Page 22 of Real Shadows
After Trevor and Karla kept Fallon from killing me, and with atonmore common sense from Trevor, Fallon had caved and agreed to move in with me temporarily. She wasn’t happy about it, but she chose the not-cutting-off-her-nose-to-spite-her-face route. And now I was at her motel room picking her up to move her in. I had even let some of the guys knock off work early and that wasn’t my norm. Mackley O’Brien, or Mac as we like to call him, had even made a comment about how I must be feeling sick or something.
The asshole.
Little could I admit it was the something-or rathersomeonethat had me twisted up in knots and not that I was coming down with the flu.
I knocked on the door, and a few seconds later, it swung open and a fresh-out-of-the-shower Fallon stood before me. Her face was free of makeup and her dark hair was thrown up in a bun on top of her head, but it looked damp.
Fuck, she was pretty.Even in a light blue t-shirt, jeans, and plain sandals she looked beautiful.
I glanced behind her and saw her a couple of bags sitting on the bed. “You ready?”
She stepped back and allowed me entrance. “Almost,” she answered. “I’m paid up through tomorrow morning, but I let the clerk know that I’d be leaving today.”
“Well, since you decided to use your real name to check in, maybe your check out will make it look like you’ve moved on,” I replied before reaching for the bags on the bed. “Is this all of it?”
“Yeah. I just have to officially check out, but I can grab the bags an-”
I shot her a withering look over my shoulder as I grabbed her bags. “We’re going to have ourselves a little talk when we get to my place, Fallon.”
“Xand-”
“Not now and not here,” I said, interrupting her. “But wearegoing to talk.” She let out an irritated huff but didn’t argue any further.
I hauled her bags to my truck in one trip as she did one final sweep of the motel room. I waited by the passenger door, and I opened the door when she finally made her way to the truck. I thought she was going to give me shit for opening the door for her and closing it once she got settled, but she didn’t.
Small favors.
The drive to the motel office was a short one, and the defiant little brat had her hand on the door handle and was hopping out of the truck before I had even had it in park. I let out a string of curse words as I watched her disappear into the motel office. I still got out of the truck and went inside to show her that I wasn’t going to be so easily dusted off.
After Fallon checked out of her motel room, we repeated our earlier steps where I opened the truck door for her and she got in without a word. In fact, the entire drive back to my place was in complete silence, but I didn’t care. At the end of the day, Fallon was safer with me than she was with Trevor and Karla. It wasn’t that they couldn’t protect her, but Karla would always be Trevor’s first priority-as it should be-and Karla would get his ultimate protection over Fallon. This way, living with me, there was nobody to be torn between. Fallon would get all of me if it came down to it.
I pulled into my driveway and tried to look at my house through Fallon’s eyes. It was a single-story home with a functional attic that I used for a workshop. My office was used for the administrative side of my business, but the attic is where I allowed my messes. The shed I was expanding was used to store my bigger machinery, plus my lawnmower and shit like that.
The house was like I had explained to Fallon yesterday. It had three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a kitchen, living room, dining room, and a huge deck that lead to my backyard. It could be argued that the house was too big for just one man, but I hoped to fill it with a wife and a kid one day.
I opened the door and, again, Fallon was out of the truck before I could open the door for her. I reached in the back for her bags and had them all hauled up for one trip. Fallon really had traveled lightly, and the bags didn’t weigh a thing.
She quietly followed me up the walkway to the front door and waited patiently as I unlocked the door. I stepped back, and taking my life in my own hands, I reached back, placed my hand on the small of her back, and escorted her inside. She hadn’t flinched or rushed to get away, so I was going to count it as a win.
I set her bags down in next to the entry wall and pulled her key copy off my key chain. “This is your copy of the house key,” I told her, handing it to her. I placed it in her palm and her face conveyed just how uneasy she still was with all of this. “It opens the front door, the back door, and the garage door.”
Her blue peepers glanced over at the front door. “And the deadbolts?”
“Those are key-less. They work off a code,” I explained.
Her eyes rounded. “Really?”
I smiled softly at her surprise. “Yeah. Really.”
“What if I forget the code?”
I grabbed her bags again. “We can reprogram them to something you’ll remember if you want. Now let me show you to your room.” She followed me without another word.
When we got to her room, I set her bags down on the bed and gave her the rundown. “As you can see, the room’s set up like any other bedroom across America. You can use it however you see fit.”
There wasn’t anything really exciting about the room. The walls were painted a soft grey with dark grey curtains on the window that viewed into the backyard. The bed was a queen with matching dark grey bedding. There was a small closet, but between that and the dresser on the right side of the room, there was plenty of clothing space. The entire bedroom set matched with two nightstands and a hope chest at the foot of the bed. It was simple, but efficient.
The entire house was pretty much set up the same way. Every room looked like it belonged in a showroom, not because I was fancy, but because all the furniture in each room matched itself. The only exception was my bedroom. My bedroom was my sanctuary and my safe place and where my personality breathed. It was a hodgepodge of personal stuff from my childhood until now. When I had bought the house, I had an interior designer I partnered with a lot on my projects decorate my house, but I had made it clear that my bedroom was off limits.
