Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Tess
The effing rooster strikes again. This time when Jake screeches, I fly up so fast, I slide in my silk pajamas right out of bed. Now my ass hurts as much as my ankle. And when I look at the bloody bird with narrowed eyes, he has the intrepidity to look at me with curiosity.
“What are you doing on the floor, human?” The imaginary voice of the bird pops into my head. “It’s time to rise, not fall. Lily never did this. I’d really like my morning treats and you’ll be faster retrieving them on two legs.”
Cocking his head, he carefully examines me with a beady eye. Reaching for the slippers under the bed, I grumble at the winged creature, and at myself, for being so ridiculous.
By the time I get out of the shower, the rooster has given up on me and I’m ready for my tea like never before. “I might have to switch to coffee for the caffeine boost if you don’t quit.” The words are aimed at the chicken door as I limp by.
I’m about to start the kettle, when I spot the pod coffee machine tucked into the corner. The De’Longhi All-In-One combination coffee and espresso machine I bought Gran for Christmas two years ago had been returned and she’d replaced it with this and several years’ worth of pods.
I shake my head and search for the coffee pods. Finding an entire cupboard full, I pop in a flavored one and head to the bedroom that used to be mine. My mission? To find a way to lock the rooster flap.
Not much has changed in the room, the desk no longer has my things on it, instead it holds a laptop I gave Gran a few years ago to pay her bills, and a pile of letters, likely from Gran’s pen pals from around the world.
The shelves in the room still have my various awards and achievements, including a framed newspaper clipping of a short story contest I’d won while in middle school. I pick up another frame, this one houses a picture of me with Paige and Gran and I smile, nostalgia filling me. There are several around the room, I take a moment to look at each one and remember the moments surrounding the event. That is until I get to a photograph of my parents.
I stare at it, feeling nothing. I’d long ago shoved my emotions surrounding my parents and their abandonment deep inside. As a kid I hated that picture in my room. In fact, I’d hid it on more than one occasion. But Gran always found it and put it back up, insisting it stay there. I never understood why, after all, they’d dumped me on her, so she should be mad at them too.
Instead of wondering about that and what had happened all those years ago with an adult’s mind, I think about how Gran’s life might have been different without me.
Would she have traveled the world, perhaps visiting some of those pen pals? Or found love? I never knew my grandfather; he’d died when I was six weeks old, and she’d said hundreds of times that he was her one great love. But Gran was still young when I was dumped on her, having been married at seventeen and a mom at eighteen. And with my own mother being twenty- two when she had me, Gran was only fifty. She was still attractive and full of life at that age, but what middle-aged man wanted to be saddled with a petulant and bitter ten-year-old?
I gained a better life from my parents ditching me with Gran, but what did she get? I look around at the room and remember painting it with her. It’s still the same pretty lilac color we’d picked together. She’d made a nook in the corner with bookshelves, a fuzzy purple rug, a mountainous pile of cozy pillows and a deep purple canopy that hung like a silken tent around the area.
In the beginning, it was my security spot, a place to hide from the world, but it wasn’t long before Gran became my safe place, and the nook took on its intended purpose. A spot for reading, giggling and secret telling. I smile thinking of the choose your own adventure books Paige and I would read, taking turns choosing.
I suddenly want to crawl into the nook and read one of my books where everything was solved nice and neat by the end.
Instead, I sigh and head for the kitchen, not wanting to be surrounded by memories of my past anymore. The rooster flap could wait.
Coffee in hand, I open my laptop and stare. Each minute the cursor blinks is another minute I feel like a failure. Nothing makes me grumpier than a blank page. I’m seconds away from giving up when a knock at the back door startles me. It’s so unexpected I jump in my chair, knocking over my coffee which has no more than one cold swallow left in it, but still further tanks my mood.
I curse as I limp to the door, seeing my new nemesis as I do.
“This damn well better be important,” I bark. Yanking open the door, my eyes land on a muscle- hugging Foo Fighters t-shirt. My gaze sticks there for several beats before it swings up to my neighbor’s eyes.
“Bad time?” he asks and looks at his watch. I take advantage and appreciate his well-formed arm as he does. “Not teatime, is it?” His easy smile irks me, almost as much as his body heats me. Why the hell did I read that book? What I should be reading is some fade-to-black historical romance that might help inspire my writing instead of my libido.
