The wood of the porch is rotting, and I feel it give under my feet as I step toward the door. I don’t dare put my bags down again because I have a feeling one wrong step would break through these boards and I’d rather reinforce the floor than rebuild the entire porch.
It’s fucking hot this afternoon. Juggling two suitcases and my purse plus the keys is an act that’s fit for the circus. A bad one, anyway. There’s a reason that I didn’t run away and join it. I’m much better when I’m handling one thing at a time.
I finally get the door unlocked and shove it open with my hip. Only my skirt gets caught on the doorknob as I do, and the old door pulls my skirt down over my hips, exposing my thong and pulling the elastic away from my waist. Perfect. Another reason I’m glad there’s no one living in this neighborhood anymore.
At least the floor doesn’t sag when I put my bags to the side.
People always say they want to be interior designers because it looks glamorous. Perfectly dressed women with freshly coiffed hair floating through exquisite, brightly lit houses explaining why they’ve chosen to use shiplap on the accent wall.
Yeah. If any prospective design clients could see me right now, they would run in the opposite fucking direction. I manage to get my skirt off the door handle, and something catches my eye. A scurrying in the hall, and I scream, heart jumping into my throat until I see that it’s a cat.
“Holy shit.” I tell the black and white stray. “You scared me.”
A cat? Living in here? I sniff the air. It doesn’t smell like a cat’s been living here, so that’s good. I just have to find how it’s coming in and out and patch that up. Thankfully the cat doesn’t look too scraggly. It might not even be a stray. “Okay,” I tell it. “This is going to be my house for a little bit. So, you have to go, okay?”
It doesn’t move as I creep down the hall toward it, it just stares at me with big green eyes. Okay. This is fine. It could be worse. There could have been a person living in here. Or a rabid dog. A cat is fine, and it seems friendly.
Flicking its tail back and forth, he watches me, and it’s only when I reach down to pick him up that he darts away toward the open front door. Perfect!
Wait, no. It dives for my luggage, hiding behind it like this is some sort of game. “Okay, you’re so close, just go out the door.”
It curls into a pouncing stance and I see it wiggle just before I make it back to the door, and then it pounces past me. I stretch for it as it makes it to the stairs, just out of reach, stumble, and go to my knees.
The cat’s launch knocks my suitcase off balance, its handle pinning the bottom of my maxi skirt to the ground, dragging the hem low enough for me step on it and trip. My skirt is pulled down around my ankles.
I press my forehead into the cool wood of the staircase and groan. “This can’t be happening to me.”
A throat clears behind me, and I whip around to find a man in the doorway. “I’m guessing this is a bad time.”
Wait a fucking second. That’s not just any man, that’s Reynard Mast. Holy fuck, the last five years have done the opposite to him that they did to this neighborhood. He was the hottest thing walking when I lived here, and the Texas heat has nothing on him. He was my biggest crush when I was in high school. Five years older. A rebel and the bad boy of Reject’s Corner. He was the one I imagined at night, when I first learned about pleasure, in bed in the dark, in this very house.
Hell, I still imagine him sometimes.
Rey always seemed too worldly and too out of reach. Too mature to be into a nerdy, goofy, weirdo like me. He’s the last person that I expected to see on this trip to Affliction Creek.
But here he is, standing in the doorway, staring at me laid out in a thong that’s more air than fabric.
This trip is off to a great start.
2
Reynard
Holy fuck.
I’m standing completely still, in shock. Because this is not what I expected when I woke up this morning. The scene in front of me would be better suited to a Saturday morning cartoon than real life. Luggage everywhere, the main character splayed on the floor trying to catch a cat that’s now standing victoriously at the top of the stairs. The only thing that doesn’t fit is the fact that this woman is kind of half-naked.