Because while our house needs work, this houseneeds work. Given the peeling paint and sag in the screen door and the porch about to collapse, I can only imagine what the interior is like.
I reach for the manual drill to move to the other side of the porch, and the damn thing slips through my fingers.
And the fucker doesn’t just drop onto wood. It hits the cracked concrete planter and ricochets off my shin before falling off the porch onto the concrete below.
“Motherfucker,” I curse, dropping to a knee so I can grip my shin. “Son of a bitch,” I whisper.
I take a breath, then another, as my heartbeat settles, but then—movement.
A curtain twitches in Isla’s front window.
I freeze, wondering what to do for the best.
Her silhouette appears faintly backlit. She looks smaller than usual. Bet she’s half-awake, trying to figure out who the hell is messing around her house.
“Is that you, Kevin? Because I’m calling the police.”
Ahh, shit. She thinks it’s her uncle or someone else coming to fuck with her.
I step in front of the window, hear the scream, and see the curtains fall shut. “It’s me. Shade.”
The curtains sway, but Isla doesn’t return.
“Isla, I’m not trying to break in. I dropped my drill.”
It takes a few seconds, but the front door opens a crack. “What…What are you doing here?”
She looks so fucking cute and cuddly. Plaid pajamas in a brushed fabric that looks fleecy and soft. She’s not wearing a scrap of make-up and her face looks…soft.
That word again.
Soft.
Someone you could cuddle into.
And even though my cock is drained, it still has the audacity to stir.
I point to the camera that will cover the area from her front door down the driveway. “Was fitting you some cameras.”
She glances over to where I’m pointing. “I didn’t ask you to do that,” she says. “Certainly not at night.”
Her long hair, toffee-colored, now, instead of blonde, is in a braid, and her eyes are puffy from sleep. But there’s no missing the emotional sharpness to her tone. The words poke at something sore in me. That my help is unwanted or unneeded.
“I know you didn’t.”
“Then, why?”
“Because someone needed to,” I reply, my words harsher than intended.
Her chin lifts, defensiveness etched in the tightness of her shoulders. “I can take care of myself.”
I breathe hard or else I’m gonna say something I shouldn’t. Something that will make this all worse. “Never said you couldn’t. But I heard the way your voice wobbled just then when you said Kevin’s name.”
“Then why are you on my porch, in the middle of the night, scaring me half to death? I’m not some problem you have to fix.”
Something pulls taut in my chest, like a wire being yanked tight. “You’re not the problem, Isla.” I force myself to soften my voice. “But your uncle and your cousin sure as hell are. I saw the way you looked when they were letting bullets fly. I’m not stupid. You’re scared of something, of them coming back, and I hate that you’re over here alone.”
Her expression flickers with shades of shame and anger and confusion.
