“They ran to the back of the property, and tried digging under the fence again. I got Thor pretty easily, but for Maverick I had to call Jason in early. You havenoidea how fast he is.”
“Oh, I have an idea,” I told her. “Remember that meet and greet, when the little boy let him off the leash to race him? We couldn’t catch him for two hours.”
I noticed her nail was broken. It had Maverick written all over it.
“Sorry about that,” I apologized. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Monica shrugged. “Jason was coming in soon anyway. Plus, he’s faster than the both of us. Long legs. Besides, you were sleeping like a princess. All you needed was the tiara.”
I reached up mechanically, and fluffed out my hair. I could only imagine what I looked like.
“Can you check the emails again?” Monica nodded toward the back. “The Sandersons were supposed to be coming in for Sebastian, but they’re late. He’s all prepped. I hope they don’t bail.”
“If they don’t bail, I’m taking him,” I smiled. “He’s adorable.”
My eyes flitted upward, to the long gray cat in the top cage. Sebastian’s tail was poking out, as usual. It curled left and right in a slow, swaying motion, as I made my way past him and into the back room.
Leaving a cage unlatched was a pretty egregious error. But to do it twice in one day? That meant I was tired, or distracted, or both.
Oh baby, it’s both.
A wicked smile crossed my face for the umpteenth time today. I couldn’t stop thinking about Carter, Sawyer, and Bodie.I couldn’t get the events of this past weekend out of my horny mind, either. Not that I wanted to.
Over and over, my brain kept recalling the sights, sounds, and amazing feels of this past weekend. My body was sore everywhere; my core, my feet, the insides and outsides of my thighs. I hadn’t been to the mountains in a while, and I was out of practice. Those muscles weren’t bouncing back like they used to.
But the other, more intimately sore parts of my body? Well, they were distracting me even more.
It had felt good to be home, to take a shower in my apartment, and to put on my own, familiar clothes. The strange part was how much I missed the guys. I missed them immediately, and not just for typically selfish, physical reasons. I missed talking with them, relaxing with them. Joking around with them, and laughing at their jokes.
I’d had an amazing time with them, even without all the incredible, life-altering sex. As sweet as the cherry on that sundae had been, I found myself just wanting to be around them.
Three times I’d picked up my phone and almost dialed them. All three times I’d stopped. My phone had been inundated with hundreds of calls, voice mails, and text-messages from Cole. I’d stood at the counter this morning; and deleted every one of them.
No, reaching out to the guys would have to wait. I had to settle things with Cole, first. There was no way I was dragging that baggage into their busy lives. Not after all they’d already endured and done for me, to keep me away from his big, stupid grasp.
Settling things with him wouldn’t be easy, but I’d done it before. Way back in high school, Cole had pulled some fairly radical stunts when he realized he was losing me. He’d done the explosion of flowers thing, showered me with candy, and even covered my yard in candles, which had been cute. But then the flowers had gotten weird, and the candy creepy. He quit his job as a golf caddy; to prove that ‘I came first’, and tattooed my name on the back of his right hand, so he’d never stop being reminded of me.
By now that tattoo was covered by dozens of others that sleeved out his entire arm. As crazy as he was in high school, Cole had been young, and inexperienced. Back then, he could be somewhat reasoned with. He also hadn’t gone through a testosterone-fueled bodybuilding regiment, enhanced by steroids, or the intense pipeline that led him to the upper echelon of the MMA world.
It was a pressure, it turned out, he ultimately couldn’t handle.
Eventually, I was able to shove all male thoughts from my mind — good and bad. I took care of the emails, completed my rounds, and finished out my afternoon at the shelter. The Sandersons showed up apologetically, after a bit of car trouble. Sebastian got adopted, smiles were had, and cute photos were taken. I posted them to the shelter’s website, closed out my computer, and gathered my things. After apologizing for Monica’s nail one last time, I headed home.
I was only three steps into my apartment when my whole body froze.
Everything had been changed.
My bag slipped from my shoulder. Mouth still open, I let it drop heavily to the floor. A cold, terrible feeling stole over me, making my skin crawl. It also felt oddly like I was being watched.
“H—Hello?”
The word echoed strangely in the empty apartment. Only it wasn’t empty. It was filled with all new things, a new couch, all new furniture. Shelves had been installed where my entertainment center once stood. A new, bigger television hung on the wall, just above where the one had rested on its sleek plastic stand.
What the actual fuck!?
For a very confused moment I turned around, thinking I’d walked into the wrong unit. That somehow I’d zigged instead of zagged, and I was in a completely different apartment, furnished by the people who lived there.
Only that couldn’t be the case. Not only did my key fit perfectly in the lock, but there were still remaining elements of my past furnishings I could still recognize. The kitchen table, for one. That, plus the rolling caddy, next to the stove, that I’d picked up the first day I was here. The photo-frame magnets on the fridge were all mine, although they’d been arranged differently. And the knife block — which for some reason was entirely empty — was mine, too.
