to leave.”
He had a point, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of admitting he was right. Instead, she stuck out her tongue and said, “If I’m such a bad guardian, go ahead and emancipate yourself. You wouldn’t survive a day without me, bud.”
Danny swallowed before offering a rueful smile. “You’re totes right about that. I don’t even wanna think about doing my own laundry.”
Five minutes later, the two of them hurried out the door and descended the three flights of stairs that brought them down to the small lobby of their building. Tenant parking was in the back, and Mia’s work truck awaited them when they emerged from the rear doors and into the early-morning sunshine.
They were on the road a minute later, carrying out their usual morning battle over the radio dial. Eventually she gave up and let Danny listen to his shitty hip-hop station. She’d only have to endure it for ten minutes, anyway.
“The season opener is this Friday,” Danny said when the radio station launched into a series of commercials.
“Yes, Daniel, I’m well aware of that. You’ve only told me like a gazillion times.” Mia clicked the right-turn signal and changed lanes, keeping her eyes on the road ahead.
“You’re coming, right?”