Page 10 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
“Hmm,” he muses, “Darce went on a girls’ trip up to the mountains. No service. She’ll be home midweek. . . . I’ll have to ask her about it then.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Not in the least. There’s two beds. One bath. You’re a big boy. Figure it out,” he says with another chuckle before the line goes dead.
“Goddammit. Smitty?” Zander swears again as he drops the phone onto the countertop with a thud. He braces both hands on the counter, head angled down looking at his phone while I look at him across the dimly lit room. Waiting. Wondering. Pushing aside the tickle of unease on the back of my neck as I hold tighter to the towel.
My gaze flickers around the room frantically. My instinct is to try to find the smallest corner to fade into. Figure out where the fallout of his temper will have the least impact.
After a moment, he lifts his head up and smirks. The tightness in my chest, the fear that crept in out of conditioning, slowly eases as I exhale.
“Well, shit. I guess we’ve been told,” he says as he breezes past me down the hallway.
It takes me a moment to regain my bearings and realize I’m not back there and this stranger isn’t Ethan, before I turn on my heel and rush once again down the hall after him.
“Whoa. Wait!”
“What for?” Zander turns back around like he has not a care in the world. Like he’s not in his underwear with one foot currently trapped in the leg of my skirt, and I’m not in a towel with knee-high socks on.
“You’re not staying here.”
He chuckles. “Yes, actually, I am.”
“No, you’re not. There’s a hotel down the road on the boardwalk. A bed-and-breakfast too.”
“You heard the man. There are two beds. One bath. Pretty straightforward.”
Oh my God. The man is infuriating. And pigheaded. “You’re not hearing me.”
“No, I’m hearing you all right. I’m just choosing not to listen.” He works his tongue in his cheek and lifts his eyebrows in a nonverbal challenge. “Besides, I promised Smitty I’d fix the place up and as of recently, I’m a man of my word. So I’m going to do just that.”
Something about the way he says the last statement tells me there is more behind it than he’s letting on, but I’m tired from my shift and can’t find the effort to care.
“You can do your repairs but stay at the hotel,” I instruct in my sternest voice as he turns around and heads toward the back of the house. “A win-win for both of us.” I attempt to infuse enthusiasm in my voice.
“Did you take the big bedroom?”
“What?” My head is spinning. Did he not hear a word I just said? He is not staying here. He can’t. This is my space. Well, technically Darcy and Smitty’s space, but it’s been mine for almost three months. The first place I’ve had as my own, ever, and it’s working—I have no other option but for it to work—so there is no way this is going to happen.
“I asked if this is your shit in the big bedroom in back?” he asks over his shoulder as he goes to turn the knob on the door.
“Did you touch it?” My defiance comes back immediately. My scattered thoughts are now focused. After being trivialized for so long, my privacy is so very important to me. Did he go in, rifle through my stuff? See my wor
k, the bleed of my emotion onto canvas, and judge it?
“No.” His answer is resolute. I’m right behind him, so when he turns around and sees what I can assume is the panic on my face, he angles his head and stares for a moment longer. “I opened the door, figured the stuff was Darcy’s from the last time they were here. Didn’t want to touch anything I wasn’t supposed to, so I dropped my shit in there.” He points to the only other bedroom in the house, right next to mine.
He’s too close for comfort, so when he steps back to turn to face me, I retreat too. The space between us is clogged with his . . . his . . . everything about him, and I find it hard not to react.
“Wait. Stop.” I hold my hands up, shake my head. “Just give me a minute here.” Give me space.
“Take all the time you want in the world, Socks,” he says, eyes full of a strange mix of humor and sincerity. And yet he doesn’t step back, doesn’t shift out of the way, so it’s the wall behind me and him directly in front of me.
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” He doesn’t move, just continues to look at me with a face that’s the portrait of innocence, and yet a hunch tells me he’s anything but.
“Personal space, here,” I say sternly, motioning with my one free hand for him to back up some.
