Chapter 4
Four
I know everything happens for a reason but…what the fuck?
—Birdee’s secret thoughts
Birdee
I heard the phone, but it was like I couldn’t open my eyes long enough to answer it.
It was probably Cody, trying to do her sisterly duties and make sure that I was alive.
I just couldn’t force myself to move.
I knew I needed to answer it, however. If I didn’t, he’d show up.
And I didn’t want Creed freakin’ Daugherty to show up at my house.
Literally, there could’ve been anyone to hit me today, and I would’ve probably been okay with it. But not him. And I certainly wouldn’t have wanted him to feel obligated to take care of me since he was the one who hit me.
Though, I didn’t know if it counted as him hitting me when I was the one who slid into him.
Fucking asshole neighbors.
If there was ever a reason to live with a homeowner’s association for the neighborhood, this would’ve been it.
From the get-go, they’d been pains in my asses.
When I’d moved in a couple of weeks ago, thankful as fuck that I could find a place within my price range, the Hubers had sat out on their porch and watched as I hauled everything in by myself.
They hadn’t offered to help—not that I would’ve ever asked them to seeing as they creeped me out—and had watched me struggle for three solid hours as I unloaded my U-Haul.
But that wasn’t the last time that they watched me.
If I checked the mail, washed my car, went on a walk, or even left to go to work in the morning, they were there watching.
Hell, the most excited they’d been was when my stepfather showed up last week demanding that I give him a place to stay for the week until he could find a place to rent on his own. When I’d said no, he’d gotten forceful and demanded that I allow it. When I hadn’t, he’d started to yell.
That’s when I noticed that the Hubers were practically on the edge of their seats watching.
It never ceased to creep me out.
The phone started to ring again, and I managed to crack one eyelid open.
It was still dark outside, that I could tell. But other than that, I had no gauge on what time it was.
I groaned and rolled over, sitting up.
As I did, I heard something fall to the floor, and frowned when I looked toward the door.
“What was that?” I asked quietly as I stood and started to shuffle into the kitchen.
Just as I got to the living room, I tripped over a blanket that I could’ve sworn was in the hall closet with my extra bath towels and linens.
Leaving it where it was, I headed toward the wall phone that hung in my kitchen.
It’d come with the house and was likely older than I was.
When it stopped ringing, I contemplated standing there and waiting for it to ring again, but a wave of nausea and dizziness assailed me.
“Shit,” I said as I lurched toward the couch.
The only thing that saved me from going down was the fact that I was only steps away from the sofa where I could all but fall over the back of the couch.
“Shit,” I groaned as my head bounced onto the cushion. “Owwww.”
The ringing started again, but I was way too far from it, and there was no way I was getting back up.
I lay there as it rang several more times before stopping.
I closed my eyes, wondering how I was going to get up in the morning to go to work, and came up empty.
I don’t know how long I waited there, wishing the nausea away, but it was evidently long enough for someone to pull into my driveway and pound on the door.
“I can’t get up!” I called out.
The pounding stopped and a man’s voice called out, “Birdee?”
“I’m here. I’m awake. But if I get up, I’m going to throw up and pass out. And I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
There was some maneuvering at my door, then it was swinging open as if it hadn’t been locked.
I was too close to throwing up to complain.
I was also too far gone to wonder who it was that had just entered my house.
The man’s first words confirmed my suspicions, though.
“You okay?” Creed asked.
Creed freakin’ Daughterty.
Literally, again, it could’ve been anyone who took me out today. And it had to be him. The one man who could really make me sit up and pay attention.
When I’d first encountered Creed, it’d been at my lowest of lows.
We’d just figured out that my mother was a trash human being. I’d been forced to move out of the pool house at Mable’s place—though she hadn’t necessarily been kicking me out as much as she’d wanted her father—my stepfather—and my mother—her stepmother—out of her home.
