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Need is still pulsing through me, and I’m growing desperate. I need him. I want him.
I hear the rumble again, but this time it sounds like it’s coming from further away.
“No. Don’t leave,” I cry. “Come back!”
I hear the rumble again, and suddenly…
* * *
I’m awake.
And my phone is ringing.
It’s vibrating on my bedside table. I go to reach for it but my hands are tangled up in my sheets. With a few muffled curses, I extricate myself from the fabric and roll over to get my phone. I assume it’s my alarm, but instead, it’s a phone call. At four in the morning.
“Harmony,” I groan as I answer. “Do you have any idea what time it is here?”
“Yes, which is why I was calling you on my lunch break to leave a message.” She’s talking around food in her mouth.
“You know I’m a light sleeper.”
“And you know I’ve told you to set your phone to Do Not Disturb before you go to sleep,” my best friend snarks back. “So don’t get bitchy with me, bitch.”
I flop back on my pillow. If there’s anyone who can make me wave the white flag of surrender, it’s Harmony. “Fine. But I’m awake now, so forget the message. Why are you calling?”
“To wish you a happy first day!” she cheers. “You can finally send Irving that email you wrote out your first week on the job. And now, he can’t report you to HR.”
“Yeah, but he could probably call the FBI for the heinous crimes I threatened to commit,” I laugh. “That email was for your eyes only. It was a venting session.”
“Darn. Then again, I guess I don’t want you to go to prison for making terrorist threats.”
“Especially when you’re too far away to post my bail.”
“Oh, I’d fly back for that,” she says. “Then I’d pack you in my suitcase and bring you back to Italy with me. You know Italy has jobs, too, right? You could come here and live with me. Tomas is almost on board with you camping out in our guest room.”
For a moment, I let myself imagine a world where I’m an expat, living halfway around the world with my best friend and her new husband. It would be like a television show. Like a fabulous sitcom where I’d date handsome Italian men and eat gelato and get into hijinks.
It’s not a bad idea.
“I can’t,” I sigh. “Things are too—”
“Up in the air right now,” she finishes for me. “I know, I know. But I am glad you got this new gig. Housekeepers are hot. Do you get to wear the little frilly French maid thing? You’d rock that.”
“I have no idea.”
“You start today, you dodo bird. Shouldn’t youknow?”
“It’s all been kind of crazy,” I admit. “The advertisement was for a maid, but the woman who hired me said I would be part of a household staff. Like, I’m being hired full-time to work in someone’s mansion. I’ll clean, but there might be other tasks, too. I’m not completely sure what all it will entail yet.”
Harmony whistles. “That’s mysterious. I love it. Please call and tell meeverything.”
“I always tell you everything.”
“Yeah, but the catering gig was boring,” she complains. “You were usually just telling me what leftovers you took home. Now that I’m a married woman, I have to live vicariously through you. I need drama, not reviews on lasagna made in bulk.”
She isn’t wrong. Before last night, my life was rather dull.
“So do you want me to tell you about the man who saved me from being abducted and then gave me a ride home, or should I wait until after you’re done insulting me?”