My eyes narrow. “From now on, just consider all times bad for a visit,” I clip with a sniff. “I’m far too busy to take callers.” I want to roll my eyes at myself for being so insufferable, but he’s the most distracting man I’ve ever met.
“Wow. Not a morning person either I guess.” He looks past me at my laptop. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting your work, but I thought we should talk.” He seems genuinely apologetic, so I don’t slam the door in his face.
“Talk?”
He nods.
“What could we possibly have to talk about, Mr. Biker?”
“We’re neighbors, Tessa. Call me Case.”
I frown, mostly to keep my smile holstered. He’s quick-witted and I hate that it amuses me.
“It’s Tess,” I stress. “And where I come from neighbors are nothing more than strangers you wave at occasionally while getting your mail.” I cross my arms, adjusting my footing slightly as my ankle starts throbbing. “Feel free to wave from your side of the tree line.”
“What if I need to borrow some sugar?”
My brows rise. This man does not look like the sugar-borrowing kind. He looks like someone I’d like to lick sugar off of though.
Ugh, down girl.
I want to smack myself for the intrusive thought, but instead I gather a breath, making myself sound extra annoyed. “That’s what Instacart is for.”
“Instacart probably isn’t a thing out here,” he states.
Of course it isn’t.
I roll my eyes. “Do you need sugar, Mr. Biker? I’ll give you the entire ten-pound bag if you’ll just get to the point and leave.”
“No, and it’s Case.”
I audibly growl and Case holds his hands up in surrender, once again giving me a look at his spectacular arms. I tap my foot, and the move makes me wince.
He notices but doesn’t say anything, thankfully.
“I thought we could talk about a mutually suitable schedule.” He gestures inside and despite my urge to growl him right off my porch like a rabid dog, I step aside and let him in. He immediately makes his way to the kitchen table and sits.
I catch him noticing the overturned coffee cup and spill. “You startled me,” I say and wipe up the mess, trying hard not to limp as I walk around to my spot. “That’s what happens when people pound on your door at the crack of dawn and break your concentration.”
He doesn’t apologize again. Instead, he points at the coffeemaker. “You mind? I could use one.”
This time I roll my eyes behind closed lids, my shoulders slumping. “Would you like a coffee, Mr. Biker?”
“That’s a neighborly offer, Tessa. Yes, thank you.”
My jaw tightens. “Help yourself.”
He heads to the machine opening the cupboard like he’s made himself a coffee here many times. Maybe he has.
“Right, you should be resting that ankle.”
“My ankle is fine,” I say through clenched teeth.
He only nods, pops in a pod in and presses the start button.
“Here’s the thing,” he says, and I look skyward to thank the gods he’s finally getting to the point.
“I’d like to work with you. You said you’re on a deadline and I am as well, but maybe we can both make some compromises and make things work.”
Just as I’m about to open my mouth to answer, an instant message pops up on my screen. It’s from Paige, and not best friend Paige. In all caps, Agent Paige says, THEY ARE CONSIDERING LEGAL ACTION, TESS!
I don’t need to ask who ‘they’ are. She’s talking about my publisher. And my stomach instantly roils.
“I’m willing to adjust my schedule and start at nine in the morning instead of eight, as long as you don’t mind me working until seven in the evening.”
I rise, panic turning to rage. Rage unfortunately aimed at the closest person.
“Unless you keep the noise level to a minimum until noon, I’ll make your life a living hell, Mr. Callen, now take your coffee and get the hell off my property.”
He blinks and I can’t decide if the words just haven’t sunk in yet or if he’s in shock. But I don’t wait to find out. I get up and storm to the door, ignoring the burning pain in my ankle, and yank it open, waiting for him to leave.
Case’s square jaw shifts and his eyes narrow slightly. For a second I wonder if pissing off a man his size is a good idea, but he passes me through the door without so much as a growl.
As soon as he’s gone, I promptly start to hyperventilate. In full-blown panic mode, I clutch my chest and sink to the floor.
I can’t handle another legal battle or another confrontation with an asshole judge. I must write this damn book.
I shoot Paige a message as soon as I’ve meditated myself into a calmer state and sit my ass back in front of my laptop where I write the most terrible chapter of my life.