If I’d known that it wasn’t Tom’s, I would’ve totally gotten the hell out of that house a long time ago. But I’d been in school for so damn long, trying to get my doctorate in animal science, that I’d been pretty lazy and uninspired to move out and go my own way.
At first, I’d started animal science on a whim.
My stepfather had been a dog breeder when we met him.
I’d been infatuated with the strong animals.
From there, I’d fallen in love with animals of all kinds, and eventually, into the biology of many species.
As a way to escape my poor home life, I’d thrown myself into research and eventually my degree.
My mother showing her true colors had happened at just the right time, seeing as I’d finally graduated with my doctorate.
It’d given me the kick I needed to get the hell out of there and start my own life.
I’d fallen into a job, too, with the state.
It definitely wasn’t what I’d always envisioned—being a snake milker. But it was a fairly interesting job that would hold me over until the one that I really wanted happened to pop up.
Since I wasn’t willing to relocate or do anything via technology, my job openings were limited.
I wanted something here, within a couple of hours of my hometown.
I didn’t know why I had such a desire to stay, but every time I thought about leaving, panic would start to tighten my chest.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Creed freakin’ Daugherty.
Jesus, the man was lethal.
Tall, broad, and so damn male it made my teeth ache, he was the literal epitome of my dream man.
He had sandy-brown hair, pale-green eyes, and a bushy beard that covered what I knew to be a very strong jaw.
He walked like a predator, too.
Every time that I was in his vicinity, I felt like a damn weakling compared to him. It was as if his masculine energy swallowed all the air in our shared space.
“I’m trying,” I lied. “How’d you get in here?”
“Your locks are absolute shit,” he said. “You should probably replace them with something more secure. All it took was a credit card to get in. Do you not have a deadbolt?”
Jesus, now he sounded like my dad.
He’d taken one look at the place and said, ‘This place isn’t safe.’
Not that I had anything to argue with him about.
I mean, the place was old. They didn’t make security-conscious houses back in the twenties.
The windows were all drafty. The back door could be kicked in with a swift wind.
And the doors to the balcony upstairs didn’t even lock because the owner had lost the key.
The same went for the deadbolt downstairs.
“I don’t have the key to it,” I admitted, my brain feeling fuzzy. “So it’s just a habit not to lock it.”
He grumbled something unintelligible, and I opened my eyes to see the lights lining the street shining through my windows bouncing off the sharp angles of his face.
Creed was drop-dead gorgeous.
He was also so freakin’ hot that he was light years out of my league.
He was the type of man that you saw on the covers of magazines at the grocery store, staring at you to the depths of your soul.
“What are you doing here?” I finally asked, my mouth dry.
Seriously. The man was potent.
Just the idea of him being in my house seemed incredibly erotic, and he wasn’t here for anything but to make sure I wasn’t dead.
“I came here because you weren’t answering the phone, and I didn’t want you to die in your sleep,” he admitted.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “You can go now. I’m sorry for not answering.”
He scoffed. “I’m not leaving if you say you’re dizzy when you stand.”
I felt my eyes drift closed again. “Then stay here, but since I’m fairly sure I’m not moving from this spot anytime soon, the only other place you can sleep is on my bed. Feel free to use it.”
He tilted his head. “I’m not sleeping in your bed.”
I shrugged. “Then I guess your only other option is a kitchen chair.”
“I could carry you,” he suggested, albeit reluctantly.
I snorted. “I’m perfectly fine right here. I even have a blanket.”
I pulled said blanket from the back of the couch and covered myself with it.
A hint of aftershave hit me, and a frown of confusion marred my face.
It smelled like the aftershave my stepfather used.
Weird.
“You don’t have a blow-up mattress or anything?” he asked.
“No,” I grumbled into the blanket, my nose wrinkling.
It really smelled.
As in, overly.
And since I’d never been super fond of my stepfather, or his aftershave, I kind of wanted to throw the blanket off of me.
But that would’ve required effort, and I didn’t have any of it in me to give at that moment in time.
