Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Isla
The breeze from my apartment’s open window blows the fine hairs that have escaped my messy bun across my face. I sit on my couch, watching a rerun of King of Queens . Years after this show has ended, I still can’t get enough of Carrie and Doug.
Blake asked me if I wanted to go out with him tonight, but it’s mid-week. Not only do I not like being tired at work, but the feeling that things between him and me need to come to an end keeps growing. I know the right thing to do is to let him go. I do. At this point, I think I’m just delaying the inevitable because if I end things with Blake, it feels like I also have to admit that I have feelings for Travis.
Which is stupid because nothing can ever happen between us. He’s my boss. And he’s already shown me once that he’s not ready for a relationship, based on whatever he’s dealing with in his past.
I blow out a frustrated breath that turns into a chuckle when the Carrie character on TV delivers a sarcastic one-liner in the way only she can.
I lean farther back into the couch and prop my fuzzy-socked feet on the coffee table.
A few minutes later, there’s a noise behind me. I’m not even sure what it is, but it makes me stiffen because I instinctively know it does not belong in my apartment. Slowly, I sit up straight and turn around.
I scream when my gaze meets a squirrel’s beady little eyes at the far end of the table behind my sofa. I bolt up off of the couch, and it scrambles too. I have no idea where because I run down the hallway into my bedroom and slam the door shut.
Panting, I lean my back on the door, trying to catch my breath.
How the hell did a squirrel get in my apartment?
Better question—how the hell do I get it out?
It takes me a minute to breathe normally again, and once I do, I realize that I’ve left a squirrel alone to wreak havoc in my apartment.
I need to call someone for help. Lucas would definitely come, but I don’t want to bother him. He and Camila could be up to God knows what. And Travis isn’t an option for obvious reasons, so Josh it is.
It’s a great plan, but my phone is on the coffee table in my living room.
Shit.
I’m going to have to go back out there and face the furry critter.
Gathering all my courage, I crack open my bedroom door. I don’t see or hear anything, so I step into the hallway, closing the door behind me. The less space this furry menace has to run around, the better.
When I make it into the living room, he’s there, standing on the TV console. That isn’t super close to where my phone sits on the edge of the coffee table, but it’s close enough for my chest to tighten with anxiety.
Slowly, so as not to spook it, I inch toward the coffee table, ready to run in the opposite direction in case it lunges for me. I’ve seen squirrels jump before, and they can cover a lot of distance. I do not want it clinging to my back with those sharp claws.
When I’m about a foot away from my phone, it leaps off the console onto the floor, then hops up and latches onto one of the curtains by the large window. I yelp and dive forward for the phone, grabbing it and racing back toward the hallway. After a full-body shiver at how close I came to the furry beast, I stand at the edge of the hallway so that I can keep an eye on what it’s doing.
It’s still hanging halfway up my curtain, and when it sways in the breeze, I see how the creature got in. There’s a rip in my screen. Whether the squirrel did it or something else is responsible, that’s definitely the point of entry.
I look at my phone and bring up Josh’s contact, making sure to constantly look back at the squirrel. One jump and I’m back in my bedroom. I bring the phone to my ear, and it only rings once before Josh answers.
“Hello,” he says, and it sounds more like he’s saying yellow rather than hello.
“Josh, I need your help,” I whisper-shout. I don’t know why I’m keeping my voice down, but it feels necessary to keep the squirrel in check for some reason.
“Isla?”
“Josh, there’s a squirrel running loose in my apartment!”
He chuckles, and my grip on the phone tightens. “It’s not funny!”
“It’s kinda funny. It’s just a squirrel. Annoying, sure, but it’s not going to hurt you.”
“You haven’t seen this thing. It’s got beady little eyes and it’s hanging off my curtain like it’s Indiana Jones or something. He’s coming up with a plan to torment me the rest of the night.”
“Sounds terrifying,” he says with a tone of sarcasm.
“I need you to help get it out of my apartment. Stop joking around.”
He laughs again. “All right, all right. I’ll take care of it. Text me your address.”
My shoulders relax a little since he’s willing to help me. “Thank you. I’ll do it as soon as we get off this call.” I hang up and quickly text him my address, then go back to my staring contest with the squirrel.
I don’t know how long I stand there, though it’s long enough for my muscles to stiffen and ache. Finally, there’s a knock on my door.
With one eye on the squirrel, I tiptoe backward toward my apartment door and feel around for the door handle. I don’t dare put my back to the beast for fear that it will launch a sneak attack. Once my hand makes contact with the door handle, I turn it, which is a little hard to do at this angle, and slowly open the door.
The squirrel must sense that the person I’ve revealed spells his doom because he hops off my curtains and scurries into my kitchen.
“That’s right, you beast! Run! Because this guy is going to put you back where you belong—outside! Right, Josh?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Every muscle in my body tenses at the sound of Travis’s voice. Not Josh’s.
Momentarily forgetting the squirrel, I whip around to face him. “What are you doing here? I called Josh.” I cringe as soon as the words leave my mouth because they came out bitchier than intended.
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m the one with the trap.” He walks past me into my apartment and sets a metal cage on the floor.
“I’m not disappointed,” I say, checking out his ass in his jeans while he’s bent over. He looks over his shoulder at me and catches me, and my face heats. “I’m just high-strung because there’s an animal that’s meant to live outside in my apartment. I was expecting Josh.”
