This was what I got for trusting Calder.
I had to learn to stop getting into cars with hot guys.
Knox shut off the car, and I prepared to run. “Yeah, I kind of lied about that part.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” My flip-flops were going to make running through the oak trees surrounding the cabin difficult.
I guess some people got to have calm, normal lives, and I got the one with adventure and not being able to pay my bills.
“This is better than an extended stay,” Knox said as he got out of the car. When I didn’t join him, he opened my door and leaned in. The smell of his cologne hit me in the face and turned me into a drunken sailor. “This is totally off-grid. It’s not on any map. A friend of mine keeps them in a safe place for them to stay.”
“Do you have friends who often need safe places to run?” Who exactly was this nice-smelling hot guy?
He nodded. “Yes, and I’m looking at one right now.”
My half-smile fell. “I am fine. You and Calder are overreacting. Also, we are not friends.”
“Noted,” he said with a smirk and stepped out of the way so I could get out of the car.
Knox grabbed my bag from the backseat of the car as I walked up the short porch steps to the front door.
“How do we get in?” I asked at the door without a keyhole.
He stepped beside me, flipped the small lid off a box next to the door, and punched in a code too quickly for me to see the numbers. “There’s a code.”
“Right, I saw that part.” Annoyance crept into my words. Honestly, I felt a little bad about it. This wasn’t Knox’s fault. He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now he had to stay with me in some off-grid cabin.
The door swung open, and he stepped in first. “Wait here.”
I didn’t listen and walked in right after him. “I thought you said this place was safe? Why do you need to check it?”
He sighed as he turned back to me. “It’s just a thing we do. To be sure.”
My eyes widened as I got my first sight of the cabin’s interior. “No,” I said in horror.
“What?” Knox’s body grew stiff as he searched for what upset me.
I pointed to the corner of the one-room cabin. “There’s only one bed.”
“Oh.” He walked further in and dumped my bag and his on the floor beside the offending furniture. “It’s a king.”
“There’s only one.” I pointed at each of us. “And there’s two of us.”
There wasn’t even a couch. Just two wooden chairs next to a table off to the side of a small kitchen, which was really just a small two-burner stove and a mini-fridge.
“It’s a little sparse, but it will do the job,” he said as he caught me checking out the rest of the cabin.
A closed door beside the kitchen had to be the bathroom. Well, no, it was either the bathroom, or I was leaving. I only had so many limits, and we were approaching my load capacity.
“We’re both adults, Emerson. It will be fine.”
His words hit me like a brick to the head. The anxiety I’d been keeping locked up flooded to the top and out my mouth. “It’s not going to be fine. Nothing is going to be fine.”
“It’s really not that big of a deal,” he said, his eyes growing wide to match my panic. “We can shove a bunch of pillows between us if that will make you feel better. And I promise I don’t snore.”
My shoulders slumped. “It’s not about the stupid bed, Knox. Everything is wrong. My boat is gone. I’m losing everything. Even my apartment is gone at the end of the month when I can’t pay my rent.” Which I couldn’t do without the grant funding I needed for manatee protection and research.
“Well, then I guess dinner is on me,” he said, laying a hand on my shoulder.
