by Abby Jimenez
She blinked at me.
“Look, if this were one of my sisters, I would hope that someone would do the same thing for her. You shouldn’t be here by yourself with nothing but the dog equivalent of a rape whistle to protect you. This fucker obviously knows you’re here alone. What if he would have gotten inside? Or grabbed you while you were walking the dog?” I got up.
“Where are you going?”
“We’re going. I’m not leaving you here while I run home.”
“Run home for what?”
“To get my gun.”
EIGHT
Kristen
Josh put a hand out to me, his face stern. I didn’t take it.
“This isn’t open for negotiation. Let’s go,” he said, unblinking.
I didn’t budge. “Tyler is not going to be okay with this.”
“The next time he calls, hand me your phone.”
“What?” Was he serious?
“Any man who would allow his girl to be unprotected in this situation is either uninformed or an asshole. Which one is it?”
Damn, he was good.
I pressed my mouth into a line. “He’s seven thousand miles away. He doesn’t need to worry about something he can’t do anything about.”
That’s how you managed military relationships—you kept the bad things from each other. He didn’t tell me when an IED went off under a Humvee or when a suicide bomb detonated at a checkpoint, and I didn’t tell him when a creeper was coming into my yard at night to have a beer and a smoke. We kept our conversations light and fun, and that was the rule. Otherwise you lost your mind.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “I’m not leaving you alone here. So you have a few choices. Call Sloan, tell her what’s going on, and stay over there until Tyler comes home. Get a hotel. Or let me sleep here, in the guest room.” He looked at me, stone-cold serious. “This is no different than having a roommate. There’s nothing inappropriate about it. You can’t be here by yourself with this shit going on.”
I let out a resigned sigh. Of course he was right. And honestly, I was pretty scared. The first time I was moderately bothered but just figured it was a onetime deal. But this morning really freaked me out. I’d been super jumpy when Josh left on his date and I was alone in the house again. I’d been stress cleaning all day.
I couldn’t go to Sloan’s. A pipe had burst in her guest room last week and the bed was still dismantled. I wasn’t sleeping on a sofa and I wasn’t paying for a hotel. Fuck that.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Do I have to put on a bra? Because if I have to put on a bra, I’m not going.” I blinked at him matter-of-factly. I also wasn’t taking the curlers out, for reasons already covered.
My comment earned me a break in the serious expression. I let him pull me from the sofa and I made him wait while I popped two more Motrin for the road. I was on day eleven of my period and there was no sign of it letting up, but at least it had finally downgraded from ultras to regulars.
I tried to see the silver panty liner whenever I could.
* * *
Josh’s apartment was a studio full of boxes. He had a mattress on the floor with a sleeping bag for a blanket and a single lamp next to it that constituted all the furniture in the room. It smelled faintly like him: clean cedar.
He was opening boxes labeled “bedroom” while I waited, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“You still haven’t done much unpacking,” I said, looking around. I peeked into a cabinet by the microwave and found it empty.
He closed the lid to the box he was in and ripped open the next one. “I work forty-eight-hour shifts and then I go to your place and build stairs for tiny dogs. I haven’t exactly had time.”
He pulled out a black metal box and unlocked it. He reached in and came out with a small hand cannon.
“Wow. That’s a big gun.”
“You know, you’re not the first woman to tell me that.” He smirked, shaking out a few bullets from a box and loading it while I watched.
Goddamn it was sexy.
My phone pinged.
Sloan: Is Josh still there?
I thumbed in a reply.
Kristen: Sloan, some serious alpha male shit is going on right now. I need to focus.
Sloan: What are you talking about?
Kristen: He’s pulled out his gun and he’s showing it to me. It’s HUGE. I’ll call you tomorrow.
I turned off my ringer, imagining the horrified look on Sloan’s face and grinning to myself.
I looked back at Josh. “Brandon should come help you unpack.”
He put the gun back into the box. “It’s fine. It’s just clothes. I’ll get to it eventually. Celeste took everything in the house.” He stood up.
“You let her?” I asked, sliding open a drawer by the sink. A single plastic fork and two ketchup packets sat inside. “This place is depressing.” No wonder he hung out after he was done working in the garage.
“I didn’t feel right leaving her with an empty house. She stuck me with some bills that I would have liked to leave her too,” he said, looking around the room like he only now realized how the place must look. “She’s dating a guy named Brad.”
I scoffed. “Brad? I bet he wears pink cargo shorts and smells like Axe body spray.”
He laughed and leaned against the counter across from me, crossing his legs at the ankles.
I cleared my throat. “My futon really sucks. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Not that I wasn’t appreciative of the gesture. I would feel better having him there.
If Tyler wasn’t moving in, someone like Josh would be the perfect roommate. He had a stable job. He was gone half the week, so I’d still have alone time, and he was really cool to hang out with.
The attraction I had to him was a major issue. I couldn’t live long-term with a guy I’d want to hook up with—because I probably would. It would just be way too convenient. But I’d always liked the idea of a male roommate. I’d never had the option because I’d lived with Sloan right out of high school, which was great. But in another universe, I would totally have lived with a man.
