Chapter Four
Ryan
The glass is cleared away, the beautiful photos are stacked on the marble counter in the kitchen, and the mess that we figured was strawberries, cream, and noodles has been wiped away.
The trash can is fuller than it was before we arrived, but at least the place looks a whole lot cleaner than before.
The urge to know what the hell actually happened is gnawing relentlessly at me, my curiosity piqued more than it ever has been.
I’m browsing through the photography magazines on the woman’s coffee table, studiously ignoring the bottle of lube stationed right in the middle of the vintage-looking furniture, when Rayne comes strolling down the hallway with a grin so wide it catches me off guard for a moment.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that man smile that big in all the years I’ve known him.
I’ll be damned if that’s not enough to drive my interest and intrigue up a few notches more.
“She’s fine, not hurt. Dignity is shattered and she’s embarrassed as hell, so maybe go easy on her when she comes back out,” Rayne comments, tugging his hat off to run his hands through his short hair, putting it back with a barely-there snicker.
An honest-to-God snicker. Who is this man and what has he done with the ever-silent and grumpy Rayne I’ve known for the last ten years?
“Bro, did you just laugh?” Caiden blurts, as shocked as the rest of us.
Sure enough, the dick is staring at Rayne like he’s sprouted a penis for a nose, and I can’t help but snort.
He’s sitting at the island with a glass of juice in front of him, arms crossed on the counter like this is his morning routine.
Baxter is watching him from the corner of his eye with an almost-there smile while he expertly flips a pancake over at the stove.
Apparently, we’ve all decided to make ourselves at home.
I mean, it’s not like we’re going anywhere until we hear the story behind our introduction to our neighbor.
Deciding to take a page from their book, I drop down onto the couch and pick up the remote, turning the volume up on the TV show.
Rayne comes over and drops down beside me, crossing his arms over his now-stained shirt while he silently watches Game of Thrones with me.
It’s not like we haven’t watched it all before, but you can never go wrong with rewatching some dragons burn shit to ashes.
A little while later, I finally speak up. “I wonder how much this place costs to rent. This woman has to be loaded if she’s living here alone.”
“You’d be right. But I don’t pay rent… I own the building,” a gentle feminine rasp sounds from the hallway entrance.
My head snaps in the woman’s direction without preamble, looking her up and down appreciatively.
She’s in a pair of low-hanging gray sweats that show off her hip bones and flat stomach, a cropped white tank that displays a generous amount of smooth, creamy skin, and a pair of white designer sneakers.
She has a gray snapback on her head, much like Rayne’s, her pale-blue hair hanging down in waves over her chest. Best of all, she’s not covered in crap or squeezed the wrong way in her tub.
When my eyes reach her face, I find a pretty pink hue staining her cheeks, light-blue eyes narrowed on something just past my head.
Before I can question it, she storms over to the coffee table, a cotton-candy scent wafting past my nose as she passes by.
I watch with no small amount of fascination as she snatches the lube I’d forgotten about from the coffee table and hustles her pert ass to the balcony door.
She slides the door open harshly, making me wince on behalf of the wall of windows, and launches her arm backward the moment she’s outside.
It’s then I realize she’s just kamikazed the bottle of lube off the balcony, throwing it with a shocking amount of strength.
I can only hope the lube doesn’t hit someone when it lands.
“Fuck you, you pussy destroyer!” the woman yells, sticking her middle fingers up at the flying bottle.
As she cusses her pretty little head off, completely unbothered by the people nearby or the fact it’s still too early for this shit, Rayne nudges my arm with his elbow and points down at the magazines I’d been looking over earlier.
Leaning toward the table, I snag them in my hand and look over the first page…
and freeze. Why is our crazy neighbor on the front page, and why didn’t I recognize it the first time I looked at it?
Maybe it’s because she looks smart and sophisticated on the cover, dolled up with makeup, hair styled to perfection, her crossed legs covered in purple pants, and a white sleeveless blouse covering her upper half.
