Still, I couldn't get it out of my head, and not only because of the ick factor. Lawton had seen Shaggy that night in the parking lot. He'd even yelled at Shaggy to stay away from me.
Assuming Shaggy's implication was true, shouldn't Lawton have warned me that Shaggy was the guy behind that original sex tape? When Lawton returned tomorrow, I'd definitely be asking about it.
Late that afternoon, I returned from walking Chucky to find a white van in the driveway and a strange man on the porch. The man wore some kind of brown uniform and carried a clipboard gripped loosely in his right hand.
When I approached the front entrance, with Chucky on his leash, the man turned to face me. He was a lean man about thirty years old and a serious demeanor. "Mrs. Parker?" he said.
I hesitated. "No. But I can give her a message if you'd like."
"I'm from the cable company," he said. "I'm here to disconnect the service."
"Excuse me?"
He cleared his throat. "For non-payment. Final notice should've come last week."
"We didn't receive any notice," I said.
He consulted his clipboard. "It must've went to your post office box. Third notice."
I didn't have access to the Parkers' post office box. In truth, I didn't realize they had one. But as someone who used a post office box myself, I didn't see anything all that unusual about it.
Of course, it did seem unusual that they wouldn't be asking me to retrieve their mail.
About the cable, I really didn't care. I didn't have time to watch anything, anyway. But the Parkers might care if they returned to find it out of service.
"This seems awful odd for a Sunday," I said.
"You're telling me," he said, not looking too happy about it.
"Can't it wait a few days?" I said. "See if I can't clear it up?"
"Sorry," he said. "I'm just the messenger. Of course, if you wanna give me a check, I'll take it back to the office, cancel the cancellation."
The dog food was one thing. The cable, now that was something else. No way was I paying for that. So a half hour later, I was officially without cable TV.
I wouldn't have cared, except for what it said about the Parkers. Were they having money trouble? Or was it just some weird fluke with their bank account?
Sitting in their house – some might call it a mansion – I couldn't help but notice all the luxury surrounding me. I'd been living in their home so many weeks now that I barely noticed. But when I looked at it with fresh eyes, it was pretty obvious that some serious money had gone into whatever look they were going for.
Even all those exotic plants of Mr. Parker's, they couldn't have been cheap. Their plant food wasn't, that's for sure. It arrived once a week by mail from some horticulture shop in San Francisco. In my old neighborhood, I knew kids who weren't treated half as well.
What if the Parkers were deadbeats? Would I be out all that money? To them, it might be a pittance, but to me, it was a fortune.
And then something worse hit me. What if they were dead, period? They were in a foreign country. Would I even hear about it if they were?"
As the day progressed to evening, I was having a hard time thinking about anything else.
When my cell phone rang just before midnight, I dove straight for it and answered without looking at the display. "Hello?"
"Hey," Lawton said.
"Oh," I said. "It's you."
There was a long pause. Then, he said, "Is this a bad time?"
"No. Not at all. Just waiting for a phone call."
Longer pause. "You need to go?"
"Nah, I have call-waiting."
"So…" Lawton's tone was carefully casual. "Who'd be calling you so late?"
"No one. It's just a business thing."
"You mean from the restaurant?"
"No. Something else."
"Anything you wanna talk about?"
Actually, it was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I'd been obsessing about it all day, and I was desperate to think about anything but that. Besides, Lawton didn't need to hear about my problems.
"Nah, it's nothing," I said, trying to push the worry out of my voice. "Are you still coming home tomorrow?"
"Yup. Tomorrow morning. You still have the day off?"
"Oh yeah."
We made plans to meet around noon. At my suggestion, we agreed that I'd swing by his house with Chucky, and then go for a walk. "For old time's sake," I said, thinking of how we'd first gotten to know each other in the first place.
"Don't forget new time's sake," he said. "And Chloe?"
"Yeah?"
"I've gotta tell you, I'm missing you like crazy. The other night–"
My phone beeped.
