Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 66978 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66978 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“Oh my God.” He rakes his fingers through his blond hair and looks up toward the ceiling. “What the hell did I do in my godforsaken life to deserve any of this?”
“I ask myself that on the daily,” I mutter.
“What?” he asks, his tone exasperated.
“Never mind.”
“What can I do for you, Kelly?”
“I just want to know where you were.”
“Do you? Fine. I’ll tell you. I was on a date. With our waitress from this afternoon. Terry. And by the way, I think you were supposed to give me her number?”
My cheeks warm.
How the hell does he know about that?
“You see, Kelly, the reason I put you in a cab and stayed after lunch today is because I wanted to apologize to Terry. I was going to apologize for your behavior, even though I personally had nothing to apologize for. So I went in, and I—”
“Then you found out I wasn’t lying, didn’t you? I did apologize to her.”
“Yes.”
“So now you owe me an apology,” I say.
“I don’t owe you shit.”
“You owed me an apology for barging in on me.”
“Yes, I did owe you an apology for that. And I apologized. That’s done.”
“And you also owe me an apology for not believing that I apologized to Terry.”
“You’ll be waiting a long time for that one. Now, why the hell are you here?”
“I told you. I wanted to know where you were.”
“You know. I was out on a date with Terry. Now I’m home.”
“She’s too young for you,” I say.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I agree. I won’t be seeing her again.”
“So it doesn’t matter that I didn’t give you her number, then.”
“Actually, it does matter. She asked you to give it to me, and you said you would. But you didn’t. Why?”
“I just told you. She’s too young for you.”
“She’s over twenty-one. Maybe I like younger women?”
“You just said you didn’t. That you agree.”
“But you had no way of knowing that when you didn’t give me her number, did you?”
He’s right, of course. No matter how much I fight. No matter how much I strike first and strike hard, I always know, in my own mind, when I’m not being fair. It happens a lot lately, and this is certainly one of those times.
I have no claim on Leif Ramsey. Why would he want me anyway? I’ve been nothing but a bitch to him since we were introduced.
“If that’s all, Kelly,” Leif says, “I’m exhausted, and I’d like to go to bed.”
I set my hands on my hips. “It’s not all, actually.”
“Fine. What the hell do you want?”
“I want you to…”
“What? I’m ageing here.”
“I want you to come and have a look at my apartment. To make sure everything is secure.”
He rakes his fingers through his blond hair again. “Fine. Come on.”
He follows me out of his place, and next door to mine, where I slide the card through the reader and open it. He allows me to go in first, and he follows.
“So what’s the problem? What don’t you think might be secure?”
“Could you just have a look around the perimeters? Make sure that everything’s okay?”
“Of course, but do you have any reason to believe that it’s not? Did you get another text?”
I could lie. I could tell him that I got another text. Then he would demand to see my phone, and I wouldn’t be able to produce a text.
“No. It’s just that, after you barged in this afternoon, I’ve been a little concerned.”
“There’s no need to be concerned. I had a key. No one else can get in here.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like you to check things out.”
“Absolutely. Glad to do it.”
His tone doesn’t indicate that he’s glad at all, and I want to call him out on it.
But I zip my lips shut.
I’m so wildly attracted to him, and that scares me more than anything.
Leif walks around the apartment, searches every corner, picks up the landline telephone, takes the back of the receiver off, and then checks the main unit. He looks under every lamp, rolls back the carpet sitting under the coffee table. He even goes to my bookshelf and looks inside all of my books.
I don’t know what could be hiding in a book, but he’s the expert.
Once he’s cased the living room, he moves into the kitchen, opens my refrigerator, looks through all the produce and other items. He doesn’t check the freezer though.
Then he walks to the door of my bedroom and looks at me. “May I enter?”
“Yeah.”
It was nice that he asked. He didn’t have to, and if he hadn’t, I probably would’ve said something.
He is a nice guy, and I’ve been treating him like complete crap.
He enters the bedroom and begins a thorough search as he did in the living room. He looks under the bed, between the mattress and box springs. Underneath all the lamps. And again he takes apart the phone units sitting on my nightstand. He looks through all my dresser drawers, and I open my mouth to say something, but then I close it.