by J B Heller
“Good to know. Got any other stealthy murder techniques for me? Purely for curiosity’s sake, of course.”
Grinning, she tilts her chin then purses her lips. “Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.”
“No shit?” I muse.
Her eyes light up. “Oh, and just one shot of the teeny tiny blue-ringed octopus’s venom can kill twenty-six adult humans within minutes.”
“Seriously? That’s unsettling.” I cringe at the thought of such a small creature being so deadly. My skin crawls, and I have to shake my arms out to be rid of the sensation.
Reagan’s throaty laugh fills my ears, and I fix my gaze on her. “What?”
“You,” she says between chuckles. “Your reaction—it makes me think you’d be afraid of spiders.”
My eyes narrow. “And so what if I am?”
She beams. “You are, aren’t you?”
Gritting my teeth, I mutter, “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” She laughs, her cheeks and eyes bright with mirth.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever, it’s not a big deal. I just don’t like the creepy little fuckers. I’m not afraid of them or anything. I just avoid them if I can.”
“Aha, I’m sure you’re not afraid. Not a big manly man like yourself.” She snickers.
Finishing my food, I take my empty plate and mug to the kitchen. “I’m glad I amuse you.” I huff on my way past her. Rinsing off my dirty dish, I slide it into the little single-drawer dishwasher, then rummage through Reagan’s coffee pods. “You want a refill?”
“What kind of question is that?” she calls back.
“A polite one. I could just make myself another, and you can watch me drink it?”
She laughs again. The sound is quickly becoming one of my new favourites.
“Okay, fine. Although, I don’t see you making such a dick move. Not when you’ve been so nice to me so far. I’ll have a French vanilla latte please.”
I poke my head around the corner to see her leaning over the back of the couch, facing the kitchen and me. “Don’t doubt my ability to be a dick. I have skills you’ve never seen before.”
Her grin is downright seductive. “I bet you do. I’ve seen enough to never doubt your particular skill set,” she says with a waggle of her brows.
I burst out laughing and shake my head at her. “I think I’ll keep you.”
She stretches out her arm to me, her empty mug hanging from her fingers.
Closing the space, I snatch it from her. “You are somethin’ else, Reagan.”
“A good something or a bad something?” she asks my back as I return to the kitchen.
I consider her question. I’ve never come across a woman like her. She’s a breath of fresh air. But I need to be careful; I can see myself becoming addicted to it. To her. Clearing my throat, I answer her as honestly as I can. “I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know.”
I slept in my bed last night and thought about Rhett on the other side of the wall that separates our apartments as I fell asleep. That’s not creepy, right?
He stayed for most of the day yesterday. It was nice to have his company. We sat around watching movies and eating junk food. He even changed the dressing on my foot for me.
He’d said he would pop in before he left for work this morning, too, but I’m not sure when that will be. I’m kinda stressing about it. I like having him around, and I’m amazed I haven’t scared him off yet.
I’ve been lying here, staring at the clock on my bedside table for the last twenty-three minutes, wondering what time he leaves for work. It’s now six-fifteen, and I’m busting to pee. Should I hold it and go after he leaves or risk him coming while I’m peeing?
Stuff it, I’m about to pee my pants if I hold it any longer. Rolling off the side of my bed, I reach for my crutches and hobble to my adjoining bathroom. Leaning one crutch against the wall, I use my now free hand to roll my shorts and underwear down my legs.
My head drops back in pleasure as I pee, and pee, and pee some more. I think this is the longest pee I’ve ever done. And it feels so good.
And, of course, that’s the moment Rhett arrives.
The sound of his knocking echoes through my apartment, and I try to hurry up the waterworks, but it’s not happening. It just keeps coming. “Give me a minute!” I call and hope he hears me.
Finally, I’m down to a trickle, and I snatch up the toilet paper to wipe, then grasp for my shorts, but they’ve fallen off my feet. I’m left with my undies sitting around my ankles. Grabbing them, I yank them up my legs as fast as I can one-handed. I can hear Rhett calling me—he sounds concerned.
