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Perusing the fridge, I chuckled to myself. Okay, his offer wasn’t as generous as I initially thought. There was barely enough milk left to cover the bottom of the gallon jug, two eggs, a jar of pickles, and a bottle of mustard.
If he hadn’t already confirmed he lived alone, his fridge would’ve given it away.
The freezer was stuffed full of bulk bags of frozen chicken breasts, veggies and fruit. Unless I planned on whipping up a breakfast fajita, sans tortilla, I was out of luck.
I checked out the pantry across from the laundry room. The giant tubs of protein powder in various flavors shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The rest of the pantry was fairly well stocked in terms of staples. For a guy who lived alone, Drew had an insane amount of cookware and serving ware.
A plan struck me.
The least I could do was say thank you with some baked goods, right? I had a killer blueberry muffin recipe, and I wouldn’t even have to use his last dab of milk. That milk was probably mostly backwash anyway. Everyone knew guys who lived by themselves were disgusting creatures that drank straight out of the container.
Great.Now I was imagining him shirtless, Adam’s apple bobbing as he wrapped his lips around the opening to drain the last few drops out of the milk jug.
Fanning myself, I preheated the oven, pulled out ingredients and mixing bowls, and greased the muffin tin I found in one of the cabinets. I reminded myself this was simply a friendly thank-you for giving me a place to stay. I knew this recipe like the back of my hand, so it only took me a few minutes to whip it together and get the muffins in the oven.
Setting the alarm on my phone for eighteen minutes, I used the time to snoop around the main floor a little more. Since I’d scurried out yesterday morning, I hadn’t taken much in besides the cabinet full of figurines by the door and the plastic dust covers on most of the furniture. The room with the television was the only one that looked like it got regular use.
The rest of the main floor was a museum. Time had stopped at some point in this house.
I wandered over to the dining room. A table large enough to seat eight was topped by a crocheted table runner that looked straight out of the eighties. Across the hall was a parlor with ancient wingback chairs covered in plastic. A cute little seating area was nestled into the turret by the front door, but also looked like no one had used it in ages.
None of this screamed make yourself at home.
Or that anyone even lived here. I wondered what the rest of Drew’s life was like.
As I moseyed back toward the kitchen, a small framed photo hanging on the wall caught my eye. Drew, Valerie and a woman who had to be their mother were all huddled together on a picnic blanket, broad smiles lighting up their faces. Drew and Valerie were in their late teens or early twenties, and their joy looked infectious. It was hard to reconcile this image with the reserved man I’d met.
The shrill beeping of my phone alarm caused me to jump and nearly fumble it. I blew out a breath, thankful no one was around to see, and moved back into the kitchen.
I grabbed a tea towel from the oven door to use as a potholder and pulled the muffins out of the oven. After inspecting them, I gave myself a mental pat on the back. They looked and smelled mouthwatering.
I shimmied one muffin out of the tin for myself and wrapped it in a paper towel to take with me. I left the rest of the tin on a trivet with a note thanking Drew for being gracious last night and letting him know I’d stay out of his hair for most of the day but be back by around six, so he’d have some idea of when to expect me.
The last thing I wanted to do was disrupt his schedule, but I had no idea what his schedule was or how I was expected to get in and out of his house if he wasn’t around. Not like he offered me a key.
Besides meeting Kobie, I also needed to square away getting Ward’s car back here today. Thankfully, the historical society wasn’t too far of a walk from Drew’s house and the weather looked to be halfway decent, so I could sort out the car after my meeting.
The front door was unlocked, so I assumed it was best if I left it that way. I had no idea if Drew carried a key with him when he ran or not. I was down the steps and halfway down his front walk when a clanging sound caught my attention. As I turned my head in the direction of the detached garage the sound rang out again. It sounded sort of like a loud hammering, but the tempo wasn’t quite right.
The side door to the garage was ajar, so I drifted over to it. Kelly Bay didn’t seem like the kind of town where someone would be breaking into a garage in broad daylight, but you never knew. I nudged my foot into the door to open it a bit more and peeked inside.
And good lord, I was not ready for the sight before me.
Like some kind of damn American Ninja Warrior, Drew was hanging from a bar and ratcheting it up a salmon ladder every few seconds. Shirtless. He had earbuds in and his setup faced away from the door. He was oblivious to my entry, leaving me plenty of opportunity to ogle him. Hardcore.
Muscles unlike anything I’d ever seen on a man in real life bunched and released. Bunched and released. You could crush an empty pop can between his shoulder blades. His massive biceps contracted and relaxed with each rung he climbed, while a sheen of sweat glistened over all the tiny little muscles rippling across the tops of his shoulders.
I watched a drop of sweat roll down the groove along his spine and into the waistband of his athletic shorts. I’d never in my life had the urge to lick sweat off a man before this display.
My eyes tracked down to take in his legs.
Scratch that.
Leg.
On his left side, he had one of those fancy blade prostheses, and on the right his leg was covered with black compression tights under his red mesh workout shorts.
He looked like some kind of sexy cyborg sent from the future to destroy my panties.
