3. Noah Hunt
The house was quiet, just how I hated it. My best friend—and roommate—Greyson was heading into a meeting with the resort’s event coordinator when I left work earlier, so I knew he wouldn’t be home before I finished dinner.
Plugging in my phone, I stripped the flannel I’d been wearing all day and pulled on an old T-shirt I found as soon as I walked in my closet.
When I looked down on my way to the kitchen, I realized it was one of Greyson’s shirts that got mixed in with my laundry, but I wasn’t taking it off.
In the kitchen, I glanced at the clock on the microwave and went to the refrigerator to take out the chicken thighs I moved from the freezer before I left this morning.
“Alexa, play cooking playlist.” Seconds later, my kitchen was filled with 90s R I’d wanted to be somebody’s husband my whole life. A family man. But the second I got the chance to be just that, I’d run like a fucking bat out of hell.
Using my foot to open the trash can, I tossed the used limes inside and walked back toward the counter.
I was about to wash my hands when a blur of something in the window above the sink stole my attention, and my head whipped in that direction.
A few seconds later, the blur passed the window on the opposite side of the living room and all I could do was stand there in awe.
“What the hell was that?” I muttered the question to myself, freezing in place to see if it would happen again. I started counting down from five and when I got to two, it did.
A woman wrapped only in a towel and a shower cap jogged past the kitchen window and my eyes swelled. She was barely keeping the towel up as she ran and suds clung to her chest and back.
“Woah, there’s a half-naked woman running in our yard.”
Wait.
There was a naked woman running around our house.
Why was there a half-naked woman running around our house? And what was she running from?
On her second lap, I finally got out of freeze mode and walked toward the door to open it so she’d see me on her next go round. To anyone who’d never been here before, the ‘front’ door wasn’t obvious because it was on the side of the house and barely distinguishable if you weren’t paying attention.
This woman clearly didn’t have time to decipher that design choice while she was in the middle of escaping whatever was chasing her.
Three loud knocks sounded against the door as soon as I reached for the handle, only for me to back up when I glimpsed the slimy shine coating some of my fingers.
I hadn’t washed my hands after cleaning the chicken.
“Salmonella, Noah. Salmonella.” I hissed, jogging back to the sink. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Hurriedly, I used my elbow to pump soap into my other hand and waved my palm under our motion-activated faucet.
The woman knocked again as I tore two paper towels from the roll and dried my hands on the way back to the door.
Pulling it open, my arms shot out to catch her because she was tipping halfway over the threshold before I could blink. I’d snatched the door open at the same time she was about to knock for the third time.
“Where’d you come from?” I emptied the only question in my head after making sure she was steady on her feet.
The woman tugged at her towel, tucking it into itself so it would stay up around her body as she tried to catch her breath.
“Sir,” she panted, her eyes finally latching onto mine as I frowned down at her.
Bright, speckled pools of honey stared back at me. I held eye contact until she bent in half to grip her knees, still panting.
“You okay?”
“Shit, I’m out of shape,” she revealed on a miserable groan and my lips tipped up on their own. I wasn’t going to laugh, but this woman was hilarious without trying. The visual of her in this damn towel, suds sliding down the side of her shoulder and wheezing shouldn’t have been so entertaining.
“Sir.” Wheeze . “There’s a—” Wheeze . “Bat.” Wheeze. “In my…” Cough . “Shower.”
“You’re running from a bat ?”
She straightened to her full height, which was only a couple inches shorter than me and scowled. “It was in my shower. They carry rabies ,” she pointed out hotly, her breath less shallow now.
“I see.”
The woman stood there, fuming and flustered while my eyes scanned her amber skin. When did we get a neighbor? And why didn’t I know she looked like this?
She had to be at least five-ten. I couldn’t see her hair, but from the way the shower cap was stretched, I could tell she had a pile of it. And the towel couldn’t hide that she was thick as?—
“ Hel … lo !” She snapped her fingers between each syllable, snapping me back to the present moment.
When I blinked back into focus that scowl had turned into an adorable frown. Rubbing my hand over my brow, I attempted to get the conversation back on track. But she beat me to it, her exasperated huff filling the air between us.
“Can you please help me chase it out of my house?”
“You sure it’s still in there? The way you were running, I thought it was chasing you.”
Her lip twitched at that and so did her eye, and I had to bite back a smile.
I needed to stop fucking with this woman when she was in distress. My mother had raised me better than that. I would make sure she was ok, then I would fuck with her.
Instead of looking at her, I glanced toward the back of the house, knowing the only other house on this street was a tiny cabin I never saw people go in.
The woman huffed again. “Fine. If you can’t help me, can I borrow your phone to call Animal Control? I’m not going back until I know it’s gone.”
“Animal Control?” I shook my head. “Nah, I got you. But you might wanna come in for a minute.”
She eyed me suspiciously as her frown deepened even more.
Throwing my hands up in surrender, I said, “Unless you want pneumonia…”
Last I checked, it was sixty-two degrees outside, and her being soaking wet under that towel wasn’t helping anything.
Another moment of hesitation passed before she slid her gaze away from mine and looked down at the step up leading into the house.
“Watch your step,” I warned, my arm instinctively extending in her direction in case she stumbled again.
The woman—my neighbor—walked inside, still tugging at that damn towel.
Now that she was this close, her scent teased my nose.
She smelled soft . Like flowers and fresh laundry.
Speaking of laundry?—
“Let me get you something to wear until you can go back. Follow me.” I turned to walk to my room on the other side of the house.
“My feet are dirty,” she said, her voice distant because she wasn’t following me yet. “I don’t wanna track that through your house.”
“We got mops. Don’t worry about it. Come on,” I insisted, not looking back at her. When I reached my room, I headed straight for the closet like I had earlier and walked out with a pair of grey sweats and a T-shirt. Hopefully, the clothes would keep her warm until I could figure out what the hell was flying around her house.
“Thanks.” Her fingers brushed mine when she accepted the clothes and I stood there for a beat, looking at her while she inspected them.
There was a beautiful fucking woman in my bedroom, and the knowledge of that momentarily made my brain short-circuit until she cleared her throat and I became aware that she needed privacy to change.
So I left that beautiful fucking woman in my room and went to find that bat.