Page 38 of Wildly Inappropriate

“Oh, that would be good. I’d love to help,” I say, jumping out of bed. “Should we try to get ours patched up first?”

“Mary said that, for liability reasons, they’d prefer we leave everything as it is, and they will have a team in here as soon as they can to get things boarded up and cleaned.”

Okay. I can work with that. I am nothing if not flexible.

“Okey-Dokey, smokey,” I say, before mentally face-palming at using such a juvenile expression. “Let me just go get changed, and we can head into town.”

I turn to exit, but JT calls, “Wait!”

I guess we are going to talk about us sleeping together after all.

“You can’t go out there without shoes on.”

I look down at my bare feet like I’ve never seen them before. How does my lack of shoes have anything to do with us sleeping in the same bed, curled around each other?

“There’s glass everywhere out there,” he explains.

“Oh, right. Of course.” Duh, Lila, you buffoon.We aren’t talking about it.“I’ll just…” I look around, searching for an answer. “Can I borrow your shoes?”

“Yeah, of course.” He points to a pair of tennis shoes by the foot of the bed, and I slide my feet in. I feel like a kid dressing up in my mom’s heels. My feet are so much smaller than JT’s that I have to flex my toes with all my might to keep the shoes from falling off as I walk. My exit turns into a shuffle, and my face burns as JT lets out a light chuckle. Jack sniffs at my feet, making it even harder to get where I’m going. Well, not the stride of pride one would want after spending a night with a guy, but I think I’m hiding my embarrassment pretty well.

I open JT’s door, and my worries about looking like a fool vanish at the sight of the living room. Jack tries to slip past me, but I shove him back into JT’s room, shutting the door behind me. There is glasseverywhere. One of the doors to the patio has a large, jagged hole right in the middle of it. The carpet is covered in shimmering shards of glass, and I can even spot some on the couch itself. Outside, everything is covered in a layer of melting hail. The few flowers that poke through the layer of white are decimated, all broken stems and missing petals. A lone evergreen tree stands across the fairway from me, half of its branches missing.

JT slips out his door behind me, and I feel him pull up at the sight.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

His words are the final knock, and my walls come crumbling down. I can’t take it anymore, the terror of last night, the devastation of this morning, and so I start to cry, my shoulders shaking with built-up emotions. JT steps up behind me, turning me into his chest and wrapping his arms around me. I know I should stop, I shouldn’t let him see this side of me, the one that isn’t perfect or tough. Plus, I’m getting snot and tears all over his shirt. Unfortunately, I can’t help it. The stress of graduating, starting a new job, moving to a small town, trying to date, living with a guy I slept with and now just fight with all the time, and then being woken up in the middle of a fucking act of God is just too much for one girl to process.

“You’re safe,” JT mumbles into my hair, lightly stroking my back. “You’re safe.”

We stand like that for I don’t know how long before I finally pull myself away from him, wiping my eyes with my fists.

“Sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’ll pull myself together.”

“No need to apologize, Lila. It was terrifying. I thought I was going to lose it when I walked into your room and saw your bed empty.”

Well, that’s…something I will need to process at another time.

He continues, “But you might want to prepare yourself. Your room is going to be just as bad, if not worse.”

I nod, forcing myself to take a deep breath before shuffling my way to my door. When I open it, I realize he’s right. The floor sparkles like a kid has been playing with silver glitter, and my bed is somehow worse.

“Shit,” I say.

JT heads to my closet. “What do you need for today? If you have any boots, those might be a good idea if we’re going to be helping clean up glass.”

I shake my head. “My boots are in storage. I have some running shoes in there that will have to do.” I move over to the closet, which fortunately had been closed last night, and grab what I want off the floor.

I head to the bathroom to change when I notice JT sticking things into my suitcase. “What are you doing?”

“Well, you’re obviously not staying here tonight, and it may be a while before they can get the window fixed. You can stay with me until they do.”

I want to say I can stay in Jameson’s room—assuming none of those windows are broken—but I can’t seem to offer it as a suggestion. There’s always tomorrow.

Instead, I follow JT’s lead and pack up my toothbrush and assorted bathroom paraphernalia and move them into his room as well. After a quick change into jeans, a T-shirt, and shoes that actually fit, I exit the bathroom to find JT in matching attire.

“No boots for you either?” I ask.

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