Theo
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Collins texted me she was going to nap from one to four and mentioned she was going to bed at nine to be up at two. I pull up, grabbing the white box from the seat beside me. I ring the doorbell and hear her shout, “Come in!”
Both the heat inside and the aroma assault me right away. “Smells amazing.” I put the box down on the kitchen counter.
I put my hands on her hips, kissing her neck, and then lean my head next to hers to see the pan filled with corn and pieces of bacon. “What are we making?” I notice her eyes are red, as if she had been crying. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She quickly turns back to the pan. “I was cutting an onion. How was your day?”
I don’t know why, but I know she’s hiding something. I tilt my head to the side. “Long. Missed you.”
She laughs. “You were gone for five hours. Tomorrow you’ll be without me for at least fifteen.”
“Don’t remind me. Maybe we can do lunch or coffee.”
“Doubtful, the day shift is always so busy. I’ll be lucky to eat in one place instead of taking bites between calls.”
“What did you make?” I ask, deciding not to push her.
“Stuffed chicken, with a side salad and fried corn with bacon. It’s the first time I’ve made it, but I saw it online two weeks ago, and I’ve been wanting to try it.”
“Sounds delicious.” I watch her stirring the corn. “What can I do to help?”
“You can—” All the lights go off in her house.
“What in the . . . ?” She puts down the spoon and goes to the front door, sticking her head out.
The lights on the street are still lit, as are the lights in the house next door, which shine through the kitchen window.
“How does everyone else have electricity and not me?”
“Let me go and check your breaker box, maybe one jumped.” I look around for the electrical panel until she points to the back of the house.
Taking my phone out of my pocket, I turn on the flashlight.
I open the gray metal door, and all the switches are on, so I turn off the main switch and then turn it back on. The lights don’t come back on.
“I’m going to check the meter outside,” I call. The flashlight leads the way to the side of her house.
The wires on top are cut clear through. My hand shakes as I reach up and touch them.
“What the fuck?” I turn to look around, but no one is there. All I see is red. That fucking bitch is playing with the wrong person.
“Anything?” Collins comes outside.
“No. Not sure what’s going on.” My stomach burns lying to her, but I have only one thing on my mind—to get her the fuck out of this house and try to keep her as close to me as possible without scaring her.
“I’m going to go and call the power company,” she says, going back inside the house.
I text Caleb.
Me:
I think we need to make a police report. I’ll explain tomorrow.
I hear rustling coming from the back of the house. I jog around the corner.
No one is there. The back trees move as a gust of wind blows through, making it impossible for me to see if it’s a person or the breeze. I turn and rush back into the house.
“No, I’m fine, and there is no fire,” Collins is assuring someone on the phone. “Yes, my neighbors have power.” She looks over at me. “Okay. Yes, this is the number you can reach me at.” She hangs up the phone. “They’re going to send someone out in the morning.”
“Okay, go pack a bag, and I’ll pack the food.”
“Pack a bag and go where?”
“To my house, where there is electricity and air-conditioning.”
“I have survived without air-conditioning my whole life. The food is already done, so we can just eat here and then open some windows.”
“Why don’t we meet in the middle?” I suggest. “We can eat here, clean up, and then head over to my house to sleep.” I need to get her the fuck out of this house and into my house, where I have an alarm system and can keep Claire away from her.
She looks to the side. “We probably should,” she replies. “I don’t think you can handle the heat.”
I snort. “I can handle the heat, baby, but when I fuck you, you get really loud, and no one is going to get to hear your moans but me.”
“I’m not loud,” she says, trying to defend herself. “I mean, I can be quiet.”
“I don’t want you to be quiet.” I grab her hips, trying to push away the panic I felt earlier. “I want you moaning my name and screaming when I pound into you.”
“Okay, change of plans. You get the food, and we’ll eat at your house. I’ll go pack a bag.” She turns to walk out of the room.
“Fuck, all the food in the freezer and fridge needs to come with us.”
“I just need my uniform, and I’ll come back to help. The only thing that needs to be cleaned is the pan with the corn in it.”
It takes us twenty minutes to pack up everything, and by the time we walk out, I have sweat dripping down my temples. “That house is a sauna,” I mumble, placing the bags of food in the truck.
