Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Edie had seen surgical theaters with more personality than Tarek's condo.
The space was massive, with tall ceilings and those floor-to-ceiling windows she'd noticed from outside, now revealing nothing but darkness and swirling snow.
A black-tiled fireplace dominated one wall, crackling with the fire he must have left burning before he came to rescue her like some kind of massive green knight in a shining pickup truck.
Everything was black or white. The walls were white. The wood floors were stained black. The perfectly centered wool rug was white. The huge furniture was black leather. But it wasn't just the architecture or the color scheme that made her brain short-circuit.
It was the organization.
Every single thing in his living room had a place, a specific designated location that had clearly been selected with military precision.
The remote controls—there were three of them—sat in a black leather caddy on the white marble coffee table, arranged from largest to smallest. The two white throw pillows on the enormous sectional sofa were positioned at perfect forty-five-degree angles to the corners.
She looked over at the kitchen at the left of the open floor plan.
A white ceramic tray contained exactly four apples—two red, two green—arranged in an alternating pattern.
The paper towel roll was folded into a point at the end, like hotel toilet paper.
The knife block had been placed precisely three inches from the edge of the counter, which she only knew because there was a small strip of black tape marking the spot.
Black tape.
"You have tape marks," she said.
He was still standing by the door, holding her bags and watching her. "What?"
"Tape marks. On your counter. To show where the knife block goes."
A muscle twitched in his jaw. "It ensures consistency."
"It ensures—" She couldn't finish the sentence. Her voice had gotten too high. "Tarmek. That's not... people don't..."
She gave up and looked down at her feet instead, which were currently creating a small puddle on his pristine hardwood floor.
She'd actually gotten as far as stepping out of the truck after he went back to the camper but the snow came up to her knees and she'd decided even her stubbornness had its limits.
Now her boots were soaked through, her socks squelching with every micro-movement, and she should probably take them off before she destroyed his presumably labeled floorboards.
She kicked off her boots and left them where they landed—one on its side near the wall, one upright and facing the wrong direction roughly three feet away.
The sound he made was barely audible. A strangled inhale that probably only dogs and other orcs could hear.
But his face... His face nearly killed her.
It was like watching someone witness a crime in slow motion.
His eyes tracked to the boots, widened slightly, then developed a fixed quality that suggested his brain was actively struggling to process the wrongness of what he was seeing.
His hands flexed at his sides. His jaw tightened so hard she could see the muscles bunch under his olive skin.
He didn't say anything. He just... looked at the boots. And kept looking. Like they might spontaneously arrange themselves properly if he stared hard enough.
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
"Sorry," she said, not moving to fix them. "Should I...?"
"No." The word came out slightly strangled. "It's. Fine."
It was very clearly not fine. He put down her belongings, and picked up her boots.
He opened a concealed closet door and placed them neatly in a rubber tray, heels aligned.
He shut the door with an audible sigh of relief, then picked up her bags again and gestured towards the hallway.
"Guest room is this way. I'll show you."
She padded after him in her wet socks, leaving damp footprints on his perfect floor, and tried not to feel like she was desecrating a temple.
The hallway continued the theme of aggressive organization—frames hung at exactly the same height, evenly spaced, each containing what looked like team photos or scenic landscapes.
No dust. No scuffs on the baseboards. The whole place smelled faintly of cedar and something clean, like high-end laundry detergent.
"Here."
He pushed open a door to reveal a guest room that looked like it had never been used by an actual guest. The bed was made with crisp hospital corners, the white duvet so smooth it could have been ironed.
Matching nightstands flanked the headboard, each holding an identical lamp positioned at an identical angle.
A small desk sat against one wall, empty except for a notepad and a single pen placed precisely parallel to the notepad's edge.
"The bathroom is through there." He nodded towards a door on the left. "Clean towels are in the cabinet. You can adjust the water temperature with the digital panel—the presets are labeled."
Of course they were.
"There are some rules," he continued, and she had to suppress a snort. Of course there were rules. "The kitchen is open, but please put things back where you found them. The thermostat is programmed to a specific schedule, so don't adjust it. The—"
"Wait, wait." She held up a hand. "You have a thermostat schedule?"