She’s nothing like the vision we walked in on, though I can definitely recognize the resemblance now.
Rayne leans over to point at her name while the woman in question yells, “Be gone, devil juice! I hope you land in dog shit. And then I hope a bird shits on you on top of that!”
Caiden stifles a laugh while Bax snorts.
Grinning with a shake of my head, I read over the front page and…
freeze a-fucking-gain. Madison Fowler. The world-renowned photographer?
Daughter of two of Hollywood’s biggest royals right now?
How the hell are we in her apartment right now, listening to her curse all lube products on the face of the earth?
“Owns the building. Landlord. Or landlady, in this case,” Rayne mutters from beside me, his lips twitching when Madison spurts creative curse words that I’ve never heard used together before.
“How is that possible? I don’t remember seeing her name on the papers we signed,” I volley, confused and amused all at once. I don’t think I’ve ever been this entertained in my life, especially not this early in the morning.
The balcony door closes as Madison sighs, dropping her head back onto the glass with a muted thud. “My name wasn’t on the papers. It was one of my company names. Can’t be too careful when renting out the apartments in the building I live in and own.”
“Wait, you’re our landlord?” Baxter questions from the kitchen, keeping his back to us so he can keep the pancakes from burning.
“Mhm. That would be me. Guess you’ve also figured out who I am, too,” she mentions, pointing at the magazines in my hand.
Nodding with a twitch of my lips, I put the magazines back down and look at the woman with fresh eyes.
She’s stunning, that much is obvious. Stupidly so, with a slender figure and curves and dips in all the best places.
With eyes the color of melting ice, a small button nose, and full lips, she looks both fierce and soft all at once.
It’s a beautiful contradiction that I find entirely too appealing.
Her high cheekbones are still a pretty shade of pink, though she doesn’t seem as embarrassed as Rayne made her out to be.
That is until Caiden opens his big fat mouth and a rush of blood pools in her face. “So, Blue… why’d you yeet the lube outside?”
“Divine intervention won’t save me now,” she grumbles, shutting her eyes tight before opening them again and surprisingly answering the question.
“I yeeted the lube because it made my life hell on this morning I would very much like to erase. They should put warning labels on those things. Are those pancakes?”
Baxter turns from the stove and the plate of pancakes he’s been quietly stacking all this time, spatula in one hand while offering her another plate with the other. “Yeah. Thought you could do with some sugar after whatever you went through this morning.”
“You have no idea. Pancakes fix everything. Thanks,” Madison answers, nodding appreciatively while she walks across the kitchen to Baxter.
Accepting the plate, she piles several pancakes onto it before moving to the fridge with a wince.
“Thanks for cleaning up, too. You didn’t have to do that.
I would have done it as soon as I got myself unstuck.
If that ever happened. Don’t suppose any strawberries survived? ”
“That’s what she was covered in,” I hear Rayne mutter weirdly from beside me, as though he’s just had an epiphany.
“Caiden brought some up from our apartment,” Baxter replies with a smirk, gesturing to the grinning man in question with a spatula while also drawing my attention back to their interaction.
“And whipped cream, too,” Caid injects, grinning without an ounce of shame. “So, you gonna explain what the hell went down this morning? Your place looked like a war zone, and I have never heard a woman cuss so much in such a short amount of time.”
Groaning pitifully, Madison pulls out the strawberries and can of whipped cream, tucking them against her chest with her free arm. She then snags a carton of juice, closes the door to the fridge with her hip, and takes a seat next to the cheeky bastard still grinning at her.
She pointedly ignores him, spraying her stack of pancakes with cream before delicately placing a handful of strawberries on top.
When she’s finished, she looks over at Caiden and sighs in defeat.
“I assume the other pancakes are for the rest of you, and since you all helped me out, I can’t very well kick you out without explaining myself or allowing you to eat your breakfast. So, grab some plates, sit your asses down, introduce yourselves, and eat while I explain.
Maybe I’ll pass out face-first into my food, suffocate, and die or something. ”