Chapter 11
Naked.
Tessa is naked.
I’m not proud of it, but when I burst into her bathroom to help her fight off whatever made her scream, that’s the first thing I notice.
I see bare curves, pale skin flushed with pink, and her thighs clenched together in fear, and all I can think about is when those thighs were wrapped around my hips. When her breasts were heavy in my hands and her nipples tight against my tongue and her pussy clenching around me as she came, calling my name.
“B-body,” she stammers, jabbing a shaking finger toward the shower as she fumbles for the hand towel hanging by the sink with her other hand. “I thought it was a b-body.”
She tugs the towel from the holder and clutches it to her chest. It’s too small to cover more than her breasts, but that’s apparently enough to help me get my shit together.
I jerk my gaze back to her face before following her finger toward the spray, where the torso of what looks like a department store mannequin dangles from the shower faucet.
My stomach drops, and I tighten my grip on the gnome I grabbed on the way in. “Get dressed. Fast,” I say, before glancing out into her bedroom.
The space is still quiet, and the house is as silent as it was before Tessa screamed, but that doesn’t mean we’re alone. Daria was clearly inside at some point, which means she could still be here.
“How did she get in?” Tessa asks, her voice shaking as she starts pulling on clothes from the puddle on the counter. “I always lock the front door. Always. There’s no way I left it open.”
“I don’t know,” I say, moving toward the thing in the shower. When I turn off the water and spin it around, my already churning stomach clenches. “But it was definitely Daria.” I step back, motioning to the word scrawled in red across the mannequin’s breasts.
“Slut?” Tessa reads with a soft humph. “Well, that’s not very creative, is it?”
“No.” I release the stump where the arm should be, sending it spinning back to face the other side of the shower. “But it’s on brand. The same thing is on the porch steps. Written in feces.”
Tessa tugs on her shirt, and I turn back to face her.
“Well,” she says, pulling the scrunchie from her hair, sending it spilling back down around her shoulders. “At least she’s consistent. And at least she didn’t use poo in here. Though I’m pretty sure that’s my favorite red lipstick.” She shivers. “That bothers me more than the mannequin, honestly. That she was in here, going through my things, violating my privacy.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“Stop it,” she says, pumping something from a small bottle by the sink into her hands and running her fingers through her hair. “If you apologize again, I’m going to scream again, and we’ll both keep wasting precious time. This isn’t your fault. Men cheat all the time, and no one ends up with a mannequin in their shower and poop on their porch. This is a Daria problem.” She sighs. “I guess we should call the police? I mean, she broke in. That’s clearly against the law.”
I nod. “Yes, but unless we have some way of proving it was her…” I motion toward the front of the house. “Do you have a front porch camera? Or any cameras in the house?”
Tessa nibbles her bottom lip as she pulls on her socks. “No, I don’t trust cameras. I have an irrational fear that they’ll record me when I don’t want to be recorded and the footage will somehow end up on the internet. What about fingerprints?”
“That only works if her prints are on file, and to my knowledge, they aren’t. And I’m not sure the police would dust for prints in a situation like this anyway, you know? When there’s no sign of a break-in and nothing’s been stolen. Nothing has been stolen, has it?”
She shakes her head. “Not to my knowledge. At least, I didn’t notice that anything was disturbed until I pushed back the curtain.” She turns, opening drawers beside the sink. “Doesn’t look like anything’s been moved here, either. Except for my lipstick. It’s missing. She must have taken it with her.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “Would that be enough do you think? If the police found my lipstick in her purse or something?”
“And how would they prove it’s yours?” I ask. “She could just say it was hers. Assuming it’s a brand that’s readily available to the public…”
Tessa curses.
I almost apologize again but stop myself. “I think the best thing to do is to document everything with photos and video and leave the mannequin hanging where it is. That way, if things escalate, the evidence will still be here when we get back in town. In the meantime, I’ll get someone over to change the locks later today.”
“Okay,” she says, her shoulders hunching closer to her ears as she crosses her arms. “I definitely don’t want to stay here alone until the locks are changed.”
“And a security system?” I ask. “Can I have one installed? As long as the cameras are aimed at the outside, not the inside?”
She looks up, her gaze softening. “You don’t have to take care of everything, Wes. I can have a security system installed myself. Like I said, this isn’t your fault.”
“But it kind of is,” I say, deciding now is as good a time as any to attempt to explain myself. “I don’t know why I didn’t say something about Darcy that night in the woods. I should have. I usually would have, I just…” I sigh. “Like I told you that morning, we were already having problems. That’s why I was out hiking alone, to get some space to think about what I wanted moving forward. I knew that wasn’t Darcy. Truly. I was going to end things with her that morning anyway. I’d already made the decision, even before we were together.” I drag a hand through my hair. “But when I got to her place, and she told me her period was late. Suddenly, there was a chance we might be having a baby together, and I just couldn’t—”
“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter,” Tessa says, cutting me off with a sharp shake of her head. “It really doesn’t. The past is the past and we have enough drama on our plates in the here and now.” She pulls in a deep breath, letting it out with a flap of her arms. “If you want to grab the bags I put by the garage door, I’ll finish packing and be out in a few minutes. The sooner we put space between us and your ex’s sister, the sooner we can find somewhere to take a nap. I’m suddenly very, very tired.”
“Got it, I’ll meet you out front,” I say, backing toward the door, feeling like shit.
Speaking of shit…
Might as well find someone to clean up the porch while I’m waiting.
Once I’ve deposited the cooler and grocery bags beside the camper, I pull my phone from my pocket. It’s only five-thirty, probably too early for Christian to answer, but I can leave a message.
