Page 27 of Why Cheese?
“Yes. At least three months before we can…clear out. Why?”
“It’s just that, um, when I thought I’d be cleaning the place up and selling it, I only…uh. I booked my motel for a week, and I have to be out by Saturday.”
“Why is that?” Roq asks.
“Because it’s crazy expensive to stay here. I mean, I cleaned out my savings for this week. Almost all of the money put aside to clean this place up is gone. I can’t do a month, much less three. If we don’t open soon and start selling cheese, you’re gonna have to eat your stock.”
Both Cheddy and Brie cling to the dinners that could be their last while Roq shrugs. “I don’t understand—”
“Why you’re not using the apartment.” Cam swoops in fast. He takes me by my hands and spins me to face him.
“A…apartment?” I knew my uncle had one farther into the city that was rented out as soon as they got his body out. I can’t stay there.
“You don’t know about the room upstairs?” Cheddy asks pointing to the ceiling.
“No. They didn’t tell me about the basement either.”
“Hmm,” Roq muses. “Mateo must have stopped using it after he abandoned us.”
“Problem solved. She can stay here overnight while we work ourselves to the rind below,” Cam says. He crooks his arm and places my hand on his biceps. “I will take her up to tour the room, get her settled.” He starts to pull me away when Roq calls out.
“Wait. I will take her. You should assist Cheddy in dumping the milk into the vats before it spoils.” He tugs my palm off of Cam’s arm and nearly holds it. Then he shivers and drops it. “This way.” Roq heads toward the front door and I freeze.
I wasn’t so stupid to miss why Cam wanted to get me alone, but instead of being flirted with and maybe even… Let’s not go there, Vi. I’m gonna be trapped in a tiny apartment with a giant man who can’t stop growling at me. Biting my lip, I shuffle forward and keep shooting glances at Cam.
He raises a hand and waves, “Stay strong, tender violet.”
Roq shoves open the door but he keeps standing inside. I have no choice but to walk under him, which I can easily do without so much as ducking. Good lord, how tall is he?
The glass slams shut and Roq points to the right. “Around the back. You’ll have to use a ladder, but you seem to be capable of that.”
He knows. He knows I heard some of their argument. I bend my head and stumble after, doing my best to not step on any cracks. Behind the shop is a fenced area for the dumpster, the HVAC, and not much else. Roq opens the gate, then he shoves the dumpster aside with one hand to reveal a ladder hiding behind it.
“Up this way,” he says and holds his hand out to me. I place my palm in it, girding myself to be hoisted or even thrown to the top of the building. To my surprise, Roq slowly closes his fingers around mine until they meet across the back of my hand.
“Careful. It can get slippery in the rain or snow.” With a gentle touch, he guides me to the ladder inside a recess of bricks. I start to scale it carefully, then pause and look back.
A radiant gray-blue beams back at me. I damn near yelp in shock to find I’m eye to eye with him. At this height, I’m drawn to the cleft in his chin that points up to his pouting bottom lip. It’s the only part of his face that’s soft and sweet. Instead of being pursed in a grimace, it’s gone slack as if he too didn’t expect me to be right there in kissing range.
“I…I…climb,” I have to tell my brain that aloud because that fool is rolling about those sculpted shoulders bulging astride his apron straps. “Up there.” Not down here.Come on, Vi, if you leap onto him, your legs won’t even reach past his chest. His wide, hard, virile chest.
A loud clang echoes below me. He’s on the ladder too. I try to work faster, having to tell my hands to grab and my feet to not slip sending me falling onto the man directly under my ass.
By some power beyond me, I manage to reach the upper story where—sure enough—there’s a solitary red door against a flat wall. I try the knob, but it’s locked. Reaching into my pocket for the keys, I do my best to ignore the shadow blotting out the streetlights behind me.
“One of these has to work,” I say, trying the one to the shop twice by mistake. Just as I reach for the fifth, Roq takes my hand. He clinks two keys down and holds one with a hint of red paint worked into the crevices.
“This one,” he says and guides it into the slot.
The key. That’s what he guides in. Not…never mind.
Roq twists it and another door opens on my mysterious uncle.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Racy Racelette
WE WALK INTO a tomb for a bachelor from the ancient nineteen nineties. There’s a mattress on top of old pallets. No sheets, but a single dingy pillow rests in the center. A small, laminated table sits next to the tiny window. The garish yellow and orange country chic top is peeling off. A rusty coffee pot sits on the edge. It’s tarnished black midway up like someone left half a pot inside when they locked it all away.
