Business 101 textbook
A surprising amount of athletic wear (?)
Not one but two pairs of running shoes (??)
Like he is in real life, his personal items are a snoozefest. Except for the athletic attire. Didn’t think someone as wound up as Gavin did anything remotely leisurely.
Suddenly a noise startles me. Thinking I’ve been caught snooping, I reflexively throw Gavin’s things back into his bag. I peek my head in the hallway expecting to see Gavin, but the door to the room he’s in is still closed. When I realize it’s not Gavin making the noise, I pop my AirPod out just as a loud knock at the door comes. I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad would not be knocking on the door to our new, but very temporary, home. But if this isn’t Mom or Dad, who could it be? Gavin’s head pops out of the room with the same puzzled expression on his face. We flinch when the knock comes again, this time with even more force, like someone’s pounding on the door.
“Blaire law enforcement,” a deep male voice announces through the door. “There’s been suspicious activity happening in this location. Please open up.”
Gavin and I stare at each other with the same helpless expression. Even though my head is swirling with a mix of fear and uncertainty, it’s not lost on me that this is the most Gavin and I have had in common since we got here.
Chapter 8
Despite announcing himself as law enforcement, the man standing on our stoop is dressed in overalls and has a beard covering half his face. Unless it’s agricultural law he’s involved in, I’m unlikely to believe him. I find myself leaning for protection into Gavin, who, at the moment, is the lesser of two evils.
“Sorry to trouble you today. I’m Officer Hartford. Are you the proprietor of the house?” he asks.
Proprietor?I swallow a laugh. I hardly want to be a tenant. “Are you kidding? I’d rather die than call this my house.” Then I add a second later, “No offense.”
He angles his face at me. “So you don’t live here?”
“What she means is, we’re living here. Temporarily,” Gavin clarifies.
“So you do live here?” Officer Hartford scratches the back of his head.
Has he not been listening to anything we’ve said?“We. Are. Staying. Here. Only. For. A. Short. Time.Not”—I shake my head for added emphasis—“forever.”I speak loudly and slowly in case he has trouble with comprehension.
Gavin jabs me.
“What the hell, Gavin? You don’t have to break a rib.”
“What’re you doing?” Gavin hisses at me.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m talking louder in case he doesn’t understand what we’re saying.”
Gavin blinks at me, open-mouthed. I’ve never wanted to gouge an eye out as much as I do now. And I’ve had to fight a dude trying to cut me in line for the bathroom at Coachella.
“Right,” Gavin drawls out. “And talking louder is going to get him to understand your words better.”
I know he’s trying to make a point with that all-knowing, holier-than-thou tone in his voice. So I ignore him. And apparently so does the man—I mean,police officer?
“Ma’am, I’m just trying to find the source of some suspicious activity going on at this location.”
If I weren’t so worried by thesuspiciouspart of the sentence, I’d be more troubled by thema’ampart. (Excuse me, but I could pass for a mature twenty-year-old—twenty-one, tops!)
“Officer, I think you’re mistaken,” Gavin says, putting on his nice-guy act. “We’ve been doing nothing untoward.”
