“The handyman is around here somewhere,” Rory said loudly, his voice on the other side of the door. “Although I can’t imagine where he went!”
I dropped down with Marlene, and my brain started racing. Considering they were on the other side of that wall, inside the house wasn’t necessarily any better than the yard. But still, my soul was begging for them to save me, to find me before something even worse happened.
My heart pounded. This was just the kind of bullshit I always got myself into. I had to act out and try to push things, instead of just chilling out. No fucking way the guys wanted to deal with this shit, and now I was going to make a mess out of things in front of their kid, too.
“Fuck yourself, Asher. Why you have to screw everything up?”
I glanced around the yard, then decided to make one more run for it. Tucking Marlene under my arm, I made a beeline through the middle of the open yard and toward the shed.
Which was when the poodle finally lost her cool and barked her head off the entire way.
I got to the shed, shut the door behind me, and deposited Marlene on the floor. The shed was our place, I figured. I’d practically made the thing for Franklin and Rory. They’d know to look for me here, and if they didn’t, Marlene’s high-pitched yelp would do the trick.
I pushed my hand through my hair, then took a couple of deep breaths to calm down. “Just wait for Franklin and Rory,” I told myself, folding my arms over my chest and feeling the cold all over again. “They don’t want a naked guy in their shed any more than you want to be here.”
