Love and Neckties (Rockland Falls Book 4)

by Lacey Black

  “Be serious, Freedom. We can’t stay married.”

  “We can.” And we will.

  “No, Freedom, this isn’t the way it’s done. We can’t just get married in Vegas and live happily ever after,” he says, as he maneuvers the streets toward my apartment building.

  “Harper and Latham did,” I tell him.

  “But they were in love beforehand. We’re not in love,” he says, turning onto my street.

  I open my mouth to respond, to tell him we’re not in love yet, but something out of the corner of my eye catches my attention. I turn to my building, shocked to find so much…stuff outside. As we pull up, I realize it’s my stuff outside. “What the hell?” I find myself saying, as Samuel pulls to a stop in the street.

  Jumping out of the car, I take off toward the building, spying my massage table resting against my stove. Sitting on the sidewalk. With my clothes haphazardly thrown in piles beside it. “Holy shitballs,” I gasp, my hands covering my mouth.

  “What is this stuff?” Samuel asks as he approaches, his hands shoved casually in his pockets.

  “It’s my stuff! Why is it in the front yard?” I ask, just as Mr. Monet comes out the front door.

  “Oh, Freedom, there you are. We’ve been looking for you,” he says, walking around my bathroom vanity, the wood surprisingly swollen and watermarked.

  “What in hell’s bells happened here? Why is my stuff on the front lawn?” I ask, glancing around before returning my gaze to him.

  “Well, there was a slight problem with the apartment above yours,” he says as he goes over to my fridge, opens it, and takes a cranberry juice bottle, as if it’s completely normal to pull a drink from a refrigerator sitting in the middle of the yard. Never mind the fact it’s not his fridge.

  “What happened?” Samuel asks, sort of stepping in and taking control.

  “Well,” Mr. Monet starts, scratching both his head on his paunch belly at the same time. “There was a water leak up at the Foremans’ upstairs. They didn’t realize it because the water was running down the wall to the apartment below.”

  “My apartment,” I derive, cold sliver of dread sliding down my spine.

  “Yep, your apartment. It must have started last Thursday night or Friday morning. The water ran all weekend until it started pouring out from under your door this morning. But by that point, it ran down your wall too and soaked the place directly underneath you too. All three apartments. Ruined.”

  “Ruined?” I ask, the words catching in my throat.

  “Oh, definitely. We got all your stuff here in the front yard and George’s stuff in the back. And Frank’s is sort of mixed between the two places,” he says, scratching his balls.

  “Swell,” I relay, heading over to check out my soaked clothes.

  “We got a truck coming to take all the appliances out, but you’re gonna have to move all your stuff. Preferably right away. You know, so it doesn’t make the place look junky and stuff.”

  Right.

  “How long?” I ask. “How long will I be out of here?”

  He scratches his gut once more and glances back at the building. “Three weeks? At least.”

  “Three weeks? I don’t know what to do,” I whisper to no one, trying to piece together how I’m going to move all my stuff and where I’m going to put it. It’s not like I keep a storage unit handy, just in case my apartment floods and I need to clear it out.

  “I’ve got this,” Samuel says, placing his hand on my arm and pulling his phone from his pocket. He steps away and makes a call as I start digging through my soppy underwear. Mr. Monet lingers, wiping sweat off his brow as he leans against my dresser.

  Sighing, I glance at everything I own. Fortunately, I’m a minimalist and not a stuff person. I don’t keep miscellaneous and frivolous things, just for the sake of filling a shelf or cabinet. I guess you can thank my childhood for that. It’s not like we were making paper mâché angels and framing family photos. If we made something, it was with the intention of selling it. It’s how we survived.

  So, there’s no surprise everything I own doesn’t really take up too much space on the lawn. I find my hamper and clothes basket and start wringing out the soppy, grass-covered clothes, chucking them inside. Everything in my dresser is still dry, so I leave it be for now. I find my kitchen stuff all haphazardly thrown in diaper boxes—I probably don’t want to know where those came from—and my bathroom stuff wrapped up in my bedspread. And my favorite beads—the ones that were hanging from my bedroom doorway—are in a tangled pile, the plastic bar that extended across the doorframe broken.