"Optimal energy efficiency requires—"
"What temperature is it set to right now?"
"Sixty-eight."
"And at night?"
"Sixty-four."
"And you think I'm going to survive sixty-four degree overnight temperatures when I almost froze to death an hour ago?"
His expression flickered with something that might have been consternation—it was hard to tell with him. "The extra blankets are in the hall closet."
"How many extra blankets?"
"Three."
"Labeled?"
He didn't answer, which meant yes, they were absolutely labeled.
She pressed her lips together and nodded slowly, doing her best impression of someone who was going to follow rules and not immediately cause chaos. "Okay. What else?"
"The laundry room is behind the kitchen. There's a hamper system—"
"Of course there is."
"—whites, darks, and delicates. The containers are clearly marked."
"Naturally."
"And please don't leave dishes in the sink. The dishwasher is—"
"Let me guess. Pre-sorted by size and shape?"
A pause. "There's a diagram on the inside of the door."
She stared at him. He stared back, completely unapologetic.
"You're not real," she said finally. "You're some kind of organizational robot sent to judge me."
"I'm just... particular."
"Tarmek, you have a diagram for your dishwasher."
"It maximizes capacity."
"You have tape marks on your counter."
"Consistency is—"
"Important. Yes. I gathered." She rubbed her eyes, suddenly exhausted.
The adrenaline of the rescue was wearing off, leaving behind the bone-deep cold that hadn't quite dissipated and the emotional whiplash of going from almost-hypothermia to.
.. whatever this was. "Fine. Rules. Got it.
Put things back, don't touch the thermostat, follow the dishwasher diagram. Anything else?"
He considered this. "The Wi-Fi password is on a card in the desk drawer. The router is in the office—please don't unplug anything. And there's a landline phone in the kitchen if cell service goes out, but it's only for emergencies."
"What constitutes an emergency?"
"Fire. Medical crisis. Structural damage."
"What about emotional damage? Because I feel like I'm experiencing some of that right now."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Just barely. A ghost of something that might have been amusement if it hadn't been immediately suppressed. "You should warm up. I'll make food."
He turned and walked back towards the kitchen, leaving her standing in the doorway of her magazine-spread guest room, surrounded by his suffocating perfection.
Well, she thought, looking down at her damp socks, this is going to be interesting.
She broke the first rule within twenty minutes.
It wasn't intentional. Not really. She'd just gone to the kitchen to get a glass of water and she'd opened the refrigerator to find it organized like a grocery store shelf.
Beverages on the door, dairy products on the top shelf, vegetables in the crisper drawers which were labeled "root vegetables" and "leafy greens", and everything facing forward with the labels out.
She'd grabbed a bottle of sparkling water, poured herself a glass, and put the bottle back. In the wrong spot. She didn't notice until Tarmek opened the refrigerator five minutes later. He stopped dead, his entire body going rigid as his gaze locked onto the door.
"You..."
"What?"
"The sparkling water."
She looked at the bottle. It was on the door, technically in the beverage section. Just... not in the exact spot it had come from. She'd put it on the left side instead of the right, next to the orange juice instead of the tonic water.
"It's still in the refrigerator," she pointed out.
"It's in the wrong place."
"It's cold. Isn't that the point?"
His hand twitched towards the door. He visibly restrained himself from fixing it. The restraint looked physically painful.
"The sparkling water goes on the right," he said tightly. "Carbonated beverages are grouped together."
"I'll remember that for next time."
"Will you?"
"Probably not."
He made that strangled sound again and turned back to whatever he was cooking on the stove—some kind of soup, from the smell of it, rich and savory and exactly what her frozen insides needed.
She watched him stir the pot, his shoulders a rigid line of tension, and a bubble of something warm and possibly terrible expanded in her chest.
She liked him like this. Flustered and off-balance. Actually reacting to her instead of just observing from his controlled distance.
It was probably a character flaw on her part. She'd examine that later.
The second rule broke around midnight.