He crossed his arms over his magnificent chest. “Yes, I want to do this. If something happened to you because I didn’t, I couldn’t live with it.”
I cocked my head, my curlers shifting. “When did you stop drawing penises on stuff?”
He snorted. “What?”
“Like, how old were you when you stopped drawing penises on stuff? I was just thinking how great a guy roommate would be and I realized the only downside would be finding penises drawn in the steam on the bathroom mirror.”
His dimpled smile made me grin.
“I just drew a penis on Brandon’s truck the other day.”
I laughed. “So men never outgrow it. Nice.”
He smiled at me. “Is this really what you’re standing there thinking about?”
“Welcome to my brain. Strap in and keep your arms inside the ride at all times,” I said, peering into a drawer I’d pulled open with my finger.
Inside sat a photo next to a spare set of car keys and a pen. I picked up the picture. It was framed by four sloppily painted Popsicle sticks, like a kid made it. The magnet had broken off the back and sat in the drawer. It was Josh, on his hands and knees with a boy on his back riding him like a pony. I laughed and he cleared the space between us and leaned against the counter next to me.
“My nephew, Michael. Two years ago. He gave me that for my birthday.”
My smile fell the tiniest bit. “You like kids, huh?”
“Love ’em.”
He was standing just a little too close. He crossed his arms and it made his muscles push out and press into my shoulder. God, he smelled good.
That yoga instructor messed up running him off. If she would have just shut up about tofu, he might be over there instead of here.
Her loss.
“Do you want a big family?” I asked, already guessing the answer.
“Why don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t get out of the military until I was twenty-two. I wasn’t ready yet. And then I was with Celeste. She never wanted kids, but she was a lot younger than me. I thought maybe she’d change her mind as she got older, you know?”
“And she didn’t.”
He shook his head. “Nope. She was fucking pissed at me for breaking things off too. That’s why I gave her everything. It wasn’t her fault. I was the one who changed the rules. I just couldn’t stay in a relationship that was a dead end like that.”
“I see.” A dead end. “And are you going to make your wife give you all these kids you want, or are you going to adopt some of them?”
“Nah, I want them the old-fashioned way.”
A disappointment I had no right feeling dropped into my stomach.
He looked at me with those deep-brown eyes. “How about you? Big family?”
I shook my head, looking away from him. “I’m an only child.”
“But do you like kids? Wanna have them?”
I handed him back his photo, hoping he couldn’t see the crack in my heart through my eyes. “Yeah. I do.”
It wasn’t a lie.
It also wasn’t ever going to happen.
NINE
Josh
She hadn’t been kidding—her futon really did suck. Hard as a rock. When we got back to Kristen’s, I changed into pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. I was standing over the brick of a bed, debating whether the couch was a better option, when she knocked on the door.
She stood in the hall in her curlers, wringing her hands, with Stuntman Mike at her feet looking up at me. I thought for a second she’d seen someone in the yard and had come to tell me.
“Josh? Can you come to my room?”
My wolfish grin broke some of the tension on her face.
“Oh, stop. There’s a spider. I need you to kill it. Please. Before it disappears and I have to burn my whole house down.”
I laughed. “Should I get my gun or…?”
She bounced nervously. “Josh, I’m serious. I hate them. Please help me.”
I pulled a few tissues from the box on my nightstand. “You know, you seem too fearless to be afraid of spiders.”
“A black widow killed my schnauzer when I was a kid. Embracing a lifelong debilitating fear of spiders is cheaper than therapy.” She stopped in the doorway of her room like there was an invisible force field, and I almost bumped into her back.
“Well? Where is it?”
She pointed to the wall on the other side of her bed. It was a decent-size spider. I could see why she was distressed.
Her room was surprisingly girly. I don’t know what I was expecting. She had tons of throw pillows and a soft-looking blanket draped off the footboard. It smelled like the perfume she’d had on the day she wore my shirt—green apples.
Stuntman Mike climbed a mahogany staircase that matched her bed frame and plopped down on the pink floral bedspread with his tongue out.
The brown spider scurried a few inches and Kristen spun and did a little jumpy thing, burying her face in my chest.
I’d never liked spiders more in my life.
I put my hands on her shoulders and delicately moved her out of my way. “What would you have done if I wasn’t here?” I asked, as I pressed the tissues to the wall firmly, ending the siege.
“I would have gone to Sloan and Brandon’s.” She squeezed herself against the door frame as far as she could go while I walked the dead spider to the toilet in her guest bathroom.
I flushed the tissues and turned to her. “Let me get this straight. You’ll pack up and leave for a spider, but you have a prowler in the backyard and that you just ride out?”
“My priorities feel straight.” She looked around me at the toilet like she wanted to make sure it actually went down.
“That spider looked pregnant, by the way. Thank God you called me when you did.”
She flapped her hands and squeaked a little and I laughed at her. I crossed my arms and leaned in the bathroom doorway. “We got a call for a spider last week. Believe it or not, it was one of the least stupid calls we went on.”
“I actually get that. I was close to calling 911 myself.”
I chuckled at her.