  Yeah, this isn’t how I expected my fun weekend away to end.

  “Okay, so we’re going to take this stuff to Mom’s garage. Rhenn didn’t have much, so there should be room,” Samuel says, shoving his phone back in his pocket.

  “I’m staying at the bed and breakfast?” I ask, my heart pounding in my chest.

  “Uhh, no. We’re storing your stuff there. Unfortunately, Mom doesn’t have any availability right now.” He glances down at the pile of wet material and straightens his necktie.

  “Where am I staying?” I ask, mostly to myself.

  “I was getting ready to call Harper.”

  “I can’t stay there! They’ll be returning from Vegas tomorrow and be all honeymoon-ish. I won’t be a third wheel on their honeymoon, Sammy. That’s just gross.”

  “Well, then I’ll call Jensen and Kathryn. They have all those rooms in her big place,” he counters, pulling his phone back out.

  “Didn’t they just start the second-half of a remodel? I thought they were taking down more walls on the second floor and updating the bathrooms. And there’s no way I’d be comfortable taking Max’s room, which you know as well as I do, that’s what they’d offer me.” I sigh, my shoulders sagging in defeat. I could call my work friend, Claire, but I know she’s in a one-bedroom apartment too. Her place isn’t big enough to have me underfoot for the next few weeks. “There’s only one option left.”

  He looks up from his phone, and his face already gives away his uncertainty. “What?”

  “I’m just going to have to stay with you.”

  He swallows hard, but doesn’t say anything.

  “The way I see it, Sammy, you’re about the only person I know who has a guest room available. You won’t even know I’m there,” I assure him.

  Samuel reaches down and picks up a pair of wet panties. He holds them up and gapes at them, as if the sight of them horrifies him. “I find that very hard to believe, Freedom.”

  He tosses them into the nearest clothes basket as Rhenn and his big truck pulls up to the building. Samuel takes off his suit jacket and carefully hangs it over the back of the driver’s seat in his car. He unclasps his cuff links, shoving them into his pocket, before rolling his sleeves up to his forearms. And holy shitballs, what amazing forearms they are. What is it about guys in dress shirts? The moment they roll them up a little, they’re like a bazillion times hotter. And considering Samuel is already hotter than the sun, that’s saying something.

  I gather up my measly belongings and take them to Samuel’s car while they place my dresser, bed, nightstand, and loveseat in the back of his truck. “Where’s your TV?” Rhenn asks, glancing around.

  “I don’t have one,” I answer.

  He looks horrified. “You don’t have a TV?”

  Shrugging, I tell him, “I watch streaming on my phone.” I don’t tell him I’ve never owned one. It’s not like we could have them easily at the compound when I was younger. I mean, they were more of a make love and music kinda group. Sure, my grandma had one when I lived with her, but she always watched her soap operas. There was never time for cartoons or those teenage dramas all the other kids watched. And when I got older, I just didn’t see the point of purchasing one if I wasn’t going to use it.

  When Rhenn goes to load my radio, I hold up a hand. “No, that goes in Sammy’s car.” His eyebrows pull together as humor transforms his face
. He knows I’m the only person to use the nickname and that it’s done in spite.

  “You got it,” he says, taking my radio to the back seat of Samuel’s car.

  “Thanks, love,” I holler, picking up the last bit of my discarded belongings.

  The back seat of Samuel’s car is loaded, and I can tell he’s already starting to sweat when he sees the water pooling on the leather. I pat him on the cheek, just to piss him off more, and say, “Let’s go, Sammy, before your seats are ruined.”

  With a deep sigh I feel all the way down to my lady bits, he heads over to the driver’s side and gets in. He has no idea what he’s in for, or that I’m about to turn his perfectly organized little world upside down.