“I’m coming!” I yell out as I quickly wash and dry my hands. Hygiene first, always.
I’m puffed by the time I reach my front door and swing it open. “Morning,” I murmur on a particularly harsh exhale.
Rhett is standing in front of me in a dirty, grease-stained pair of jeans and navy button-down that’s also covered in smudges. My eyes roam over him, and a little drool pools in my mouth. Wow. His biceps strain against the sleeves of his shirt, reminding me of what’s under it.
Holy sexy mechanic. A dreamy little sigh escapes as I stare at him while catching my breath.
He frowns. “Ah, Reagan, are you okay?”
My eyes snap up to meet his. “Yeah, why?”
One of his thick eyebrows arches at my question. “You’re wearing a pair of Batman panties, I can see your nipples through your tank, and you’re panting …”
I swallow hard at his description. “I wasn’t flicking my bean if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Both his brows lift, and his eyes widen. “Flicking your bean?”
“Yeah, you know: polishing the pearl, auditioning finger puppets, jilling off. I swear my hands were not in my pants. See?” I hold my right hand up to his nose to prove that there are no suspicious smells coming from me.
“Oh my God, woman.” He buckles over laughing.
His head is now level with my bits. He might be down there laughing, but the visual is giving me other ideas. And they are not friend-zone ideas.
Snap out of it, Reagan! You’re such a perv. Or just really hard up? Shaking my head at myself, I shuffle around him then hobble down the hallway to the lounge and plonk on the couch with a huff.
“Hey, where are you going?” Rhett calls after me.
I’m staring up at my ceiling one minute. The next, Rhett’s head is hovering above me. I cover my face with my hands.
“Hey,” he coos. His calloused palms wrap around my wrists and pry my hands away from my face. “I told you, you don’t need to hide your crazy from me.”
I frown. “I wasn’t— Wait, you think I was being crazy?” Was I? I was just trying to get my head straight. That was why I walked away. Well, hobbled away.
Rhett smiles. “Well, you just held your fingers up to my nose to prove you weren’t masturbating. That’s a little crazy, babe.”
Huh, okay. “I was just proving my point.” I shrug.
“So, if you weren’t embarrassed, why’d you do a runner?” he asks, still hovering over the back of the couch, staring down at me.
My jaw drops open, then snaps shut again. Nope. Not going there. I avert my gaze, avoiding his probing stare.
“Reagan,” he says smoothly, “look at me.”
I don’t, choosing to ignore his request, until his hands wrap around my cheeks and he moves his head to the side. Right into my line of sight. Sighing, I stop acting like a child, letting our eyes lock and hold. “You don’t want to know, so just let it go. Please?”
His eyes search my face for an uncomfortable moment, then he nods. “Okay, I’ll let it go this time. Coffee?”
Relief has my lips lifting into a smile. “Please and thank you.”
Rhett clatters around in my kitchen, already knowing where everything is. It feels good having him in my space. He fits in here. I think we were always supposed to be friends, just like Char an
d me. He seems to get me, and he can read me way too well for someone who only recently entered my life.
I’m lost in my thoughts when the couch dips beside me, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee fills my nostrils. I could get used to this.
A part of me is dying to know what she refuses to tell me. But another part knows she’s keeping it to herself for good reason. I know already that there’s not much she won’t say, so I can respect her wanting to keep this to herself.
Slinging my arm over the back of the couch behind her feels natural. Sitting here with her, drinking my morning coffee—which tastes better than the shitty coffee in my apartment—feels right. I’ve never felt so comfortable in a woman’s home before.
Before I’m ready, my phone alarm goes off, letting me know I need to leave for work. I’m fully booked at garage, otherwise I would have considered taking the morning off to chill with Reagan.
“That’s me. I gotta roll,” I tell her.
The smile that has been gracing her face for the last half hour drops slightly. “Oh, okay. Thanks for checking in.”
