CHAPTER SEVEN
Miri
“Little girl,” Drew said, “You’ve got a real attitude and it doesn’t make any sense.”
I could feel anger rising up in me, but it was accompanied by something new. The new thing wasn’t just the arousal I’d accepted was just something that came with the territory with Drew. It would have been nice if I didn’t get turned on every time this guy was in my presence. It would have been nice if the words little girl didn’t seem to affect me like foreplay.
I expected the arousal though. It was something I just had to get used to. There were no two ways about it where that was concerned. Like it or not, this fireman turned me on to no end. I would have rather the man was hideous, so I didn’t have to deal with it, but that was reality.
But the new thing…
As I prepared a mean retort, I realized I felt guilty. I realized that as much as I’d berated myself all morning for fucking him, convincing myself that it was just me being caught up in the trauma of the moment; the simple truth was that I’d been a bitch to him from the first time I laid eyes on him. I’d been a bitch to him for no reason other than because he was hot as hell and moving next door. When I saw him, I imagined an endless parade of skinny, sexy girls. I’d just assumed that because he could get any woman he wanted, the kind he would get would be skinny model types.
I just made a snap judgment about his appearance.
And then, ever since then, I just dug in, as though to be civil to him would be to acknowledge I was wrong and I sure as hell didn’t want to face the way I’d treated him. I certainly couldn’t face it now. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m still really shaking up about the fire and I’m shaking up because I wasn’t really in my right mind yesterday,” I said. “I’m going to move my books and get a hotel.” I started toward my house and then paused. “I… thank you for saving the things in that room. They’re very important to me.”
I was so fucking confused at the moment. I was so fucking uncertain. That kind of storm inside of my head was new to me and hard to deal with. I hurried away, hoping like hell he would just let me but also hoping like hell he might follow me. I didn’t know what the hell to do, actually. I couldn’t figure out what I felt. All I knew was if I faced everything, I would have to face every single bit of it. Frankly, that was a hell of a lot more than I wanted to face. I hoped an hour of packing up my books and driving them to my office would give me time to think.
It took almost four hours.
I spent most of the first hour looking at the paintings my grandfather left to my father, who left them to me when he and Mom retired to Florida. Most of the paintings were typical Norman Rockwell Americana but a few were very valuable originals from famous European masters.
It wasn’t the money that mattered to me but the memories, especially the ones attached to the books, which is why the other three hours were spent thumbing through them and remembering. As a little girl, my grandfather would spend hours reading to me in his library and I would listen with the wide-eyed, rapt attention that only children can give. When my grandfather fell ill, I would spend hours reading to him in his room, and near the end, it was the only thing that could bring a smile to his face through the pain.
I teared up as I recalled all of these memories and my tears strengthened when I thought of the man who’d rescued them for me and the awful way I’d treated him.
I heaved a sigh and finished packing, then headed downstairs. Drew was sitting at the tv having lunch. Stout sat next to him and I noted how he sat calmly when I entered, without barking or slobbering or jumping at me. He simply watched me with the exuberant, perpetually childish eyes of a puppy and for the first time in my life, I actually felt an urge to pet a dog.
I didn’t though. Somehow, my pride still wouldn’t let me acknowledge that I was in the wrong. I wordlessly opened the door and walked to my driveway to load my car. When I returned to the house, Drew had stacked the other three boxes by the door. He lifted two of them up and helped me load my car.
I felt a stab of disappointment that he wasn’t trying to convince me to stay but I supposed I deserved it. I didn’t say anything to him until the car was loaded. Then, I only said, “I’m leaving now.”
He nodded and it was probably only in my imagination that I heard the disappointment in his voice when he said, “Goodbye, Miri.”
I drove to my office first. The receptionist looked up at me, then quickly looked down when I returned her gaze. She said nothing to me and I said nothing to her.
My coworkers reacted similarly, and I felt my heart drop as I reflected on the seven years I worked for the company. It hit me for the first time that I’d rarely had a civil word to say to them. Just like my neighbors, I treated my coworkers like annoyances and now, even as I carried the memories of my life from my burned house, they had nothing to say to me at all.
It made Drew’s kindness all the more poignant.
After I dropped the boxes off, I headed to the nearby hotel. It was a three-star hotel and nice enough that I could endure living there for a few months while my house was repaired. Unfortunately, the concierge told me they were booked up for the night and I would have to look elsewhere.
I began the drive to the nearest extended stay hotel. Not as nice as the three-star hotel but good enough. I made it about three miles, then stopped.
I shouldn’t do this. I should just drive to the hotel.
I don’t.
Instead, I turn around and drive back to Drew’s house.