One Little Thing by Kimberly Lang Page A

going to be a long, tough forty-something hours.
    At eight o’clock the next morning, Sophie had two enormous moving vans in her parking lot. She’d been up since dawn, the combination of excitement and visuals of long to-do lists making it impossible to sleep. The sun was out and bright in a cloudless sky, and the temperature and humidity were going to be unforgiving today. With every door in the building propped open, the air conditioning had no chance of keeping up, so she turned all the fans on high, prayed for a strong breeze, pulled her hair up off her neck, and dressed in as little clothing as she could and still be decently covered.
    Over-caffeinated and slightly overwhelmed at the reality of what had to happen today, she was nearly vibrating as she addressed the crowd gathered in her dining room: Alyse and the three maids, the guys from the moving company, and Alyse’s younger brother and a friend of his who’d been pressed into service for the day.
    â€œEvery piece and every box has a tag on it indicating which room it goes to. If it’s fallen off, give me a yell, I’ll tell you where to take it. There’s too many stairs in this place to be climbing them unnecessarily. Each room has a diagram taped to the door that shows where to place the furniture inside. If you have any questions, yell for me. There’s drinks and snacks in the kitchen, so please help yourself and stay hydrated. Any questions?” No one said anything. “Then let’s do this.”
    The next several hours were the organized chaos of constant movement and incessant noise, but she was beginning to see the shape of things to come. The house quit echoing as rugs were laid and furniture was set in place, and the excitement was beginning to gain traction over the overwhelmingness of it all.
    The blast of cold air from the refrigerator as she pulled out sandwiches for her crew’s lunch was blissful, and she took a moment to let it wash over her, fanning the neck of her shirt to let the air reach her sweaty chest.
    Backing through the swinging door into the dining room, she nearly dropped the whole tray when she turned around and saw Quinn winding his way through the boxes and random chairs. Honestly, he’d barely crossed her mind at all today, caught up as she was in the dozens of things all happening at once, and she belatedly realized she hadn’t even bothered to check to see if he’d been on the beach this morning with Scoop.
    He was casually dressed—not “play with Scoop on the beach” casual—but in cargo shorts that showed off his calf muscles nicely and a T-shirt that was already starting to stick to him from the humidity.
    That kiss she’d being ignoring flashed back to the forefront of her mind, knocking her off her stride a bit.
    Recovering quickly, she put the tray on a table and wiped an arm across her forehead, pushing the sweaty strands of escaped hair back. She did not want to think about what she looked like—or smelled like, for that matter—right now. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œThings were slow today, so I came to see if I could help.”
    â€œYet you arrive just in time for lunch.”
    â€œThat was not entirely coincidental,” he confessed with a smile. “You’re a good cook.”
    â€œWell, I’m happy to feed you, but this is not fun work. You don’t have to stay and help.”
    He reached for one of the pickle slices and popped it into his mouth. “Since I’d like to see you tonight, volunteering my labor is not fully altruistic.”
    A little thrill of excitement shot through her.
    So much for being patient.
    *  *  *
    He’d helped a lot of people move, and while he’d known this would be on a larger scale, the actual scale hadn’t been very clear. There was a huge difference between moving a friend from a two-bedroom apartment and moving
all
the furniture and