I pulled it from my ear and looked at the display. Mrs. Parker. Finally.
Lawton was still talking, but I didn't catch a single word of it. Desperate to get the incoming call, I cut him off. "I'm really sorry, Lawton, I've gotta go. See ya tomorrow, alright?"
Without waiting for a response, I disconnected him to switch over to the new call.
My voice was breathless as I said, "Hello? Mrs. Parker?"
And to my infinite relief, I heard her voice loud and clear. "Hey Chloe, I just got your messages."
Chapter 45
Well, at least she wasn't dead.
I'd already left most of the details in a long voicemail. But for some reason, I felt compelled to repeat them, trying hard to keep my tone neutral and use inoffensive words like "bank snafu" and "technical glitch" as opposed to more interesting words like "deadbeat," and "where's my damn money?"
I even told her about the cable guy and yesterday's disconnection.
When I finished, Mrs. Parker made a noise of sympathy and said, "Chloe, I am so sorry. I can only imagine what you must think of us."
Me? She should've heard what Grandma thought of them.
"Well," I said in a carefully neutral tone, "I didn't know what was going on, so I figured I should call and see if you knew anything."
"Oh yeah," she said with a little laugh. "Do I ever."
I waited.
"Okay, she said, "the good news is this. I just got off the phone with our financial manager, and he knows exactly what happened."
"What?" I asked.
"Long story, but if you think I'm embarrassed, you should talk to him. He's got this new assistant, wife's brother, if you can believe it. Anyway, this brother-in-law of his missed a whole series of bank transfers, including ours."
"What do you mean missed them?"
"He didn't make them. He went out to lunch or something, who knows?"
"Oh wow."
"Wow is right. But don't worry," she said. "The money should be there the day after tomorrow, or the day after that at the latest. I'm glad you called. Otherwise, it might've been days before we figured it out."
"Oh. That's good."
"And listen," she said. "I know this must've been a major inconvenience for you. And I feel just terrible. So does my husband. Tell you what. I'm going to send you a little bonus, not just for the bank fees, but to buy yourself something nice – like a day at the spa. And don't you dare say 'no.' "
I wasn't planning on it.
But I did thank her, trying hard to banish the lingering worry. In a couple days, this would all be over, right? And the way it sounded, I might actually come out ahead in the long run.
But somehow, until the money was actually there, it felt like a burden more than anything.
It wasn't until later that night that something struck me as kind of odd. During our whole conversation, she hadn't asked me one thing about Chucky.
At eight o'clock the next morning, the doorbell rang, sending Chucky into his usual spaz attack, barking and running up and down the stairs.
Since I worked nights, I almost never woke up before ten, mostly because it tended to majorly screw up my sleep schedule the next time I worked. But when I peeked out the guest room window and saw a sleek red sports car idling in the drivewa
y, I felt myself smile.
I didn't recognize the vehicle, but considering Lawton's travel schedule, I had a pretty good guess who it belonged to. I dashed to the bathroom and gargled some mouthwash while I ran a quick brush through my hair.
Eager to catch him before he drove off, I snapped on Chucky's leash and answered the door in what I'd slept in – a thin yellow tank top and black silky shorts.
Except it wasn't Lawton.
It was some slick-looking guy in his mid-forties. He wore dark sunglasses, expensive looking slacks, and a designer sports coat.
His eyebrows furrowed. "Mrs. Parker?" he said.
My smile faded. I was getting a little tired of people calling me that.
Plus, I felt like a major dumb-ass. Whenever I thought it was Lawton at the door, it turned out to be someone else. And whenever I expected it to be someone else, it turned out to be Lawton.
If this kept up, I was going to develop a serious door-opening phobia.
Near my feet, Chucky had his tongue hanging out and his head cocked to the side. It was almost like he was also trying to figure out what some stranger was doing on our doorstep, particularly a stranger without doggie treats or bacon.
