“I’m fine being a nerd.” My voice was suddenly Woody Harrelson high. “I wear my nerdiness with pride.”
Nathan held my gaze for what felt like a really long time. “Okay,” he said finally. “She’s a menace. Why do you think she’s here?”
“I don’t know.” I leaned against the counter and folded my arms. “I’ve been wondering about that too. I just can’t fathom why she would be here in the first place.”
“Maybe she’s stalking you. She could be like the shark in the fourthJawsmovie. It stalks a family from Maine to the Bahamas.”
I scorched him with a look. “That is … ridiculous.”
“Then maybe it was a coincidence.”
“Do you even believe in coincidences?”
He considered it for a beat. “Not really. I guess you’ll have to feel her out.” He stood as if he was finished, but then a wicked smile overtook his features. “Or you could feel her up because there was definitely a spark.”
I extended my finger toward the door. “Get out.”
He laughed. “Try to get some writing in, huh?” He was amiable as he ambled toward the door. “Maybe the spark is what you’ve been missing.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
MY GOAL WAS TO WRITE. NO MATTERwhat, I had to write two thousand words. After two hours, I only had forty. Frustrated, sick of the entire mess, and mad at myself, I abandoned my laptop and grabbed the bill the golf cart mechanic had left on my counter.
I couldn’t concentrate with this hanging over my head, so I headed to Bree’s house. I didn’t have her exact address. I did, however, know she was on Yam Gandy Road.
I used Zillow to see which houses had been recently purchased. There were only two. The first had a toddler playing in the front yard, and as far as I knew, Bree was not a mother. The second house, however, had a scooter out front. Bree might not have been able to ride it through the community, but apparently, she had no problem putting it on display.
The moment I saw the scooter, I second-guessed myself and swung back around, determined to walk home and send the bill. Then I got angry at myself for being a coward and turned back.
I was going to do this. I wasn’t afraid of her. She owed me for the golf cart, and she was going to pay up.
I stalked up the front steps to her house, raised my hand, ready to knock loud enough to wake the dead, then frowned when I heard a voice. Notavoice.Hervoice. She was talking nonstop, which made me think she was on the phone.
I had manners, even if she didn’t. Interrupting her phone call wasn’t good. Then I realized she wasn’t talking on the phone. She was dictating a book. I could tell because she wasusing punctuation cues. She would say a sentence then add “insert period” or “close quotation marks.” I listened for several minutes, marveling at the words she seemed to have no problem conjuring.
It made me irrationally angry. Sure, I had a right to be mad at her—she’d almost killed me, after all, and she was not a very nice person—but this was something else entirely.
I was a brutally honest guy, which meant I had to acknowledge that it wasn’t really anger I was feeling. It was jealousy. Here she was, mere hours after she could have killed Nathan and me, dictating a book as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Why wasn’t she at least shaken? I didn’t expect her to be prostrate with apology, although that would have been a nice touch, but an errant tear or two would have helped.
Without thinking, I opened the screen door without knocking and stepped onto her sun porch. It was stacked with boxes. It looked as if a library had thrown up, there were so many books scattered in every direction. There seemed to be a lot of shoes too.How many shoes is too many?
From my position on the porch, I could see into her kitchen. That only served to make me angrier. Not only was she dictating—and like a rockstar—but she was multitasking and unpacking at the same time. She seemed to be a whirlwind. Sometimes life just wasn’t fair.
“Hey,” I said to draw her attention.
She didn’t look over, just continued to talk about vampire fangs and … wait, vampire fangs and what? Oh, geez. She was dictating a sex scene.
Everything went ramrod straight. I looked down at my crotch.Don’t even think about it.
“Hey,” I said a little louder, determined to get the words out.
Still nothing but fang talk.
“Hey!” I yelled.
That was enough to catch her attention. She turned quickly, her eyes going wide, and dropped the items in her hands. All I saw was bright bits of fluttery lace and satin. The lingerie hit the ground in front of me. It took everything I had not to look at it.
