Page 64 of A Lucky Shot

How are you going to keep a man if you can’t keep a home, Cassidy? Her mother’s voice echoed in her head. Her apartment wasn’t messy. It just wasn’t a pristine showpiece where she was afraid to sip wine on her couch or had use coasters for everything. The mismatched area rugs picked up from estate sales carpeted the floor and collections of her friends’ paintings crowded the wall, all boldly patterned and coloured. Even if she did clean, her home was so cluttered that it would never look truly neat. Just how she liked it.

Her phone chirped to life beside her just as she’d lowered herself onto the floor for her back decompression exercises, and a rapid succession of beeps let her know she’d been very, very missed.

Why couldn’t you have beeped two seconds ago when I was still standing? Brow creasing, she yanked the charging cord so that the phone fell off the table into her outstretched hand.

Unsurprisingly, three texts from Libby.

Tonight’s date is with the guy with all the ink, right?

I should get another tattoo

Then, an hour later

Josh is blowing up my phone. You’re not dead are you?

Much more surprisingly, eight texts, two calls, and a voice mail. All from Josh.

No seriously

Beamer or Harley

Okay Lucky Charms. Do you need a rescue?

Lucky Charms?

Cass?

I’m calling you now

Pick up

Where are you?

What the heck? She was in the middle of texting him when an incoming call came through.

“Hey,” she answered, massaging her aching calf. “What’s the?—”

“Thank god,” Josh exhaled in a rush. “Where are you?”

“—emergency?” she finished. She flexed her ankles to get the blood flowing to her toes. “I just got home.”

“I’m on my way,” he said, and hung up without letting her respond.

Bewildered, she stared at the blank screen in her hand, then around her dishevelled apartment. What was that all about? It was after nine, and shooting had been over for hours, and she wasn’t needed on set tomorrow. Her insides lurched at the thought that some crisis had sprung up while she was out with the not quite six-foot-one, tatted librarian who ran what he called a literary rebel gang. AKA, a book club for bros learning to dismantle their toxic masculinity. Cool idea, and a fun guy, but he didn’t set her heart aflutter. Not like Jo?—

Nick. Not like Nick. That’s why I’m putting myself through this. She pressed a thumb into the small of her back and looked around the mess flowing unbroken from her kitchen to her living room.

Josh’s condo had been pristine. Almost stark in its neatness, all negative space and clean lines. The exact opposite of her happily eclectic home.

Fine. It wasn’t eclectic. It was a mess. He was about to see how she lived. In minutes, from the sounds of it. She raced around her living room as fast as her tired feet and sore back would let her, clearing the abandoned piles of mail and discarded clothes.

Don’t bother cleaning the bedroom. He’s NOT going in there. And why is there underwear on the coffee table? After a beat, she shoved the clothes dropped on her bed into her closet and stashed Chauncy in her bedside table.

No reason. She was just taking advantage of the cleaning frenzy to do a little more.

Her phone buzzed with the announcement Josh was at her door, and she froze with a handful of dirty dishes. Had the man used a wormhole to get here? She dropped the dishes in the sink with a clatter before buzzing him in, kicking the shoes littering her front entry into the closet. There was a strident knock a minute later, and Josh barged through the door.

“How’d you—“ she started, but he pinched her chin between his forefinger and thumb and tilted her head back, squinting at her through narrowed eyes, before releasing her with a whoosh of breath.

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