I was as pissed at Lex as I was at myself for what had transpired. I still had no clue what had really happened, but I had no one but myself to blame because I'd allowed the younger man to get under my skin. If I hadn't, he never would have been sitting at my kitchen table in the first place, let alone been doing dishes after sharing a meal together. I cursed when my traitorous body remembered what it had been like to be pressed up against Lex's back as he’d been washing dishes. I hadn't intended to turn it into anything other than a quick demo on the layout of my sink, but as soon as I’d felt the heat of him, I’d found myself aligning my body more closely with his.
We’d fit perfectly together.
His attack had come out of nowhere just moments later. He hadn't even given me the opportunity to remind him that he'd been the one to tell me he was from LA. One moment he’d been smiling and joking with me, the next he’d been laying into me for absolutely no reason. I should have been grateful because it had made it that much easier to wash my hands of him.
Well, mostly, anyway.
I told myself that the only time I'd go back to Birch Cabin was if we had another storm that could threaten to take out the power. But I'd ended up driving back to the secluded structure three times already. I wasn't sure why I’d done it, especially since I hadn’t been able to see anything from outside anyway. But it was just like my attraction to Lex… it was something I couldn't understand and didn't have the mental energy to try and figure out. Especially not when the object of my strange new obsession had turned out to be the asshole I'd known he would be all along.
My phone beeped, indicating I had a new voicemail, but I didn't bother looking at it. I hadn’t listened to any of Lex's explanations. No doubt, he'd remembered the truth about how I'd known he was from LA after I'd made the jab about the fireplace not working with a switch. But I wasn't interested in any apology from the man. He was merely the client and I the employee. Maybe not his actual employee, but I might as well have been. I should've been glad the whole thing happened because it meant I could get back to my normal routine.
Unfortunately, my normal routine had somehow started to include checkups on Birch Cabin that were wholly unnecessary.
As I turned onto the little road leading to my house, my thoughts drifted to the other aspect of my life that consumed nearly every waking moment of it. I supposed I should be grateful to Lex for having provided a little bit of a distraction from the reality of the nightmare I was living. I glanced at the small brown paper bag on the passenger seat. I had no idea why liquor stores packaged their sales in the bags because everyone knew what was inside of them. And since Fisher Cove was the size of a shoebox, by now everyone in the small town knew I’d bought a bottle of whiskey. No doubt by tomorrow I'd be getting questions from concerned residents about how I was doing. It had taken a year of being borderline rude to break them of the habit of asking me that question, but now it would start all over again.
I supposed there was no need to explain that I was planning on drinking myself silly this time around to get rid of the unwanted thoughts of the young man in Birch Cabin who’d somehow managed to rip me wide open without even really trying.
The one good thing about my anger was that I hadn't really had any extra energy to focus on my newfound sexuality. It helped that most of the residents in Fisher Cove were older individuals and couples who had either lived in the town their whole lives or had decided to retire there. There were only a handful of so-called eligible bachelors in Fisher Cove and thankfully, none of them had me looking their way twice. However, after my fight with Lex, I had spent a small amount of time exploring things on the internet that I never would've thought I would. It had been eye-opening for sure. It had also been confirmation that the strange feelings Lex had stirred within me weren't entirely unique to him.
I slammed my truck into park and then reached for the bottle. I was in the process of opening the door when Brewer let out an excited yip from the back of the truck and then jumped over the bed. He raced past my side of the vehicle and straight for the house. I stilled when I spotted something black on the bench outside the door.