The man's gaze dipped to my attire, making me feel all the more stupid for answering without looking. But in my defense, my brain was still asleep, even if my body wasn't. The guy was lucky I hadn't answered the door in a ratty bathrobe.
"Did I come at a bad time?" he said.
Hell yes, it was a bad time. What kind of person showed up on someone's doorstep unannounced at eight o'clock in the morning?
I pulled out my best upper-crust voice. "May I ask what this is about?"
"Well, quite honestly," he said, "I'm a little surprised you're still here."
I raised my eyebrows. "Pardon?"
"I was under the impression," he said, "that the house would be vacant."
"I'm sorry," I said in a distinctly unapologetic tone. "But why on Earth would you think that?"
"Because according to our agency, the lease ends tomorrow." He craned his neck as if trying to peer into the house.
Lease? So the Parkers didn't own the house? This had to be some kind of mistake. But all these so-called mistakes were adding up. And in spite of Mrs. Parker's assurances, I'd be incredibly naïve to believe this was all some weird coincidence.
Looking at the man, I had no idea what to say. So I said nothing.
"Did you decide to renew?" he asked.
Oh, screw it. "I wouldn't know," I said, "because I'm not Mrs. Parker."
"Oh." His brow wrinkled. "Is she home?"
"Not at the moment."
"How about Mr. Parker?"
"Nope."
He reached into the lapel of his coat and handed me a business card. I gave it a quick glance. It identified him as Chad Flemming of Executive Properties.
"Will you please have one of them call me the moment they return?" he said.
"Oh, it'll be before that," I assured him with a smile that felt stiff enough to crack my face.
When that shiny red sports car disappeared down the road a couple minutes later, I tried to call Mrs. Parker again. Somehow, I was incredibly unsurprised when it went straight to voicemail.
Chapter 46
Distraught by this latest weirdness, it was impossible to fall back asleep. So instead, I spent the next few hours alternating between anger and worry. Something very wrong was going on here, and I had no idea what to do about it.
The more I thought about it, the more I decided that Mrs. Parker's explanation was a steaming pile of crap. It was pretty obvious that no money was coming, at least not in the near future, and I couldn’t afford to support things on my own.
If this kept up, I'd be feeding Chucky out of my own money. Forget buying groceries for myself.
And Lawton was back in town. We were spending the day together. It was every girl's dream. My dream. But my house-sitting nightmare kept intruding.
A little before noon, I got dressed in casual clothes and grabbed Chucky's leash. With Chucky lunging ahead of me, I trudged to Lawton's house feeling so weighed down, I could hardly move.
If I were someone like Brittney, I'd probably just ask Lawton for some money and be done with it. To be all nicey-nice about it, we'd probably call it a loan. But we'd both knew the truth.
And then, what exactly would he be paying me for? Sex? Companionship? Obviously, he could get all of that for free. But I didn't want to be one of those girls, a dependent, a hanger-on, a groupie. I wanted to be something different.
When I reached Lawton's front door, I rang the bell and waited. Chucky was already going berserk, straining at his leash and pawing at the door like he couldn't wait another minute to get inside. I knew the feeling.
Although I'd never want to burden Lawton with my troubles, the thought of feeling his strong arms around me was almost enough to keep me going.
But when a minute went by, and he still hadn't answered the door, I looked around, feeling awkward as hell. It was such a contrast from that one night, when he'd answered before I'd even touched the bell. Had the newness worn off? So soon?
I gave it another minute, and then reluctantly rang the bell again. A couple minutes later, Lawton finally answered. But instead of a face filled with anticipation, what I saw was so different and foreign, that I took a small step backward.
Oblivious to Lawton's demeanor, Chucky bounded forward. Whining and yipping for attention, he pawed at Lawton legs. With a half-smile, Lawton crouched down to ruffle Chucky's fur.
