“Hey.”
Emma felt an almost familiar jolt of alarm. Damn! Mike had a bad habit of startling her—catching her unaware.
“Hi,” Emma replied, turning back to her task of hanging out wet laundry, and hoping Mike could not see how flushed her cheeks had suddenly become.
“Looks like fun,” he teased, plopping himself down on the sawed off stump of a nearby tree.
“You have a damned strange idea of fun, Mike.”
“Yeah, I’m just a fun kinda guy,” he quipped.
“Okay, fun guy, what’s up?”
The mere fact that he had wandered over and actually into their back yard, meant he had sought her out intentionally. Emma’s pulse raced at the implications of that possibility. Whoa girl, she cautioned herself, he’s got a girlfriend.
Mike was wearing jean shorts and an old, faded red t-shirt with torn out sleeves. Emma could see muscular arms and a generous portion of ribs through the gaping sleeve holes.
God, he looks good, her thoughts took another dangerous turn before she brought them back under control. He has a girlfriend! He has a girlfriend! The warning repeated incessantly in her head.
Folding his arms across his chest, Mike eyed Emma with a mischievous expression on his face, his eyes all but twinkling as he said, “I saw you lugging those baskets of clothes from the pick-up and thought maybe you were planning a wet t-shirt party or something.”
Emma’s hands froze halfway to the clothesline, as she turned to gape at him open-mouthed.
An unrepentant, teasing smile met her startled gaze.
“Oh! That’s hilarious, fun guy. Very funny!” Emma grabbed several wet shirts from the basket at her feet and flung them hard in his direction, hitting him square in the chest.
He managed to catch the clothing before it slipped to the ground.
“Make yourself useful, fun guy. You can hang them or model them, whichever you prefer,” she said, returning to her chore.
Mike’s voice took on a high, nasal quality. “I’d like to model them,” he said with a slight lisp to the words. His antics drew another startled look from Emma. He was holding a wet shirt against his chest and prancing around bent slightly at the waist, with his backside sticking out.
Emma raised the fingertips of one hand to her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle a giggle.
“SEE!” Mike stopped and pointed at her, triumph written all over his face. “I AM a fun guy!”
They both laughed.
“You’re right,” Emma conceded, wiping tears from her eyes, “you are a fun guy, Michael Hansen.”
