Page 29 of Absolutely Pucked
I got out of work only a half hour late. I’d led Tiago through the store and checked out, then skipped my emails in favor of clocking out and heading for my car. Ihad a few cans of new cat food for Nugget to try in a bag, and the rain had stopped coming down in sheets and was now just a light mist.
Things were looking up.
Then I pulled into my complex and saw the ghost car was gone. “Well, shit.” It wasn’t like Iwanteda ghost boyfriend, but I was kind of into the mystery, so finding him vanished again was a disappointment.
Which was a feeling that lasted for all of another twenty seconds. A breath later, and I saw a dark figure sitting beside my ragged doormat. It was probably a man from the size of him, and he had sopping wet hair that was plastered so tightly against his head that I could see parts of his scalp.
He didn’t look dangerous, necessarily, but he also didn’t look familiar, so…
My trembling fingers fumbled with the screen on my phone until I hit a name in my contacts list. I wasn’t even sure who I called until the voice picked up.
“Hey, babe.”
It was Micah.
“Question. You walk up to your house and see a strange man sitting in front of your doorstep. What do you do?”
“Well, first of all, I’d be like, oh my God, I can see! And then I’d panic because nothing I was seeing would make any sense to me, and the man would probably be a potted plant or some shit.”
“I’m being fucking serious here!” My voice began to tremble.
“Oh shit. Is there a strange man sitting on your doorstep?”
“Well.” I eyed him. “He’s kind of to the left of it?”
“Maybe it’s someone the neighbor knows. Maybe it’s the guy she’s fucking and they had a fight.”
That seemed reasonable, and the fact that I hadn’t considered that was telling about my stress levels. “Yeah. You’re right. I don’t know why I’m so in my own head lately.”
“You need a vacation. To Montreal,” Micah said.
“Wait, is that what your texts were about?” I turned my car off and reached for my cane and the bag of cat food. “You were blowing up my phone about Montreal?”
“Don’t make me beg, babe. Please. I don’t want to go to this shit alone, and my coach has been up my ass about taking a total stranger as my date. Say yes?”
“Why don’t you ask Ben who he wants you to take and why, then get back to me. If it’s a total creeper, then you know I’ll be there with you.” Not that I could really afford the time off, but Micah was one of my best friends. I wasn’t going to let him get stuck with some rando dickhead.
“Amazing. Wonderful. I love you. Now, make sure you have some bear mace or some shit. If you get murdered before this benefit, I will hate you forever.”
“Thanks for the love and support. Talk soon.” I hung up before he could respond and climbed out of my car. I didn’t have bear mace. Or any kind of mace. But I did have an aluminum cane, and most people were surprised at how much it hurt when I smacked them with it.
I took a breath and stepped out of the car, blinking when my lashes became weighted with drops of mistyrain. I clutched my cane tightly and wished to God I could be more stealthy in my steps as I headed for my front door, but that wasn’t a possibility.
My gait was heavy, and my cane was loud, and it wasn’t long before the stranger’s body twitched at the sound of my feet.
And then he looked up, and it felt like the entire world was pulled out from under me.
He didn’t have a beard this time, and his hair had been trimmed. But there was no mistaking those eyes for anyone else’s.
“Ian,” I rasped, but the odd relief of seeing him here, in the flesh, was short-lived. Without the beard, there was also no mistaking who that face also belonged to.
It was a face I knew too well. A face who had brought me comfort and safety and family. Except it wasn’t Tucker, though seeing his twin was so strange it almost made me feel like I’d slipped into a different universe.
He swallowed heavily and chanced something like a smile. That expression alone was enough to shatter the glass. This was the man who had broken my best friend beyond repair. This was a man who didn’t deserve to be pissed on if he was on fire.
But he was also the man I wanted to pin to the wall and kiss until I couldn’t breathe. The man I had been dreaming about since I woke up in that small room in the club with only the echo of him inside me to remind me the whole thing had been real.
“Figured it out, yeah?” he asked. His voice was a tight whisper from being out in the cold for God only knew how long.
