🥊 Hate or Fate 💕 {Enemies to Lovers}

.58.

I was at the perfect level to send the rubber tip of my shoe sailing into Braxton's smarmy chin for his disgusting comment. Instead, I steeled my spine and frowned.

"Where's your flannel, Braxton?" Gray sneered, his face morphing into the sullen mask he used when Elijah and I were dating. "Didn't you get the email?"

"Wait," Braxton's eyes pinged between us while he scratched his patchy face scruff. "Was there really a group email? Were we supposed to coordinate outfits?"

"No," I scowled and racked my brain for a snappier comeback. "It was a group text."

Braxton's hopeful smile faded out as soon as he realized that we were messing with him. 

Gray angled his face away to try and hide his wry snickering at Braxton's expense. 

Shameless as ever,  Braxton just stood there and stared at us with a malevolent expression. Like he was thinking of the lies he was going to tell HR when he had us written up for insubordination (or some such bullshit).

"Very funny," Braxton scoffed indignantly. "Just so you know, we've got little twerps coming in about thirty minutes."

"Cool, thanks," I snapped. 

The whole exchange left me super annoyed, and slightly flustered, so I huffed and pushed upward to continue working and to hopefully signal that our conversation was over. I still had six feet of wire to secure, and I was running drastically low on zip ties (not to mention, patience).

Of course, I got up too fast. 

The ladder wobbled precariously at the sudden movement. My body reacted automatically and I flailed my arms like a panicked turkey to compensate for the sudden loss of balance. 

I dropped quickly, desperately grabbing for the small metal platform and missing with a terrified yelp that caught everyone's attention. 

"Jesus, Isla!" Gray grunted and dove forward to hold the legs of the ladder to stop it (and me) from crashing to the floor. 

"Woah there, missy!" Braxton stepped in to help, which to him, meant cupping the back of my denim-clad thigh so close to my ass that I almost screamed again. "You shouldn't be climbing ladders and doing grunt work, let's get a production assistant to finish this off."

"I'm fine," I insisted, wrenching my leg away from his lecherous fingers.

Only, I wasn't.

Gravity took over and I slipped right off the top of the ladder to wince away from the floor zooming at my face.

I was too shocked to even scream, so someone else did it for me. 

In a scary blur of noise and color, I felt a pair of massive arms snatch my body out of freefall to pin me to the heaving chest of my strapping hero.  

When I opened my eyes, Gray was inches from my face and panting so hard I could hear the scrape of his lungs. His ordinarily tranquil eyes were wide and intense. 

I was squashed against his tantalizing body and everyone in the room was staring at us. 

Chaos erupted around us, but I was too caught up in Gray to care. 

All I could hear was the desperate rasp of his breath. All I could feel was the warmth of his chest soaking into me, calming the shivers racking my bones. 

His heady scent, that familiar blend of dark bitter chocolate and sweet tobacco laced with citrus, wound up my nostrils.

"Are you alright?" Gray whispered, studying me with trepidation creasing his beautiful face.