Page 53 of Between Now and Forever
“Cricket needs to mind her own business.”
“Where’s your breaker box?”
She shrugs. “I have no clue.”
“Does this house have a basement?”
“Yes. The stairwell is in the hallway off the kitchen.”
“Do you have a flashlight?”
“Yup.” She holds up her phone. A light shines from the top. “See? I’m prepared.”
I sigh. “Okay. Show me the stairwell, please.”
She leads me through the kitchen to a short hallway. At the end, there’s a laundry room. She points to a closed door on the left.
“That’s it,” she says, thrusting her phone my way.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you the flashlight.”
“Oh no, Miss Fix-It. You’re coming too.”
She gasps. “I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Her jaw clenches. “Jay, there was a snake outside a couple of days ago. Basements are snake havens. And spiders. And bugs. And ... just do it for me, please?”
It would be so easy to do it for her. But this isn’t like the railings or the stairs. If those break, she could wait days, even weeks, for someone to help her if she couldn’t manage. But a thrown breaker? She needs to know where her breaker box is located.
“Come on,” I say, coaxing her to me.
“No.”
“Gabrielle.”
“Jay,”she whines.
“Where’s thatcan-do spiritnow? Huh? Where’s that‘We don’t need your help’?”
“It’s with the electricity. It’s gone. Now please go flip the breaker and bring back my spirit.”
I open the door and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. The stairs look pretty sturdy—probably twenty of them or so.
“You need to know where your breaker box is, Gabrielle. Come on.”
She glares at me and steps behind me. “You’re going first.” Her wrist rests on my shoulder with the phone dangling from her fingers. “Here.”
I take it. “You know, when I offered to help you, I didn’t realize it would be this involved.”
“That’s your fault. I fell off a deck, and you had to rescue me. I have a hard time believing you didn’t realize this would be so involved.”
We step into the darkness. Gabrielle keeps a hand on my back at all times. She’s giving me the lightest touch, but it feels like it’s burning into my skin. The heat bolts through me and coalesces in my cock.
Good thing it’s dark.
