Chapter 6 #2
I force myself to take a couple of deep breaths as excitement surges through my body.
Dropping my hands, I rush over to the closet and begin picking through my clothes.
This feels like picking the perfect outfit for a date, only to the tenth power.
I match up my best five outfits and lay them aside.
I’m not going too sexy. I just want to look well put together.
I drag my suitcase out from under the bed and begin filling it with my carefully folded clothes.
I sit on the edge of the bed and think about what’s about to happen.
I’m going to live with the man I’ve been crushing on since I was sixteen.
Out of every man in this town, Flint is the least likely to flirt back with me.
I know this because he’s never seen me as anything other than his best friend’s sister.
Maybe spending more time alone with me will get him to see me as a person in my own right.
Truth be told, I’d slowly given up on Flint the way other people give up on their teen celebrity crushes. And now the man I never got over is offering me a bedroom at his place and a job working side-by-side with him. I said yes embarrassingly fast.
I put my hands back up to my cheeks. “I am a disaster,” I whisper to my cat.
She just meows again.
“Don’t worry, I’m not leaving you behind.”
I take a deep breath, put my cat in her carrier and head downstairs.
Flint grabs the suitcase from my hand and carries it out to my car. I hold the cat carrier up and ask my cat, “Are you ready to visit with Flint? I hear he’s got a cool place.”
***
The drive to Flint’s place doesn’t take long.
When we pull into his driveway, I notice his house is bigger than I expected it to be.
Sure enough, it has a steel frame and glass panels of smoked glass.
It looks more like a workshop that someone’s converted into a home.
It’s a unique, beautiful building in its own way.
The cat yowls from her carrier in the back seat, and I open my door to get her out. Flint heads towards the back of my car to fetch my suitcase, because he’s a gentleman through and through.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing the carrier. “Let’s get her inside before she loses her little kitty mind.”
He walks up to the front door ahead of me and presses his thumb against the scanning plate.
The lock pops open and I follow him inside.
He has an open floor plan with polished concrete floors that catch the overhead light.
The walls are mostly bare. There is one framed print that looks like a military unit picture.
The whole place looks organized and clutter-free.
“Wow,” I say. “You have a really nice home, Flint. This is gorgeous.”
“Thanks,” he answers. “I haven’t brought many people to my house and the ones I have brought were not impressed.”
“Then your friends must not have very good taste.”
He walks past me towards the back of the house. “Follow me and I’ll show you to your room.”
I follow him, vowing to myself that I’m going to get through the next few days without embarrassing myself with more gushing compliments.
Flint stops at a door, opens it and steps aside to let me go in first. He’s so polite that no woman on earth really deserves him and his cute industrial house.
I walk into my new bedroom, eager to see where I’ll be sleeping.
I’m pleasantly surprised to find a spacious room that’s meticulously clean.
It has a queen bed with crisp white sheets and a gray quilt.
He’s got a dresser and a nightstand with a small lamp against opposite sides of the bed.
I see a door on the side wall that probably leads either to a closet or a bathroom.
I’m delighted to find another door that leads to the outside with its own little patio.
“I’ll enter your fingerprint into the biometric door locks. Once you’re in the system, you can access any door. There’s a code pad on the outside, similar to the one we used to get into the front door.”
I follow him out and he seems to key endless codes into the door before a green frame lights up around the scanning plate.
I place my index finger on the pad, like I saw him do earlier and wait for the light to do something nifty.
It eventually turns white and after he keys a bunch of numbers into the pad, he announces, “You’re good to go.
I’ll give you the manual code in case there’s any problems.”
“Your place is high tech, Flint. Did you turn into a techie when I wasn’t looking?”
“Not hardly. The locks came with the building, and I decided they were easier than keeping up with keys. Trust me, you won’t want to go back to carrying keys either.”
The rest of the evening goes off without a hitch.
I unpack, and Flint orders in food for us.
We make polite conversation over dinner, and he tells me a bit more about his shop and what to expect.
When we part ways, he tells me, “We need to leave in the morning by seven. If you want breakfast, come down a little early.”
“I’d love to join you for breakfast,” I answer with a grin on my face.