I take her empty mug from her. “I’ll make you another before I go,” I say, taking our cups into the kitchen. After placing mine in her dishwasher, I snap a pod into her machine and make her a fresh cup.
“Here you go, beautiful.” With a grin, I hand her the mug that says Chaos Coordinator. “This cup was made for you.” I grin. “You need anything before I go?”
Looking up at me, she purses her lips. “Umm, my laptop? It’s on the kitchen bench.”
“You got it.” I retrieve her MacBook then, handing it to her, I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say over my shoulder as I head for the door.
Closing it behind me, I pause—why did I just kiss her head? That’s a boyfriend move, and I am not that kind of guy. I didn’t even think about it; I just did it.
It’s not a big deal though, right? I mean, it’s not like I kissed her on the mouth or anything.
Yeah, no big deal. I nod to myself. Right, no big deal.
Maybe if I tell myself that enough, I’ll start to believe it.
I spend the day going through the most recent lot of fact proposals from the Pink Bits website submission tool. Sometimes I get some good ones that come in, but it’s mostly just crap people have made up or old wives’ tales. I have to confirm every single one before I can then enter it into the database.
Before I know it, it’s five in the afternoon and I’ve spent the whole day on my couch with my laptop. I made myself a coffee and a sandwich at some point and hobbled to the toilet a couple of times. But other than that, I haven’t moved.
My foot is aching, and I need to get up and take more pain meds before it gets too bad. I’m shifting around, about to get up, when my phone chimes for the first time today.
It’s my daddy. I smile at his message.
DADDY ~Hey Pumpkin, I’ll drop in with some takeout on my way home in an hour. Feel like anything in particular? You better be resting when I get there.~
ME ~Dim Sum, pretty please. Love you, Daddy.~
Looking down at myself, I decide I should put on some clothes before he gets here. We’re super close, but even we have boundaries. I don’t ever want to see him in his underwear, so I’ll give him the same courtesy.
I gingerly place my feet on the floor and slowly lift myself to standing. Putting most of my weight on my good foot, I slip my crutches under my arms and head towards the kitchen. My pain pills are sitting on the counter, and I pop two with a glass of water, then make my way to my bedroom.
Once I get there, I collapse on my bed. “Jesus,” I pant. That was a mission. When I’ve caught my breath, I sit up. Pants. I need to find pants. And then I catch a whiff of myself. “Oh God.” I gag. I realise I haven’t had a shower in two days.
Yuck, yuck, yuck!
Shower. I need a shower. Wriggling until I’m at the edge of my bed, I get to my feet again. This time, I move towards my adjoining bathroom without my crutches. I make it two steps, then falter when I have to put weight on my bad foot. Shit.
Clutching the doorframe, I take a breath then hop into the room, each bounce making my boobs just about slap me in the face and my foot throb. Plonking down on the toilet, I realise I won’t be able to get in the shower because I can’t get my foot wet. The dressing isn’t waterproof, and I probably wouldn’t be able to stand under the spray unassisted anyway.
“Ugh,” I groan in frustration. There is no freaking way I’m staying like this, though. So I slide to the floor, open the small cupboard door under my sink and grab a cloth, the extra bottle of body wash I have stashed away in there, and some feminine wipes.
Twenty gruelling minutes later, I’m as clean as I’m going to get without hopping in the actual shower. And I’m exhausted. Dear God, am I exhausted. You don’t realise how much you use one bloody limb until you can’t.
I grab the first pair of shorts I can find and slide them up my legs. And I do alright until I get to my arse, since I’m still on the floor. I’m wriggling around, hoisting my pants over my bubble butt, when I hear my front door swing open.
“Pumpkin, you in here?” my dad’s voice echoes down the short hallway.
“Coming!” I call back, then roll onto my tummy and up to my knees. Snatching my crutches up, I hook them under my arms and trudge out to my lounge. “Hey, Daddy,” I greet him and smile wide at the site of the big-arse bag of food he’s bought me.
He sends me a nod as he makes his way to my kitchen. “Where’s your coffee table?” he asks.