“Only because you didn’t have the windows open to create a breeze.” She opens the door and gets in. “We would have been fine, but you’re a prince who needs to be in air-conditioning.”
“Whatever you want to say, I don’t care, as long as you’re comfortable. Now, let’s get home so we can eat, and I can fuck you quick before you have to be in bed.”
“You are so lucky this child you put in me gives me extra hormones, and I really want to have sex with you, or else it would be a no.”
I can’t help but laugh as I pull out of her driveway.
“Wait!” She yells, laughing. “I need my car, I have to get to work.”
“I’ll drive you.” I pull away before she even has a chance to object.
“That makes no sense. It’ll be 3:00 a.m.”
“I’ll take you and then go back home to sleep,” I tell her. “Then I’ll pick you up, we’ll go eat, and I’ll take you back to my house so you can nap. If your house has power, we can head there after dinner.”
“You just have the answers for everything.”
“Not everything,” I admit, “but I try.”
She shakes her head.
It’s almost seven when we get to my house. “We have two hours before you need to be in bed.”
“Yes, so we have to eat fast.”
“I like the way you think,” I tease her. “I’ll bring in the stuff. You get the food situated, and then we’ll eat, and I’ll get my dessert.”
“You brought donuts?” She points at the white box I picked up after my meeting at the office. “So you can have that.”
“Your pussy tastes so much better than these donuts.” She shivers. “You know . . . we can have dessert before our meal. We are adults, we can do what we want.”
“What was the last thing you ate?” she asks me, and I look up to think. “So you don’t even have the energy to fuck me before we eat.”
“I have pent-up energy,” I retort, making her laugh as I walk up the five steps to my front door.
I open the door for her to walk in. “Go straight down the hall, and you’ll see the kitchen on your left.
” She glances curiously to the side, where there is the home office, before heading down the hallway and into the big family room, which has the dining room and kitchen.
Her mouth opens, and she looks back at me. “This room is as big as my whole house.”
“It’s just a house.” I walk past the oak dining room table that seats eight and set the bags on the big island. “Get the things in the fridge,” I urge her as she takes in my kitchen.
“This is so”—she runs her hand over the white marble countertop—“this makes your other house look like . . .”
“If it makes anything better, Caleb was the one who did all of this. I bought the house from him.”
“It doesn’t,” she huffs, head hanging.
“The only thing that I actually put in this house is the frame next to my bed of the baby,” I tell her, and her face goes soft. “I’m going to get the rest of the bags.”
As I walk back to the truck, my phone rings in my pocket. It’s Caleb.
“What the fuck? You can’t just message me that and then disappear.”
“I don’t have a lot of time.” I glance toward the front door to make sure she isn’t there. “Someone cut Collins’s electricity.”
“What do you mean?” His voice is low, so I know he’s trying not to let Sierra in on this either.
“We were at her house and, all of a sudden, the lights went out. I went to check, and someone cut the wires right through.”
“Does she know?” he asks, and I just close my eyes. “You didn’t tell her.”
“What am I supposed to tell her? Someone I hooked up with before you is batshit crazy and is now going to target you?”
“Um, yeah,” he says. “Okay, we’ll go over tomorrow and check out the wires. Maybe it was an animal that bit through them.”
“It didn’t look like an animal. They were cut too evenly, straight across.”
A car pulls abruptly out of a parking space across the street. It catches my attention as it speeds off, running through a stop sign. It’s too far and moving too fast for me to tell what kind of car it is before it turns the corner.
My heart hammers in my chest. “Someone was just watching the house.”
“Fuck,” Caleb exhales.
“I think it’s her, man.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I think I need to tell Burke. And I need to get cameras on my house and on hers. But I don’t want to scare her with this shit. She has enough on her plate.”
“I can help with the cameras,” he says.
“Thanks. I’m also going to have to ask her to move in with me. But I don’t know what she’s going to say.”
“Probably no. I don’t think she likes you.” There’s a pause. But then he can’t hold it without bursting out laughing.
I roll my eyes. “I have to go. We just got to my house, and she’s waiting for me. Don’t text me or call me back.” He’s still laughing as I hang up. “Time to wine and dine the mother of my child.”
I walk into the house with zero plans beyond keeping her here.