  ***

  After we got the truck unloaded at Mary Ann’s, we make our way to Samuel’s home. I’ve been here before, but never actually inside his place, so I’m anxious to see how the oldest Grayson lives. If I had to guess, I’d say white walls, bland oak furniture, and not a speck of dust in sight. I’m pretty sure his shirts are hung by color and material content.

  He opens the door and waves me in. The moment I step inside, I burst into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” he asks, glancing around at his immaculately clean house.

  “This is exactly as I pictured it, Sammy. I bet your socks are color coordinated in your drawer too, right?” I ask. When I glance his way, his ears turn red, quickly followed by his cheeks.

  “I like clean,” he grumbles, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  “And white, apparently.”

  Samuel sighs. “Let’s get your things into the guest room. We can start with some of your laundry so we don’t have standing water anywhere,” he says, turning and heading back out to the car.

  For the next fifteen minutes, we unload my belongings, including our luggage, and bring them all into the house. The guest room consists of a full-sized bed with basic blue and green bedding and a single dresser and nightstand combo. There’s plenty of room along the closet wall to stack my stuff, which is what I do as we bring it inside.

  “Feel free to use the dresser and the closet,” he says. He glances around the bare room, void of any knickknacks or pictures on the wall or…well, personality. “Make yourself at home. I’m going to unpack and start to reheat the vegetable pot pie Mom sent home for us.”

  For me.

  She put it together as soon as her son called and asked to store my things in the garage. She loaded it with carrots and celery, corn and potatoes. Mary Ann was pulling it from the oven when we finished unloading my furniture, wrapped it in a towel, and sent us on our way. Man, I love that woman.

  I take the dry clothes we pulled from my dresser drawers and closet and start to fill the ones in the guest room. Next, I unload my suitcase, tossing my rumpled dress onto the floor in the closet. There’s no bathroom in the guest room, so I take my bath products to the one across the hall. The first thing I notice is the scent of his soap. It’s familiar and leaves me a little dizzy. Whistling a little tune, I set my pink razor, shampoo and conditioner, and luffa and bodywash beside his expensive brand of bodywash and shampoo. I grab the back and start to read the fine print, instantly pissed off at what I read.

  Tossing them in the trash, I head to the kitchen, where I find Samuel at the oven, dishing up the pot pie. “What the hell, Samuel?” I thunder, placing my hands on my hips and tapping my foot on the gleaming tile floor.

  “What?” he startles, spinning around and holding a plate. It’s also when I notice he’s wearing an apron. Sure it says “Kiss the Chef,” but it’s an apron, for heaven’s sake.

  “What are you wearing?”

  “An apron,” he replies, glancing down in question. “Why?”

  “Oh, no reason, Martha.”

  “Martha?”

  “Stewart.”

  Samuel rolls his eyes and turns back to the task at hand. When he has both plates dished up, he takes them to the table, where he’s already set two glasses of ice water. “Are you just going to tease me about my apron, or did you have something important to discuss?” he asks, untying the black and white apron and hanging it from a hook beside the refrigerator.

  “Oh, I have something very serious to discuss, but why are you wearing an apron? You know you’re thirty-six, right, and not eighty?”

  Samuel sighs as I take a seat and place my napkin on my lap. “I wear it to protect my clothes from food splatters. This may sound completely foreign and too refined for you, but there’s a whole demographic of people who like protecting their clothes,” he says.

  The moment the words leave his mouth, I drop a forkful of food down my shirt, so I bring the material up to my mouth and suck the vegetables off.

  “See what I mean?” he mumbles, taking his fork and a much smaller bite of his dinner.

  I moan in pure divine pleasure as I take a huge bite of food. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this is amazing.”

  “It is good,” he confirms. “What is it you were worked up about?”

  “Oh! Yeah, I threw out your animal tested body products.” I shovel a big bite of flaky crusty pot pie, letting another moan fly as I chew.

  “You what? Why would you do that?”

  “Did you not hear me? They test that brand on animals.”

  “But…” he starts, setting his fork down and rubbing his forehead, “that’s my shampoo and soap. What the hell am I supposed to use now?”

  I shrug. “Use mine.”