“Well, thank you,” she said. “If I can ever return the favor, let me know. Like, if you ever need a porch plant killed, I’m your girl.”
I smiled and we both just stood there. Neither one of us made a move to go, even though it was late.
A mischievous grin crept across her face. “Are you tired?”
I liked the glint in her eye and I had no intention of ending this night if she didn’t want to, no matter how tired I was. “No.”
“Do you want to go TP Sloan and Brandon’s house?”
My laugh made her eyes dance.
“I know it’s a little tenth-grade retro,” she said. “But I’ve always wanted to do it. And you can’t TP a house alone—it’s a rule.”
“We’ll have to show up there tomorrow and help them clean it up. Pretend it’s just a lucky coincidence,” I said.
“Can you borrow a tool from Brandon? I can text Sloan in the morning to tell her we’re going to pick it up. She’ll cook if she knows we’re coming. Then we’ll get breakfast and atone for our sins.” She grinned.
A half an hour later I was crouched behind my truck two houses down from Brandon’s, game-planning with Kristen. She still hadn’t taken out her curlers.
“If they wake up,” she whispered, “we scatter and reconvene at the donut place on Vanowen.”
“Got it. If you’re captured, no matter what they do to you, don’t break under interrogation.”
She scoffed quietly. “As if. I can’t be broken.” She snatched her roll and darted from behind the truck.
We made short work of it. Operation TP Sloan and Brandon’s was completed in less than five minutes. No casualties. We got back into the truck laughing so hard it took me three tries to get the key in the ignition. Then I noticed she’d lost a curler.
I got unbuckled. “No curlers left behind. It’s Marine Corps policy.” We got out for a recon mission on Brandon’s lawn.
I located the fallen curler under a pile of TP by the mailbox. “Hey,” I whispered, holding it up. “Found it.”
She beamed and jogged across the toilet-papered grass, but when she reached for the curler, I palmed it. “You’re injured,” I whispered. “You’ve lost a curler. The medics can reattach it, but I’ll need to carry you out. Get on my back.”
I was only about 50 percent sure she would go for this. I banked on her not wanting to break character.
She didn’t skip a beat. “You’re right,” she whispered. “Man down. Good call.”
She jumped up and I piggybacked her to the truck, laughing the whole way.
Those thirty seconds of her arms around my neck made my entire night.
Once we officially made our getaway and were driving from the neighborhood, she turned to me. “Hey, you wanna see something cool?”
I wanted to do anything that meant I got to spend more time with her. “Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, turn left here,” she said. “It’s a surprise.”
We drove a few miles and then she directed me into a vacant parking lot in a strip mall on Roscoe Boulevard near her house. “Park there. This is it.”
I pulled into the empty lot and put the truck in park. “Well? What’s the surprise?”
None of the businesses were open. It was almost 1:00 in the morning.
She unbuckled herself and sat facing me, her legs tucked under her on the seat. Her eyes sparkled. “Look.” She pointed out the windshield to a run-down pawnshop in front of the truck.
“What?”
“You don’t know what that is?” She grinned.
I looked back at th
e storefront. Just a tired shop. “Nope. What?”
She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I ain’t through with you by a damn sight. I’ma get medieval on your ass.”
My eyes flew wide. “No fucking way.” I jumped out of the truck and stood in front of the pawnshop, examining the windows and sign. She climbed out after me.
“Is this…?” I asked in awe.
“Yup. The pawnshop from the gimp scene in Pulp Fiction.”
I grinned up at the yellow sign. “Wow.”
“I know.”
I knew the movie had been filmed in California, but it never occurred to me to look for the landmarks.
“Are there more?” I asked.
“Yeah. There’s the street where Butch runs over Marsellus. And the outside of Jack Rabbit Slim’s is actually a vacant bowling alley in Glendale. We could drive by that sometime if you want. Most of the landmarks are gone though. The restaurant from the Honey Bunny scene, the apartment where Vincent gets killed—all torn down.”
I furrowed my brow, but not because of the demolished landmarks.
This was the best date I’d ever been on. And it wasn’t even a date.
I looked at her, balancing on the balls of her feet off a concrete parking lot divider. She had no makeup on. Sweats. Hair in fucking curlers. Hell, she didn’t even change out of the shirt with the enormous lasagna stain on the front before we left the house. And she was a thousand times better than the drop-dead gorgeous yoga instructor from a few hours earlier.
Fun. Witty. Smart. Beautiful.
The cool girl.
And nothing that I could have.
TEN
Kristen
My cohabitation situation with Josh was on day five. I stayed in Mom’s empty beach house the two days he went to work. It wasn’t ideal. My inventory was at my house and I had to be there to get any work done. The commute was two hours. But he was right—I couldn’t be in my house alone at night. It just wasn’t safe.
Josh and I had developed a sort of routine. We ate almost every meal together, watched marathons of shows, took turns walking Stuntman, and did late-night food runs. I had planned to stay away from him as much as possible, but there was only the one TV in the living room and the coffee table was my unofficial office. And if we both needed to eat, it didn’t make any sense to do it separately. So we just kind of fell in together.