“Bad? It’s atrocious. What is that?”
“Smells like death,” he says.
“All my clothes are in here, so they probably smell too,” I say, moving to my closet where I open the door and find a dead rat, right in the middle.
The most blood-curdling scream flies out of my mouth as I jump back and run right into the brick wall behind me—the brickwall being Halsey. His arm goes around me as I squirm against his rock-hard chest.
“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice full of concern.
“A dead rat, a dead rat, there’s a dead rat.” I run in place. “A half-massacred, dead rat in my closet!”
“Really?” He leans over my shoulder for a look. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says in a menacing tone.
“Oh God, I’m going to puke it smells so bad in here.”
He quickly shuts the door behind me and places his arm around me. I squeeze in tight as the vision of rat guts dance precariously through my head. Holding me close, he leads me out of my bedroom and toward the front door. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“But I need to talk to the landlord because a rat is stinking up my clothes. Something needs to be done.”
“You’re not talking to the landlord—”
“Halsey—”
“You’re not talking to him . . . I am.”
And with that, he moves me out of the apartment, helps me lock up, since my hands are shaking, and then he takes my hand in his and walks me down the stairs, taking one at a time to make sure he doesn’t hurt his ankle again.
“Where is the office?” he asks.
“Halsey, you don’t—”
“Where is the office, Blakely?” he asks, his voice sterner this time.
Shocked, I answer, “In the back, last door on the right.”
Hand still in mine, he leads me back to the landlord’s apartment where he raises his fist and bangs on the door—not only startling me nearly out of my shoes but most likely the landlord as well.
While we wait, he turns toward me and quietly asks, “Are you okay?”
“Y-yes,” I answer, my mind whirling with the fact there is a dead rat in the closet...alongside the realization that Halsey has another side of him I’ve never seen before.
Protective.
It’s an asset I’ve always admired but never experienced until this moment.
He studies me, his hazel eyes examining me as if the rat himself came out and bit me. His hold on my hand grows tighter as he pulls me in closer to his side, and I allow it.
Not because I’m so terrified about a rat that if I don’t lean in I might faint, but because Halsey’s providing a form of comfort I want to lean into.He’s put me at ease.
You can hear my landlord rumbling around on the other side of the door. Halsey patiently waits, but I can see his fist gearing up to pound again for another knock. It takes about a minute, but when the landlord, Mr. Gorman, opens the door, I’m privileged to watch his face morph from utter annoyance to complete awe.
Look who’s a huge fan? It’s written all over his face. Too bad Halsey is not going to let the man fanboy.
“Halsey Holmes. Holy shit. Is it really you?”
Mr. Gorman pays no attention to me while he fumbles to sweep his hair to the side and straighten out his pizza sauce-stained shirt.
In a calm, but firm tone, Halsey says, “My girlfriend is renting 2B from you, the one that got flooded.” Girlfriend? Um . . . okay. Wasn’t expecting that, but I have no problem going along with it if it means this problem will be fixed, so I snuggle in close, playing the part.
