SADIE
My legs were curledup under me as I sat on the love seat in my room staring out at the breathtaking view of the Bay Bridge lit up over the water and reminded myself this was not my life.
“This is temporary, guys.” I directed the comment to Achoo who was snuggled up in a ball on my lap and Eeyore who was pressed up against my right thigh, but really I was saying it to myself. “Thisisn’treal life.”
I’d been here less than a week, but somehow the impossible had happened. This place had started feeling like home. Six days and Lexi, Alex, Achoo, Eeyore and I had fallen into a routine.
Lexi and I would spend the day together with Achoo and Eeyore. Then I’d make dinner while Lexi played with my fur babies in either a rousing game of school or beauty shop. Alex would arrive home at six sharp and we’d all eat together. He would then insist on doing the dishes with Lexi, even though I tried my best to help. He said the rule was the person who cooked was automatically exempt from cleaning.
Watching Alex do the dishes had turned out to be a ridiculously big turn-on. I got all tingly when he stood at the sink rinsing and washing. I wasn’t sure if it was just him, or all men doing that task that did it for me, mainly because he was the first man I’d ever been with who had actually cleaned.
And it was even sexier because he didn’t have to do it. Besides me, who had offered to do them every night, he had a house cleaner who came five days a week. But he insisted on doing them with Lexi. There was something so hot about that.
After dinner each night, I’d make myself scarce so that Alex and Lexi could spend time together. The dynamic they shared reminded me a lot of my dad and me.
Alex was an amazing father. The two of them had such a strong bond. I could feel myself getting attached to both of them which I knew was a dangerous path to go down. Soon, this fairytale would come to an end and I’d be back to my real life.
Thankfully, since the kitchen run-in I hadn’t had to remove my foot from my mouth. I still did an internal facepalm every time I thought about the fact I’d told him he looked photoshopped. Who does that? Me, apparently. And the worse part was, there was a good chance I’d do it again.
This arrangement was feeling far too comfortable and “right”. I’d had to mentally gag and hogtie my inner romantic because she was doing her best to convince me that this was what I’d been waiting for my whole life. Alex was my Prince Charming and I was here to rescue him from all the pain that he’d suffered. Crazy, right? He didn’t need saving. He was the most capable man I’d ever met.
I needed to remain a resident of Sane City but it was becoming increasingly difficult not to hop on the romance train that was headed to Happily Ever After Town.
Hopefully soon, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Apparently, Mr. Wilcox had sold the building. I’d spoken with Sheila who’d contacted me from Green Homes Property Management today and she’d assured me the new owner was going to be fast tracking the rebuild. The timeframe they gave me was just three more weeks. My dad had always been a huge Tom Hanks fan and we’d watchedMoney Pitat least a hundred times when I was growing up. As soon as she said three weeks, it reminded me of the contractors in that movie saying two weeks. I hoped that this rebuild turned out better than that did. If this took months, I wasn’t sure that I would make it out with my heart, head, or hormones intact.
Like I’d just reminded Eeyore and Achoo, this was temporary.
Tonight, I was off duty. Lexi was spending the night at Hannah’s house and Alex had a charity dinner to attend. I’d texted Charli to see if she wanted to hang out and maybe watch a movie, but she had plans with a baseball player that she’d helped rehab, so it was just going to be me and my fur babies, a bath, a bottle of wine and Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Ross and Rachel.
Friendsreruns were my go-to when I was feeling out of sorts or at loose ends, which was exactly how I was feeling tonight. Actually, I’d been feeling it all day. I was used to working all the time. Even before I owned my own business, I always had more than one job to stay afloat. San Francisco is not a city you can afford to live in with only one job. Free time was a foreign concept to me.
Alex and Lexi had spent the day at the Exploratorium. They’d invited me to go, but I hadn’t wanted to intrude on their time together, not that they ever made me feel that I was the third wheel. If anything, it felttoo rightspending time with the two of them.
So, I’d spent the day going over my financials from the last quarter. I found a few places I could tighten the belt and make some adjustments. But I’d finished crunching numbers over an hour ago and was now officially at loose ends.
First up, wine and bath. I picked Achoo up and tried to set her down beside me, but she jumped down to the floor and walked away from me with her head held high and her tail flicking, clearly offended that I’d disrupted her sleep.
“Sorry,” I apologized for moving her bed, which was my lap.
I kissed Eeyore on the head before standing and I’d just reached the bathroom when there was a knock at the door. My heart flipped in my chest and my stomach dropped. Lexi was gone, which meant it could only be one person. Alex.
My knees threatened to buckle with each step I took on legs that were shaking like a leaf in ninety miles per hour winds. Combine that with my breath which was doing its best rendition of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s “Shallow” as I walked across the room. I was officially a hot mess.
It was the damn run-in we’d had in the kitchen. Ever since I’d seen Mr. Smolder’s chest and abs up close and personal in 3D, my mind had been living in the gutter. I’d always had a vivid imagination; it had just never been so X-rated before.
Unwanted fantasies populated my mind like a computer virus. I imagined opening the door, Alex stepping inside, pushing me up against the wall, kissing me senseless and doing things to me that would make a porn star blush.
Stop!I instructed myself harshly.
Alex wasnotcoming to my door to make me come. It was much more probable that he was checking on me before he left. He did that. A lot. He was always making sure I was okay. That Lexi was okay. That Mrs. Garrett was okay. That his business was okay.
I’d started to wonder who made sure that he was okay.
I took a deep breath as I opened the door, steeling myself for the onslaught of sexiness I was sure to encounter. But all of my steeling was for naught. When I opened the door there was definitely a lot of sexiness, just not of the male variety.
I smiled widely at Mia as it dawned on me, I was staring at the answer to the question I’d just been pondering. Mia made sure that Alex was okay. She was constantly in contact with him and even though I’d only witnessed their relationship from a very peripheral viewpoint, it was clear how loyal and devoted she was to Alex.
