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On the phone?
I thought he was tired? And a part of me that really ought to know better is wondering who he’s talking to at almost two a.m.
He can talk to anyone he wants. At any hour he wants.
It’s none of my business.
I try to refocus on the file in front of me, but now it’s the quiet in the apartment that’s distracting. Maybe he went back to sleep?
“Are you fucking kidding me, dude!”
The muffled roar emanating from behind his closed door has my head jerking up. And the furious pounding— thud, thud, thud —has me jerking to my feet and on the move before I can even think to stop.
Heart racing, I get to his door just as it flies open. And there he is, so tall and broad he practically fills the doorframe. And the fact that he’s shirtless means even if he wasn’t monopolizing that space, the chances of me seeing anything other than the hard slabs of layered muscle making up the masterpiece that is Ben’s bare chest are zero.
Shirtless Ben sightings have been few and far between since I moved in. Even that one night upstairs at the bar, he didn’t take it off. And now I— I can’t look away.
Ben pulls back a step, startled to find me there. But then that look of surprise is wiped away by one of pure malice as he carefully pushes past me with a gruff, “Sorry.”
“What happened?” I ask, padding after him at increasing speed as he heads down the hall past the office to the laundry room. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he bites out, a vicious light shining in his eyes as he grabs the broom from where it hangs on the wall. Leaving the dustpan behind, he cuts around me and darts back to his room.
Broom plus shouting… equals …bug?
I whimper once. And for a second, all I can do is lift one foot and then the other like one of those Nature Channel lizards on the scorching dry earth. Because what kind of bug would be big and bad enough for Ben to lose his shit like this?
But whatever momentary paralysis I’m suffering from, I shake off when a new, different thud sounds… this one not quite so dull. In fact, it almost sounds?—
“Bowie, whatever the fuck you’re doing up there…” Ben yells, “…stop…”
Thud.
I rush back to his door and skid to a stop, jaw dropping at the sight of a red-faced Ben on his bed, broomstick in hand as he jabs at the ceiling.
“…This fucking minute!”
Thud, thud.
He’s lost his mind. “Wha?—?”
“And Piper, get your ass down here!” Thud, thud, thud, thud!
“Ben.” Somehow that gets his attention. His head snaps around, and when our eyes meet, I see the clarity return to his. But his arms are already in motion taking the broom up.
Thud— Crack.
“Uh-oh.” He looks up and then immediately ducks as plaster rains down.
Darting forward, I grab his arm, pulling him back, but not before the disheveled spikes of his bedhead are covered in clumps of debris along with his shoulders, arms, and chest. Eyes pinched shut, he lets me guide him down from the bed. The broom hits the floor with a clatter, and another clump of ceiling comes free.
Heart pounding, I reach for his face so I can look. “Did any get in your eyes?”
“Don’t think so,” he breathes, then louder with more frustration, “Fuck, that was so stupid. If I damage my eyes with the season barely started?—”
“Hey, you won’t.” I put as much confidence into my voice as I can, but we both know that another injury this close to getting back on the ice isn’t what a career as volatile as his needs. “Just hold on to me and keep them closed.”
Blindly, he finds my arm and then my shoulder before dropping his hand to my waist where it stays as he steadies himself.