I can hear him pulling out plates and cutlery when I take my spot on the couch. “Umm, I broke it.”
“You broke it? How?” he asks, coming in to sit by me with two plates full of little buns and dumplings that smell incredible.
“Ah, well, if you must know, I dropped a hammer on it. I was thinking of changing things up in here anyway, so no biggy.” I shrug.
He nods along before saying, “I see. And I’m assuming this is how you hurt yourself then? When you rang and said you wouldn’t be coming to work this week because you’d hurt your foot, I thought maybe you’d tripped in those ridiculous high heels you insist on wearing and sprained it, or something like that.”
I’d called HR on Monday morning to let them know I wouldn’t be coming in and gave them very little explanation. I’m the boss’s daughter; nobody questions me. Then I was super vague about it all when I spoke to Dad on Saturday night. I chose to avoid having the detailed conversation over the phone. He would have freaked and no doubt overreacted. I let him think what he wanted.
I shove a little ball of pork-and-chive heaven in my mouth and nod. “Uh-huh,” I mumble through my mouthful of food.
Dad gives me the side-eye. “You going to tell me what happened?”
I finish chewing, then swallow. “You going to tell me why you’re eating dinner with me and not Cruella de Vil this evening?”
He snorts. “Nice deflection. How about, I’ll tell if you do?”
Popping another dumpling in my mouth, I consider his offer. I chew slowly, assessing my father; he looks tired. The light that normally emanates from his steely blue eyes isn’t there today. I don’t like it. Narrowing my own, I finally say, “You go first.”
With a tilt of his head, he concedes. “Okay, Susanna and I aren’t getting along that well right now. I can’t handle another conversation about flower arrangements for her daughter’s wedding—that I’m paying for, mind you. Why is that, you ask? I asked it myself, and you know what she told me? She said it’s because Marianna is as much my daughter as she is hers. Can you believe that shit? When I corrected her, she slapped me.” He shakes his head. “Susanna’s ex-husband makes more money than I do. So why isn’t he paying for his daughter’s goddamn wedding?”
I blink, and blink again. I was not expecting all that. My father’s face is getting redder by the second, and I have zero clue what to say to him. I don’t particularly like my steps
ister, but I don’t not like her either. I don’t really know her. We were grown when our parents married, so it’s not like we’re a real family in that sense. I sure as hell don’t think he should be paying for her wedding, but I don’t think now is the time to agree with him. I need to calm him down, not rile him up more.
“So, Marianna is getting married?” That’s the best I can come up with.
Dad sighs. “Apparently.”
“Did she ask you to pay for it?” I wonder aloud.
“No. She’s been at the house a lot, organising it with her mother, but I try to avoid them when they’re in wedding mode.” He sighs again, lifting one hand to cup his forehead and rub his temples with his pointer and thumb. “It’s not that I don’t like the girl. She’s perfectly fine. And the money’s not the issue either. It’s just that I don’t think it’s my place to be paying for her wedding. Not when her own father is in a position to do it. I’d lose my shit if another man tried paying for yours,” he says, looking directly into my eyes.
“Aww, thanks, Daddy. But don’t hold your breath on that one. I may as well spray myself with man repellent for all the luck I have. Maybe you should just embrace this; it might be your only chance.”
His eyes darken at my statement. “Don’t start that shit with me again, Reagan. There is nothing wrong with you. You’re fucking perfect. You hear me?”
My eyes prickle. He’s always been my biggest supporter in everything that I do and especially in everything that I am. “Okay,” I breathe, then straighten my spine. “There actually is someone I might be a little interested in. But I’m not sure. I think we’ll just end up friends. And I’m okay with that, too.”
The light that has been missing in his eyes since he arrived sparks to life. “Go on, who is he?”
I grin. “My neighbour, Rhett Jones. Don’t get carried away, though. We only officially met over the weekend. He was here when I cut myself.” I gesture down to the white dressing that covers half my foot. “He took real good care of me: drove me to the hospital, and even stayed when Psycho Reagan emerged.”