I put my cell to my ear, mentally composing what I want to say, but to my surprise, my brother answers on the first ring, bellowing, “Wesley! What’s up, brother? Are you catching this sunrise? What the fuck, man? How is the sun so beautiful? How did we get so lucky? To be born on a planet with a sun like this one?”
“I love the sun so much,” a feminine voice in the background—Starling, his fiancée, I’m betting— agrees.
“And I love you, woman,” Chris says, his voice vibrating with emotion. “You’re my fucking sun goddess, and I’m going to worship you until we’re old and gray and your nipples drag the fuckin’ ground.”
Starling giggles. “Never going to happen, buddy. Sun goddesses keep it swag, we don’t drag. Now stop talking about my nipples, you’re going to make Wesley uncomfortable. I love you, Wesley. I can’t wait for you to be my brother for real! We’re finally setting a wedding date and you’re going to be the best man because you’ll dress up in a costume without complaining about it.”
“Yeah, Barrett would be a whiny little bitch,” Christian agrees. “And Drew is going to have too many kids to have time for fittings. They’re pregnant again, did you hear? Mom figured it out last night when Tatum kept drinking virgin mimosas. Those two really love to raw dog.”
Starling giggles. “Gross.”
“Well, they do,” Christian insists.
“So, how drunk are you?” I ask, pretty sure the answer is “very” based on the conversation so far. “I have something serious to ask you, but I don’t want to waste my breath if you’re not going to remember it in a few hours.”
“Oh, we’re not drunk,” Christian says, dropping his voice dramatically before adding in a whisper nearly as loud as his normal tone, “We’re on some kind of psychedelic herb thing Starling got from her friend who leads vision quests in Arizona. It was part of our sun goddess role-playing. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but now…I love it, man. I am one with creation. I am a throbbing heart filled with love, connected to all the other throbbing hearts, and I’m psyched about it. My ego is dissolving in the warmth of the universal truth of our undeniable connection, and I couldn’t be happier. Also, this breakfast sandwich is the best I’ve ever had.”
“So good,” Starling agrees with a euphoric sigh. “Best sausage ever. Best night ever. Best sunrise ever. Oh, and you’re on speakerphone, Wes, just FYI. But we’re alone at the lookout point so no one will hear us. We respect your privacy. Even when we’re one with the sun and realize there is no privacy. Not in the deepest sense of the word. I am you and you are me and we are the everything and the nothing and all that lies between.”
“That’s exactly it. The perfect way to put it,” Christian says, his voice reverent. “You’re so fucking smart. When we decide to raw dog, our kids are going to be tiny geniuses.”
Smiling despite my exhaustion, I say, “I’m glad you two had an amazing evening. Unfortunately, mine wasn’t so great. It was pretty awful, in fact.”
“Fuck, dude,” Christian says. “I’m sorry. What happened?”
I briefly explain, prompting more cursing and scandalized sounds from Christian and Starling.
“That is so gross, I can’t wrap my head around it,” Starling says. “And I’m not talking about the poo. I mean, yes, the poo is super gross and repulsive, but the ‘slut’ thing? That’s so messed up. When will people stop shaming women for our perfectly natural, healthy, species-continuing bodily urges?”
“I would never shame you for your urges, babe,” Christian says. “I love your urges. Your urges are one of my favorite things about you.”
“Aw, same, baby,” Starling says, followed by some smacking sounds. I assume they are wasted-ly making out.
“Right,” I say in a louder voice, fairly certain this has all been an exercise in futility, but figuring I might as well beg for the favor I called to ask. “Anyway, Christian, if you could hire someone to come clean up the porch for Tessa, maybe one of the guys at the bike shop, I’d really appreciate it. We’re getting out of town for a while to give Daria time to cool off.”
“Want me to take care of the mannequin, too?” he asks.
“No, we’re going to leave that where it is, in case we need evidence of harassment down the line. But if you wouldn’t mind calling Damon at Home Solutions to install new locks on the doors and a security system with exterior cameras, that would be amazing.”
“Done,” he says. “As soon as things open, I’ll make some calls.”
“Thanks,” I say, hesitating a beat before I add, “Should I call you again in a few hours? Or text? How much of this do you think you’re going to remember?”
“All of it,” Christian says with a soft laugh. “My mind is laser sharp. I think it’s actually working better than it usually does. For example, I just realized that Starling has a freckle on her shoulder that I’ve never noticed before. It’s the cutest little freckle, and we’ve been naked together at least a thousand times, but I—”
“Probably two thousand,” Starling cuts in. “We went through a really over-the-top lovemaking phase for a while. It was winter and we were pretending we were pirate smugglers stuck in an ice cave and the only way to survive was stripping naked and sharing the same sleeping bag. And well…turns out that really did it for us. We practically ran home from work every day to get naked and hang out in the shed without the space heater on.”
“Good times,” Christian says fondly.
“So good.” Starling sighs. “You should try that one sometime, Wes. Pretending is really fun. So is sharing a sleeping bag.”
“So, I’ve heard,” I say, wondering if the universe is using my brother and future sister-in-law to punish me. Sadly, my own shared sleeping bag situation didn’t have such a happy ending.
As Tessa emerges from the garage, closing it behind her, she looks like she’s headed to the guillotine. Her shoulders bow under her backpack, her chin droops toward her chest, and her hiking boots drag a little as she walks. Her body language is practically screaming, “I’d rather be anywhere else than here,” and I can’t say I blame her.
But maybe…
Maybe Starling’s on to something with her “pretending” advice.
“Thanks for the help, guys,” I say, my thoughts racing. “And for the ideas. Take care of yourselves and get home safe.”
“You, too, man,” Christian says. “I love you, Wes. You’re made of stardust, brother. Don’t forget it. You are literally stardust and there is nothing you can’t do.”
“Thanks again,” I say before ending the call.
Nothing I can’t do…
Well, I guess we’ll see about that.