"Hey Buddy," he said. "I know what you want." Standing, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a silvery bag. He shook it at Chucky, who went absolutely nuts. With a low chuckle, Lawton pulled out a handful of treats and let Chucky devour them down to his heart's content.
And then, as he crouched down with Chucky, he looked up. Our eyes met.
"I'm glad you're here." he said.
Funny, he didn't sound glad. And he didn't look glad either.
"Is something wrong?" I said.
He stood and brushed Chucky's crumbs off his jeans. "Nope."
I waited for him to elaborate. He didn't.
I glanced back toward the street. "Still up for a walk?" I looked around. "Or maybe you wanna do it another day?" I tried to sound like this was no big deal, even though the thought of trudging away alone was almost more than I could bear. "I mean, if this is a bad time for you—"
"It's not. Wanna come in?"
In spite of his words, the tension was radiating off him in waves. As for me, I'd been tense long before I'd even touched that doorbell. I looked down and spotted Chucky quivering with excitement. The way it looked, we all had some energy to work off.
"I'd like to come in," I said. "But do you care if we walk first?"
"Nope." Lawton held out his hand, palm up.
I looked down. My eyebrows furrowed.
Lawton broke the silence. "Leash?" His mouth tightened. "Unless you want to take him."
"Oh," I stammered. "Sorry." I placed the leash in his open palm. Our fingers touched. His hand was warm and solid, but oddly unresponsive.
It was a brisk fall day with leaves skittering around our feet. By unspoken agreement, we headed out on the usual route.
"So," he said, "you got your call last night, huh?"
"What call?"
"Never mind," he said. "Forget it."
"Oh," I said as realization dawned. "You mean that business call?"
"Yeah," he said in a cold, flat voice. "The business call."
I glanced at his profile. There it was again, that studiously neutral expression.
"You don't believe me?" I said.
"I never said that."
"But you're not saying you do, either."
He shrugged. "What do you want me to say?"
I was so not in the mood for this. "I don't want you to say anything," I said. "Not if you're gonna be like that."
"Alright. If that's
what you want." And then, true to his word, he didn't say a single word for the next two blocks.
I gave him a sideways glance. This was so not how I imagined today going. Between the visit from that property manager and Lawton's odd demeanor, this whole day was feeling like a bad dream.
Maybe it was a bad dream. If I was lucky, I was still in bed. Maybe I'd wake up to find money from the Parkers and Lawton back to his normal self.
Then again, Lawton was anything but normal no matter what kind of mood he was in. And it wasn't just his amazing body or movie-star face. It was that lethal dose of unbridled energy and raw power. It should've made me run. Not to him. From him.
Today, that energy felt nearly explosive, like too much heat was confined in too little space. I'd seen him fight. I'd slept with him, loved him, laughed with him, and yeah, more than once, cried over him.
But the energy falling off him now, I couldn't place. Obviously the late-night phone call had set him off. I tried to see it from his point of view. The call was late, sudden, and unexplained. If I were being honest, I had to admit, I might feel the same way.
I softened my voice and tried a new approach. "You're mad about that call last night, aren't you?"
He shrugged.
"Okay." I blew out a breath. "You know I'm just staying in that house, right?"
He nodded.
"Well, that call last night. It was from the home-owner, just some financial thing that couldn’t wait."
"At midnight," he said, more a statement than a question.
"It wasn't quite midnight," I said, trying to keep my tone light.
"Uh-huh. And how about this morning?"
"What about this morning?"
"Forget it."
Ahead of us, Chucky was straining at the leash. I spotted a chipmunk darting across a brick walkway. Chucky went berserk, trying to reach it for about five seconds, until he spotted a big gray housecat lounging on the other side of the street.
Chucky lunged toward the cat with all his tiny might, straining at his leash and barking his fool head off. The cat looked oddly unconcerned.
I raised my gaze to Lawton and caught him looking in my direction. Still walking, I gave him a smile, the secret one we always shared when Chucky spazzed out.
Rebelonging (Unbelonging, Book 2) Page 16