  “Use yours?”

  I glance across the table. “Are you just going to repeat everything I say? Yes, use mine. It’s all natural, made from shea butter and tea tree oil.”

  He pulls a face. “Doesn’t that smell nasty?”

  “It has traces of it. You can’t even smell it.”

  He just shakes his head and continues eating his food, mumbling about changing his shampoo. He remains silent as I tell him all about my schedule for tomorrow, including one Reiki session and two massages. I’m not working at the lingerie shop until Wednesday, so I’ll be able to get a lot of laundry done tomorrow, which is good because I’m not sure I have any clean panties.

  “You’re headed back to work?” I ask as I gather up my dirty plate, grabbing his as I walk by.

  “Sure, I was done,” he protests, but doesn’t come after his plate. I knew he was done. He’d been just picking at a few crumbs while I finished my meal. “And yes, I’m back to work tomorrow.”

  “Lots of dead bodies awaiting, I’m sure.”

  He just lifts a shoulder. “It’s what I do.”

  Filling the sink to wash the dishes, I turn his way. “I think your job is kinda cool.”

  Samuel stops and turns my way. “Seriously? No one thinks my job is cool.”

  I shrug as I set our dirty dishes in the sudsy water. “Well, I do. I mean, it’s totally weird, but completely cool all at the same time. And I hate to be the one to tell ya, but I’m kinda weird.”

  “You don’t say,” he deadpans, grabbing the towel to dry.

  “I already know I am, Sammy, but my point is your job is different, it’s not something just anyone can do, and what you do matters to the living.”

  When he doesn’t say anything, I stop washing my plate and glance his way. He’s just staring at me, a look of wonder and inquisition. “Thank you,” he says as he clears his throat. “You’re probably the only person I know who sees that.”

  “Well, I’m sure your siblings do.”

  “My siblings think I’m weird.”

  “Well, you are,” I tell him with a big grin, rinsing off the plate and handing it to him. “And your siblings just love to tease you.”

  He dries it off and sets it inside the cabinet. “They think I’m boring and anal.”

  “You are boring and anal. But you’re pretty cool too,” I confess.

  He clears his throat as the tips of his ears turn pink. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Besides, no one else I know is as much fun to hassle as you
are, Sammy.”

  He just sighs and finishes drying the dishes. Truth is, he’s not only fun to hassle, but fun to be with all the other times too. And now we’re roommates. At least for a few weeks. Married roommates. It’s like the stars started to align for me, and now I’ll have unbridled access to Samuel. No better way to prove to him our marriage is headed to forever than if we’re shacking up together, right?

  Right.

  I have so many ideas to prove it to him, too. It’s going to be fun.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Samuel

  My first day back after the long weekend is stressful and troublesome. Elma isn’t feeling so well, but insisted on staying to help me get caught up. There were two deceased individuals brought in this past weekend, and nothing really done. Not that I’d expected Aaron to do too much work on his weekend on-call. He’s more of a leave-it-for-Samuel kind of guy. But the entire downstairs looks as if a small storm blew through it. The embalming machine was left out and plugged in and the sink and countertop littered with latex gloves. This is exactly why I choose to do things myself, because I can’t always count on young Mr. Hanson to get the job done right.

  Or without trashing the entire business in the process.

  After the second family comes in to discuss funeral arrangements, I finally convince Elma to go home. It was bad enough she sneezed and coughed all over the conference room, but she left a trail of used tissues in her wake.

  I guess like grandma, like grandson.

  When I get the office cleaned up—and ran Clorox wipes over everything that would stand still—I finally close up shop and head home. I’m in desperate need of a shower, although, I should probably stop by the store and grab some new bath products. This way, I don’t have to use Freedom’s. I mean, it’s not like they smell bad or anything—quite the opposite, actually—but more of the fact I don’t need to be using her stuff. It already completely freaked me out when I saw her pink razor hanging beside my blue one, but the constant scent that’s so very Freedom has been lingering on my body the entire day, which is doing inappropriate things in my groin, especially when gathering with bereaving family.