Down, boy.
“Where’s the hole?” she asks as she turns back around, one hand going to a hip.
“Excuse me?”
“The hole, on the couch?” She nods her head toward the piece of furniture in question.
Oh.
“Right. On the side of the armrest here,” I say as I point toward the hole with singed fibers outlining it.
She bends down to eye it, acting like she’s about to pull a magnifying glass out and count the threads that make up the fabric of the couch. I stand behind her and openly ogle her fine—ahem—form. I have the wherewithal to jerk my eyes to the side when she stands back up and looks at me.
“Perfect. One hundred? I’ll take it,” she says rapid-fire before I can get a word in edgewise.
I nod as her phone starts to ring, and she walks away to answer. I look at the door, trying to determine how we will get it out. I’m distracted by her as she wails ten steps away from me. Well, maybe not wails, but her voice is high-pitched as she talks to whoever is on the other end of the phone.
The fuck?
“What do you mean, not livable? Why didn’t they tell me this when I spoke to them yesterday?” She pauses while the other person responds. “No, you tell them I want my deposit back—now.” The anger in her voice makes me want to take a few steps back, for fear that her head might explode.
My heart sinks as I realize she’s not going to need the couch after all. It’s not as much about the money since I work a steady job and I’m single. Though having a paying roommate would be a good thing. I just want the couch gone. I hate it.
“So sorry,” I hear her voice say behind me as she walks back over to the couch.
She turns and plops down on it, causing me to furrow my brow.
“So … I’m guessing you don’t need the couch anymore?” I say as she folds herself in half and rests her head on her arms.
She gives a big, gusty sigh before throwing herself back up and against the couch.
“May is looking into it,” she says suddenly, and she starts to run her hands over the couch in a weirdly seductive manner.
I’m mesmerized, watching them swirl back and forth, and the silence jerks my eyes back to her face.
“So, I think I’ll still take it. Gotta have a couch wherever I end up.” She nods as if that’s the final word on the matter.
“Cool,” I say as I thrust my hands in my pockets and rock back on my heels. “So, how are you taking it with you? Do you have a truck?”
“Oh, no, I drove my car here.” She gives a tinkling little laugh that fits with her small stature. She’s like Tinker Bell’s sister. “May is coming with a trailer to help.”
“May?” I wrinkle my brow. “Is that your cousin?”
“Yep,” she says and doesn’t offer any more information.
“Okay … do you think you and May can get it on your own?”
“Oh, May is a guy,” she says with a laugh.
Now, I’m even more confused, but I decide not to press. Whatever works for them.
We pass the next twenty minutes with her telling me about her life, living in Texas and how this is just like being there but different—as if that makes any sense—and she acts all surprised when I say I’ve never been to Texas. After that, we get to the point where she’s planning to fix me Tex-Mex for dinner one night even though I don’t know this woman from Adam—I don’t think. Something about her is still familiar. She’s a friendly one. I’m not usually chatty, but it doesn’t seem to matter to her. I think she would talk to a blank wall.
“Is May on his way yet?” I ask, cutting into the conversation and using a lot of willpower not to laugh as I say the word May now that I know it belongs to a guy.
“Yep,” she says before launching into how she took ballet, growing up, but she wasn’t any good at it, which was surprising to her, given how she’s not that tall.
I just stare. What in the ever-living fuck? I’m going to need a nap once she leaves.
“Oh, he’s here.” She jumps up and rushes to the door, flinging it open and running outside as if ol’ May would leave if she didn’t appear in the next five seconds.
I push myself out of the chair I was camped out in with a grumble and head to the door.
Rounding the corner, I see Pepper standing on the sidewalk as a guy exits a truck that I definitely know. I bend over, a guffaw and a snort breaking free from my body at the same time.
“Hey, May,” I say with a wave before collapsing in another fit of laughter as he glares at me.
2 Pepper
“Really, Pepper? May? I told you to quit calling me that.” My cousin, Mason, glares at me as he gives a great sigh of disapproval.
I grimace. “Sorry, it just slipped out, so I went with it,” I say with an apologetic shrug.
I babble when I’m nervous. At first, I was nervous because I was by myself, about to go look at a stranger’s couch in his home—and I was serious about my mace. But that transformed into, Holy cow, he’s super hot, and now, my armpits are sweating, so cue the verbal diarrhea. It stems from my childhood. As an only child, I learned to fill the silence around me with chatter. My parents have always been good to me though. My mom is very involved, almost to an irritating point, and my dad thinks I’m going to take over the family
