Chapter 21 #2
Listen, I know Raisin Bran (off-brand) wasn’t the most exciting cereal, but it had raisins, which was like getting cereal and fruit in one place. That made it healthy. Right?
The uneaten cereal in the bowl looked like brown mush, and I averted my eyes to the open cabinets and the way the slim contents had all been rifled through.
Gingerly, I set down the ruined headset and turned toward my desk, which was collapsed on the floor with stuff scattered everywhere.
Worry clenched my stomach so tight that I almost doubled over.
What if he messed up my laptop too? He did say he looked through it and was mad I didn’t have any good games.
If it was damaged, my boss would expect me to pay for it, and he might make me purchase a new one!
I dove toward the computer lying on the floor, but before I could hit the ground, a hand caught me beneath my arm, keeping me upright.
“Pip, did that asshole do all this?” Hiro asked.
“I need to make sure my laptop isn’t damaged. I could get fired!” I insisted, trying to wiggle away.
He released me, and I dropped onto my knees, pain radiating up my thighs. Tugging the metal object closer, I lifted the lid and hit the power button on the side.
I took not one single breath as I waited for it to come to life. The logo flashed and flickered like it was trying to decide if it was going to cooperate, and after long, harrowing moments, the home screen appeared. I let out a squeak of relief.
Quickly, I pulled up some of the screens I used for work, and all of them said, Unable to process your request. Panicked, I pulled up the internet connection to see that I was offline.
Leaving the laptop open on the floor, I spun, frantically searching for the router.
“Where is it?” I stressed, turning in a circle.
“What’s missing?” Hiro asked.
“My router. I need it for work!” I said urgently, picking up some manuals to look beneath them.
“This thing?” he asked, picking up the device from beside the couch.
Sagging in relief, I grabbed it from his hands to study it. It didn’t look broken. Just unplugged. It must have happened when the table collapsed.
Hugging it against my chest, I turned toward my bedroom.
“What are you doing now?”
I didn’t answer, just rushed into my tiny bedroom and crawled halfway under the bed, feeling around for the box I kept hidden. The second my hands found it, I fell onto the floor in relief.
“If you’re looking for Narnia, you’ve got the wrong piece of furniture,” Hiro quipped, and I rolled my head to see his bare feet standing in front of the bed.
Seeing the hem of his sweats reminded me I was completely naked.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Hiro announced and wrapped his hands around my ankles to tow me from beneath the bed. The second I appeared, his eyes went right to the box I was clutching. “Oooh, what’s that?”
“Why are you so nosy?” I asked. And why did he have to be here to witness me scavenging around my apartment like some kind of feral creature?
“I’m emotionally invested.” The statement was glib, but it fluttered my heart with hope.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Your business is like one giant plot twist. So what’s in the box?”
Not emotionally invested, then. Just plain nosy.
It hurt my feelings, and I rolled over and sat up, putting my back to him. “Nothing.”
“I’ve never seen anyone dive under their bed completely naked for nothing.”
My hands itched to open the lid, to reassure myself that my most prized possessions were unharmed and safe. But I couldn’t. Not while he was standing over me, gaping.
I shook the box a little, everything inside shifting. See? Everything is in there. He didn’t find it.
It was comforting but not enough. I still wanted to see it all with my eyes.
Hiro plucked the box out of my arms like it was no big deal and had the lid open before I could even protest.
“Hey!” I scrambled up but stopped the second I saw him staring inside. Heat rushed to my face, the tips of my ears flamed, and the urge to crawl back under the bed presented an alarmingly good case.
“What is this?” His eyes flicked to mine before going right back to the contents.
“Nothing,” I insisted, lunging to grab it away.
He lifted it above my head and tsked.
“Give it back,” I implored.
“In a minute,” he hedged, reaching in to pull out a couple hundred-dollar bills. He glanced between me and the cash and then exchanged it for two pieces of paper.
My throat was tight, eyes burning, as I watched his stare scan the words and then rise to me. His expression was completely unreadable but so intense that I bit my lip.
“You kept this?”
I said nothing. No point in confirming what he could clearly see. Yes, I kept the notes he wrote from the motel room. I kept the last few hundreds from the stash he’d left behind. I even—
“What’s in here?” he asked, placing the box on the corner of my bed to lift out another small container.
“Don’t open th—” I rushed forward, but it was too late.
He popped the lid and then screwed his face back with a pained expression. “Hooty-hoo, that smells so bad I just lost vision in my right eye.”
“Just give it to me,” I insisted, reaching for it.
He curled it into his chest and mean-mugged me. I considered kicking him.
“I hate to inform you. Whatever was in here has evolved beyond food.”
“You letting air in the container probably just made it worse!”
“Oh, my bad. Were you trying to conserve this? Are you planning on starting a fungal uprising?”
I let out a whine. “Hirooo.”
“Tell me what it used to be, and I’ll give it back.”
I folded my arms over my chest.
He started to whistle like he had all the time in the world.
I flung my arms open and shouted, “It’s one of the cookies you left!”
Shock slapped his face, and he cracked the lid to look again. “That used to be a cookie?” He looked up and whispered, “I think it just blinked at me.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. I couldn’t help it. He was just so stupid.
But in the best way.
After securing the lid, he put the container back in the box. “I left those for you to eat.”
“I ate the other ones.”
“But not that one.”
I said nothing.
He looked back at the box. “You kept the notes I left both times in the motel. Is that some of the money I left too?”
Unable to speak, I just nodded.
His eyes strayed around the room, landing on the purple backpack against the wall at the corner of my bed.
The room swelled with something. Something suffocating and warm but also alive.
“What else did you keep, Pip?” he rasped.
“Everything,” I whispered.
“My hoodie and shirt?” he asked.
I went to the closet, which no longer had a door, and pulled out the black hoodie and tugged it over my head. It was long enough that it concealed my naked frame. Then I pointed to the T-shirt and held up the black socks.
“What about the ghost?”
I felt the weight of his stare with every step I took, skin tingling with the electricity buzzing in the room. My legs bumped the side of the mattress. Without looking at him, I grasped the blanket on the mattress and pulled it back.
There, lying in the center of the bed, was the ghost plushie, more worn than when he first left it but no less precious to me.
He moved quickly, lifting me right off the floor so my feet dangled in the air. Worried, I glanced at his bandaged arm, but he made a rough sound, calling me back.
“You sleep with that?” he asked low.
“Every night.”
He crushed me against him, arms binding me so close I could feel the racing of his heart.
His mouth locked on mine, and everything else completely stopped existing.
His broad, dominating tongue swept into my mouth as his lips pursued mine again and again.
Devouring was an understatement for the way he kissed.
It was being stripped down to exposed nerve endings, being starved and finally fed.
It was realizing there was no point in hiding anything because he’d already found it all.
I whimpered, and he echoed a sound, drawing my top lip between his to suckle it while knotting his fingers into my hair. When he released, I grabbed his face and pulled him back, kissing him hard and open-mouthed until my fingers ached from the strain.
“No one ever surprises me,” he said, nudging my cheek with his nose. In my ear, he whispered, “But you do. You do.”
I dripped down his body like melted wax, making him chuckle as he sat me on the bed. Too soon, he stepped away, but it was only to retrieve his old pair of socks from my closet and kneel at my feet.
“Is there anything else you need to check?” he asked, slipping the fabric over my toes.
I shook my head. The only things I really cared about were accounted for.
“Good.”
Curling my hands into the fabric of the too-long arms of the hoodie, I wondered. “Why?”
“Because, my little pipgeek, I want answers. And I want them now.”