Page 54 of The Way I Hate Him
HAYES
I let out a large sigh as I stare down at my phone.
Five minutes late so far.
I swear she’s doing this intentionally to drive me nuts.
If she is, it’s fucking working.
Instead of sitting on the porch, I’m sitting on my island, staring at the front door, waiting. That’s when I see her fly into my driveway, in my car, putting it in park and sprinting to the front door with her backpack in hand. Funnily, she glances at the Adirondack chair I’ve scared her twice in, and then she puts the code in my front door and pushes through, only to come to a screaming halt when she sees me sitting on the counter.
“Dear God, don’t you have better things to do than wait around to startle me?”
“You’re late,” I say.
She pushes her wet hair out of her face. “The commute was a real bitch.”
“It’s fifteen minutes.”
“A stressful fifteen minutes at that, can’t even fit in a solid playlist.” She sets her bag on the couch, near her bundles of papers, and then scans me. “Did you seriously not make yourself coffee?”
“That’s your job. I’m paying you extra for it, which seems like I’m getting the short end of the bargain with that deal.”
“The minute you hired me, you were getting the short end of the bargain.”
She moves past me, the sweet scent of her shampoo wafting by me. She grabs a mug from the cabinet and pulls out the creamer. I watch in dismay as she pours the creamer into the mug, sets it under the coffee maker, then fills it with a pod and turns it on.
“I thought I told you creamer after.”
“You did, but I’ve done this for the last two days, and you didn’t notice, so suck it, Hayes.”
She then pulls out the things needed for my protein shake. I watch her work around my kitchen as if she belongs here, and it oddly feels right. Don’t think I’ve ever had someone familiar with my home before, other than Abel.
“You know, you should switch it up every once in a while with these smoothies. Don’t you get tired of the same thing over and over again?”
“No,” I answer. “I like routine. I like the same thing.”
“Maybe if you switched it up, you might be able to write another song.”
“Switching up what I put in my smoothie will not help me hit the top ten on the Billboard list.”
“You never know until you try,” she replies right before she turns on the blender and smiles at me.
While my smoothie blends, my coffee finishes up, and I go to grab it, but she holds up her hand to me.
“I need to earn my money. You asked for a delivery, I’m going to give you a delivery.” She picks up the mug and then holds it in front of her as if it’s a diamond on a red velvet pillow and walks it toward me. “Your fuel, your mages—Oh mother of pearl,” she screeches. “My toe, oh my God, my toe!”
“What?” I ask, trying to figure out what the hell just happened, but before I can hop off the counter to check on her toe, she stumbles and grumbles from the pain, and I watch in horror as the freshly brewed coffee tilts forward, brown liquid propelling out of the mug and onto my leg.
“Fuck!” I yell, leaping off the counter.
Crash.
The mug flies to the floor, shattering into pieces.
Burning-hot liquid sears right through my pants and onto the meat of my thigh.
“Motherfucker,” I yell while shimmying out of my pants as quickly as I can.
