Page 11 of Cream and Punishment
As I inched into my room, he held the sundress’s fabric away from the snake. “What I didn’t mention is that stealing socks isn’t the worst thing these snakes do. I’d say, hands down, it’s when they break and make your pants slide down.”
What? Okay, there was no waythatwas true.
And then I got a closer look at the snake, the source of my terror for the past five minutes. Coiled, thick, brown, scaly, and most definitelynota snake, but a belt. Apparently, when my suitcase vomited its contents all over the room, that included my belts, one of which lay on the floor under the dress.
Heat raged across my face, humiliation burning like a thousand suns and melting my insides to goo. I covered my face with my hands, wishing the inky depths of the creepy closet would swallow me whole and never spit me back out. Antarctica wasn’t sounding so bad right about now. I could live amongst the penguins. Collect pretty rocks, learn to make fish cakes. It could be a good life. Certainly better than facing Max right now.
The humiliation boiled into laughter, rising and bubbling up my throat until I couldn’t contain it anymore. I’d screamed over a belt—abelt—so loudly my neighbor had rushed over out of concern. It would be a miracle if none of the other neighbors called the cops, too. Good luck explainingthatone.
I wiped at my eyes, my body rocking with the peals of laughter. “You probably think I’m an idiot, huh?”
And would he be wrong? No. No, he would not.
“Never.” He flashed his dazzling smile as he stood, taking a noticeable step away from me now that the threat had been neutralized. “Just a healthy fear of snakes. Or maybe an unhealthy fear.”
I snorted before clapping my hand over my mouth. What was it about being in his presence that brought the snorts out of me, even when I wasn’t laughing? Not little huffs of disbelief. Nope. Full-on, throaty, piggy snorts. The least ladylike or dignified sound I could imagine.
It had always been that way. Even the day ofthe incidentwhen he’d cracked a joke for the first time. I thought I’d fallen in love with him then and there. I’d always dreamed of finding a partner who could make me laugh, but this snorting thing? I wasn’t sure what classification it fell under, besides “concerning,” but he’d always,always,drawn it out of me. When I didn’t even know his name. When he was engaged to someone else. Even now, when he resented me.
His eyes twinkled as his smile widened. Yep. I was the curly pig at the zoo, and he was the spectator enjoying the show. “Do you have any other pests that need eradicating while I’m here?”
Great. Not only had he not exacted his revenge yet, but now I owed him even more. Would I ever even the score? If I wasn’t drowning in the imbalance already, I’d have him check the closet while he was at it. It’s not like his opinion of me could drop any lower, right?
“I think I’ve racked up enough debt for now, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Debt?” He dipped his head to the side, dark brows furrowing. “What debt?”
Ooh, he was good.
Toogood.
“You already helped me move in” —I shrugged— “and now you’ve saved me from an incredibly scary belt.”
And then there was the wholeI ruined your engagement and possibly your lifebit. But let’s start with the smaller, more recent things. The things I had a ghost of a hope of repaying.
“Right, there is that,” he allowed, nodding sagely, “but, as luck would have it, I have an idea for how you could repay me.”
I perked up at that. Short of actually dying or selling my soul, I was pretty open to anything. “How?”
He paused the music still playing from my phone and passed it to me. “Well, when you quite literally dragged me in here, I couldn’t help but notice a certain aroma coming from the kitchen.”
My Franken-cupcakes! Thank goodness I’d taken them out of the oven before the belt-snake fiasco.
I grinned, not even caring that, now that I was emotionally stable enough to notice, I still wore my pajamas while he looked like a million bucks. Not even my cute pajamas, either. A ratty T-shirt two sizes too big with a stretched-out neck and a hole in the armpit paired with running shorts I never once used for running in my life.
If Max wanted baked goods as payment, baked goods he would get. “Let me make the frosting for them first and they’re all yours.” I paused, remembering the reason I made them in the first place. “Well, all of them but like four can be yours.”
Lex would kill me if I gave her any less.
“You’ve got yourself a deal.”
four
“Youliketoread,huh?” Max asked, perusing the stacks of novels pimpling the living room.
I blushed, grateful he couldn’t see it as I piped Oreo and cream cheese frosting onto the first Franken-cake. Not that he seemed inclined to look in my direction, anyway, since the whole belt-snake fiasco was over, but it was back to business as usual. “Basically any hobby you could picture a senior citizen doing, I enjoy it. Except knitting or Bingo, maybe, but that could be because I haven’t given them honest tries yet.”
“What about croquet?”