“Come on,” he said as he walked toward me. “I’ll get you back in bed.”
I started to protest, but there didn’t seem to be a point.
“What’s your damage with me sleeping out here and you sleeping in the bed?” I asked when he lifted me off the couch.
Without, might I add, a grunt of effort.
See, this was what I wanted.
A man who didn’t have any trouble lifting me.
I was small and curvy. I looked like I would weigh less than I did, and every boyfriend that I’d had always teased me for being “dense.”
Every. Last. One.
It was a hit to my ego every time someone that looked strong picked me up and acted like I weighed a million pounds.
“I’m not super big on taking a girl’s bed and leaving her to the couch,” he said as he carried me into my bedroom and straight to my bed. “Where’s all your furniture?”
“Don’t have any,” I said. “Furniture requires money. And seeing as all of my money is currently going to paying off student loans that I took out, I’m currently in short supply of it right now.”
Which he very well knew.
Though, admittedly, he might not have known about the student loans.
“Didn’t Apollo fix your credit?” he asked.
I frowned. “Why would he do that for me?”
“Because he did it for your sister?”
I ignored that.
Just because my sister had friends in high places, didn’t mean that I did.
I would never ask anyone to “fix my debt.” I was too proud for that. “But these are loans I legitimately took out for my schooling. They’re not ones that my mother had a hand in.”
I was also slightly defensive about it, which was why the words slipped off my lips before I could pull them back.
“I’m sure he would fix those, too, if you’d ask.”
“Yeah, because I’m sure he just goes around fixing credit like this all the time.” I rolled my eyes.
“Actually, funny you should say that. Because there are a pair of sisters that had the same issue with their mother. Though their mother actually ruined their credit. They’re really good friends of Apollo. He was just telling me about it last week when we were in a group phone chat with Romeo.”
“Why were you in a group phone chat with Romeo?” I asked as I pulled the comforter up over myself.
He watched me painfully pull it up while trying to not jostle my body and took pity on me by tucking me in while explaining.
“We all try to meet up at least once a week. We checked in with him via phone, seeing as he’s in Oregon with Mable,” Creed commented. “Long story short, we have some issues, and Apollo likes to make sure that we’re all alive and well.”
I wondered what those issues were, but since I didn’t want him butting into my issues, I sure as heck wasn’t going to ask him about his.
Though, he probably wouldn’t tell me about those issues anyway.
“Anyway, something was brought up on Romeo’s end about how Mable felt awful for forcing Apollo to fix y’all’s issues with your mother and whatever the fuck she did to ruin y’all’s lives.
And he started telling us about his good friends, Silver and Aella.
I think y’all’s situation is a bit worse than theirs was.
And their mother didn’t pit the two of them against each other like yours did.
And their dad wasn’t in the picture like yours is.
But they still had credit issues that he happily fixed because he finds it entertaining. ”
If you could call having a dad that wanted nothing to do with you and everything to do with your stepsister…I mentally cut myself off from that line of thinking.
That never got me anywhere, and we were trying to get ahead of our past traumas.
“Well, seeing as I’m not anyone to him, this is a moot point, isn’t it?” I asked. “I’m alive. You really don’t have to stay.”
He studied me for a long time, and while he was doing that, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the pain that was pounding my head.
Seriously, I should’ve never gotten up.
I should’ve let that phone ring if he was going to let himself in anyway.
“I’ll let you go to bed,” he said. “But I’m not leaving.”
I shrugged. “See you later then.”
He understood a dismissal when he heard one and left, leaving me alone to wallow in my pain and misery—the misery being what a shitshow my life had become.
It was pure crazy to me that a girl who worked her ass off to go to school to become a doctor could be this far gone in terms of her life.
I should have the entire world ahead of me, and instead I had loan debt, parent issues, sisters who semi-tolerated me, and a single friend.
What kind of life was that?
And what, really, did I have to look forward to when every single odd was stacked against me?