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The burgundy double-story farmhouse with black shutters and white trim sits dark and vacant against the trees, lit up only by my sweeping headlights and the stars overhead.
Just as I go to ease to a stop, I spot a hunched shadowy figure on the porch steps, and tense, accidentally slamming the brakes, jolting the car.
What the hell?
My parents aren’t here—they’re traveling in the RV they bought last fall, not too long after I told them I got accepted into Cedar College and they decided to put the house on the market.
They’re not due back until tomorrow night, so it can’t be either of them, nor would they just hang around outside in the dark, waiting for me.
Heart in my throat, I shift into Park, and consider what to do.
Funny how I felt safer in a populated city, than I do in a quaint little middle-of-nowhere town where people don’t even lock their doors…
I’m just about to reach for my phone to call 911, when the figure stands up and steps into the swatch of light.
The breath leaves me with a whoosh.
Fuck. I’m gonna kill him.
I groan, throwing my head back against the seat and glaring up at the roof of my car.
When I kill the engine and climb out, he’s already rounding the hood of my car, hands stuffed in the pocket of his sweatshirt.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but no one’s home,” I find myself saying.
His mouth thins, drawing my attention once more to that silver hoop threading through his lip. It winks out at me, not unlike the stars overhead, like it’s taunting me.
You thought he was gorgeous before? Well, look at him now. Look at what you’ll never have.
“You left,” he says.
Shrugging, I put my back to him as I go about getting my bags from the backseat. “I was tired,” I say.
“Too tired to hang out, but not enough to drive around?” he says, boots crunching along the chipped pavement. “Here, let me,” he says, ever the gentlemen as he grabs my duffle and the handle on my suitcase.
“Thanks,” I say dryly, grabbing my messenger bag with my laptop, and the black garbage bag stuffed with whatever else I couldn’t fit in my bags. I’ve also got boxes in my trunk, but I just make a mental note to grab them tomorrow, and slam the door shut with my hip.
On the porch, I set my bags down to thumb through my key ring.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“How do you know I was driving around? Maybe I was visiting friends. Catching up.”
A beat passes, then, “That was sarcasm, right?”
I shoot him a flat look as if to say, Seriously?
He shrugs. “I don’t fucking know. You used to disappear a lot. I always wondered…”
Unlocking the door, I push it open, and grab my bags, squeezing my way inside. “Wondered what?”
“If you were seeing someone. You know, in secret.”
At that, I drop the garbage bag with a thud.
Double seriously??
Turning, I find him hovering just past the threshold, his gaze glittering back at me like black jewels.
