Page 38 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
Dressed in warm jammies and hair wrapped up in a towel, I leave the bathroom to find the house absolutely freezing. Wind rushes down the hallway and I hate that tickle of dread in the pit of my stomach. Why is the front door open? The inherent fear creeps up my spine over the possibility that my influential father and his puppet Ethan have found me and come to take me back home.
No, not home. This is my home now.
I glance back to Zander’s door—still shut—and debate whether I should knock and ask him to go check it out, my own overactive imagination taking over.
No, Getty. You don’t need any man, let alone an asshole like Zander, to help you. And the notion that I immediately wanted to get his help makes me dislike him even more. If he didn’t barge into this house, lie about us wanting to be roommates to Darcy, then I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter. I wouldn’t be able to hesitate. I’d have to act. And that’s the whole point, right? I came here to prove I don’t need anybody or anyone and yet the first time I get a little scared, I become a chicken.
Quit being such a wimp and go shut the door. The wood’s swollen from the rain. It probably didn’t click shut all the way the last time Zander used it.
With a nervous laugh and a quick glance at the mini-blind wand, I head down the hall to find the front door slightly ajar. See. Just the wind and rain.
“Goddammit!” The sound of Zander’s frustrated shout scares the shit out of me when I’m already on edge. I jump at the sound coming from outside, my nerves rattled but my temper lit from the combination of his comments earlier and his carelessness at leaving the door open.
I’m not sure what I expect to see, but what I do stops me dead in my tracks.
The hood of my car is up, a mechanic work light hanging from a hook on its underside, and Zander is bent over the engine. It takes me a good second or two to believe what I’m seeing, but when I do, I can’t seem to look away.
I’m a little shocked. Somewhat unsure. And have a bit of a bruised ego after my strong opinions about him being an asshole. But more than anything, I know that there’s something about him that captivates me.
And it’s not because he’s doing whatever he’s doing under the hood of my car to obviously help me out. No. It’s so much more than that . . . and at the same time, nothing at all.
It’s the way he looks. Hands braced on the front of the car, head hung down in concentration, water dripping off the bill of his baseball cap. And of course his shirt is plastered to his body, so that even through the rain, I can see the cords of muscles flexing as he reaches forward with the wrench and adjusts something. He seems to be a bit of bad boy, wounded soul, and life of the party all mixed into one package—effectively the anti-Ethan—and maybe the realization right now when I’m still semimad at him kind of knocks me back some. Makes me look a little closer when I should be looking the other way.
Despite what he said today—the quick barbs and the unapologetic push for more information—he obviously has a good heart and is trying to help me even though I was a bitch to him. I pushed his buttons on purpose to keep him at far enough of a distance to stop pushing mine. And yet despite everything, he’s out in the pouring rain working on my car.
And more than anything, it’s the way he makes me feel watching him. That warm feeling down deep in my belly. The goose bumps racing over my skin that have nothing to do with the temperature outside. How I want to go out and talk to him even though I still want to be mad at him. It seems so odd that I can’t remember what it feels like to have someone take care of me—not since my mother died—and yet now that I feel it, I can’t believe how much I’ve missed it.
Thoughts race through my mind. The kind that make you want and need, and I’m not in a position to want or need anything; I shove them away. Try to convince myself he’s fiddling with my car because he feels guilty about the things he said to me earlier.
But what guy does that, Getty?
I can’t like him. I just can’t. It’s not in the cards. Hell, it’s not even in the damn deck. And yet there he is. Soaking wet. Doing something to help me because I told him I couldn’t afford it.
Not only that, I insulted him, lashed out. I’d like to think maybe I did it to see what he’d do—whether he’d help me—so I could see the true nature of his character, but I was so angry there was no forethought in my off-the-cuff words.
Now I stand here at one o’clock in the morning having traded places with him—me warm and dry and him wet and cold—and the need to talk to him overwhelms me. And not just because he’s helping me, but because as messed up as it is, in a sense, he’s the only friend I have.
I venture into the kitchen to find a peace offering. Maybe I can round up some cookies or a beer or something, but the offerings are meek considering my appetite lately has been nil and money’s been tight. So when I open the refrigerator and find it stocked to the gills with fresh produce and beer and everything else I could imagine, I’m a tad taken aback. I open the cupboards and find them just as full of cereal boxes and cookies and pasta.
My vision blurs in the face of the humility that washes over me. I bite back the urge to storm out there and confront him. I’m embarrassed that he actually heard me when I said I couldn’t afford to repair my car; that he realized that was why the house was so light on groceries and took it upon himself to run to the store and buy food.
In the pouring rain.
My pride wars with the attraction I feel toward him. I don’t want a handout of any kind. Don’t want the pity of a man—let alone any other of the islanders here—in any way, shape, or form. Because it was my choice to flee and leave my old life behind. All the privilege. The control that ruled my every waking moment.
The punishments.
I knew it was going to be tough. I knew it was going to be lonely. And so I hold back the tears of frustration, my own self-pity, and wonder how to thank Zander for all of this and at the same time to tell him to never do it again without sounding ungrateful.
I close the cupboards, bottom lip between my teeth, and reach into the fridge for a cold bottle of beer. But it’s when I open the drawer of silverware to get a bottle opener that I get an even bigger surprise than the food. I know it’s silly and stupid, but when I look down to the tray, the silverware is sitting every which way. Gone is the perfect alignment from yesterday with everything in its proper place. The slot for forks has the big ones mixed with the little ones—some tines facing up, some tines facing down. The spoons too. The knives are a mishmash of butter and steak thrown in several slots.
In disbelief and filled with gratitude, I stare at the disarray. Such a mess wasn’t allowed in Ethan’s house. And there’s a small part of me that sags in relief at knowing I wasn’t wrong about Zander or his kind heart. That he has gone through all this trouble—even messing the silverware drawer up—to give me whatever he thought I needed based on my rant the other night, even though he didn’t understand why.
I’ve been shown a lot of kindness in the last few months. By Darcy with this place to live and Liam with a job when I have zero experience, but this by far has been the sweetest thing because of the history behind it.
Grabbing the beer and a beach towel, I head to the front door, but just as I’m going out, Zander is coming in. Water drips off every inch of him and pools on the rug inside the front door.
Our eyes meet, blue to brown, and in that instant there is so much I want to say to him but there are no words to express it. I hold the beer and the towel out to him despite feeling even more ridiculous considering I’m offering him a cold beer when he’s probably freezing to death.