“He called me and asked me to help you out because he knows I have the trap. Need it sometimes around my place with all the wildlife there.”
His words make me think of his place nestled in the woods outside of town. I didn’t get a great look at it since it was nighttime when I was there, but what he’s saying makes sense.
“Well, thanks for coming to help me.”
Travis and I may have technically made up, but there’s still an underlying tension between us. I can’t be sure if it’s just awkward because I’ve held his dick and I now work for him, or whether there’s still an underlying animosity between us. Maybe both.
Travis just nods. “So where is this thing?”
“It ran into the kitchen after you knocked.”
He nods and, like a damn superhero or something, walks through my living room into the kitchen. “You have any peanut butter, nuts, apples… stuff like that?”
I hear a cupboard open and close, and I slowly walk toward the kitchen. Where did the squirrel go?
My question is answered when I peek around the corner and see it sitting on the fridge, watching Travis go through all my cupboards.
“You know it’s right above you, right?” I whisper, pointing at the fridge.
Travis turns and looks at me over my shoulder. “Obviously.”
“How can you just move around in there like it’s not going to jump on your back and scratch your eyes out at any minute?” It could attack his dick, which would be really sad.
He’s turned back around now, and though I can’t see it, I’m sure he’s rolling his eyes at me. Finding what he’s looking for, he pulls my peanut butter from the cupboard.
“Apples are in the fridge. Bottom drawer,” I say.
He strides over to the fridge as if there’s not a squirrel on top of it and opens it. The squirrel leaps from the fridge to the far counter.
I yelp and rush out of the room.
“Is this reaction from some traumatic experience in childhood like the period thing?” Travis calls.
I glare in his direction even though he can’t see me. “No. I had no idea I was even afraid of squirrels until I discovered one… IN MY APARTMENT!”
Travis chuckles, and if the feeling of a soft blanket wrapped around you on a chilly fall day had a sound, that would be it. It’s warm and comforting to my ears. He appears around the corner with a piece of apple with some peanut butter on it in his hand, moving toward the trap, and gets down on his haunches in front of it.
“Stop making fun of me and just get that squirrel out of my place. Please, Travis.”
He stills and looks up at me funny.
“What?”
He gives his head a shake. “Nothing.”
But his voice breaks on the word, and suddenly I know, without him saying it, that it’s the last part of my sentence—when I said, “Please, Travis”—that he’s thinking about. I have to force myself to look away. Both because of the sexual chemistry swirling between us and because I hear the squirrel moving. I’m convinced it’s about to lunge around the corner at me with a knife it procured in the kitchen.
He baits the trap and places it in the entryway to the kitchen, turns, and stalks toward me. “C’mon.”
“Where are we going?” Does he want me to leave that thing here in my apartment?
“Around the corner, out of sight until it gets in that trap.”
I follow him to the hallway I was hiding out in before. “How long do you think this will take?”
He shrugs. “Probably depends on how hungry he is.”
I frown. “That doesn’t sound reassuring.”
“Eager to get rid of me?” He arches an eyebrow, and our gazes lock and hold.
“That’s not it. I just want the beast out of my house.”
“Like I said, eager to get rid of me?”
I chuckle at his joke, and some of the tension leaves my chest.
Silence wraps around us as we maintain eye contact, feeling the pull between us until I glance away.
“Thanks for coming to help me. I appreciate it.”
He gives me a grunt, and when I hear movement around the corner, I use the excuse to peek around the corner. I still when Travis’s big body presses into mine from behind as he looks over my head to see what the squirrel is up to.
The squirrel sniffs the air toward the trap, takes one step forward, then backs up before assessing its surroundings. But it seems unable to resist temptation because it takes another tiny step toward the trap, pauses, then another, pauses, then another.
It’s right at the entrance to the trap now, and I hold my breath, unsure what I hope it will do. I should be happy the squirrel is going into the trap—it means all of this will be done. But it also means that Travis’s firm body will no longer warm my curves. His breath won’t make the stray hairs from my ponytail tickle my face. His masculine scent won’t be wrapped around me any longer.
The squirrel walks another inch forward. Then another and another. And finally it’s inside the trap, gorging itself on the apple.
“Oh, thank God.” I look over my shoulder at him, arching my neck. “It can’t get out, right?”
Travis shakes his head, and I force myself to ignore how my lips tingle when I realize that I could inch up on my tiptoes and kiss him. Instead, I rush into the living room, giving the trap a wide berth, and shut the window. The last thing I need is another critter finding its way in here, even if the idea of enlisting Travis’s help again is appealing.
Releasing a big breath, my shoulders finally relax from being up near my ears.
“Guess I should get going. We have that meeting early tomorrow morning,” Travis says, picking up the trap as if it’s nothing. The squirrel is still inside, enjoying its snack.
“Right. Of course. I’m sorry you had to come out here tonight. I’m sure you had better things to do.”
“Nothing better than getting to play your hero, Isla.” He gives me a sad sort of smile, and my stomach whooshes around like a buoy in the ocean.
Before I can respond, he heads toward my apartment door, then he’s gone.
I stand in place for a long time, watching the door, until it dawns on me that calling Blake to help didn’t even cross my mind. Squeezing my eyes shut, I let out a long, strained breath. I guess I have my answer now.