Page 14 of Revelry
“Wait!” Her voice squeaked as she hopped up from the couch, limping over to the doorframe with the towel still wrapped around her. I bent to retrieve the flashlight and turned, waiting. “What’s your name?”
She was beautiful.
I don’t know why I chose that moment to notice it, when she was waiting for me to answer her. I stood like an idiot, scowling because that was how my face rested, not that I could help it. It’d been stuck like that for more than six years.
“Anderson,” I finally answered.
“Anderson,” she repeated on a breath. I loved the way my name sounded when it rolled off her tongue. “I’m Wren.”
I watched her for a moment longer, willing myself to say something—anything. But instead I cleared my throat and nodded, clicking on the flashlight and trailing down the stairs of her back porch without looking back until I was out of her yard and back in the Morrisons’. I could see the faint outline of her through the trees where she still stood in the doorway, eyes on where I’d disappeared through them. She smiled, mouthing something that looked likeNice to meet you, too.Then she turned and limped back inside.
BILLET-DOUX
bil·let–doux
Noun
A love letter
The sun warmed the bedroom too early the next morning, and I grumbled, kicking the covers off to plant my feet hard on the floor. I winced against the pain from my forgotten injury, rotating my ankle a few times before testing how much pressure I could put on the wound. It was tender alright, but nothing too severe.
Rev opened one eye from his corner of the bed as I padded over to click off the small heater and opened the back door to let in the fresh morning air.
“Morning, Rev,” I croaked, throat raw, but he just closed his eye again and went back to sleep.
I massaged my temples with my fingertips and groaned again, stopping in front of the dresser mirror.
I couldn’t have been more of a hot mess.
My hair was a ratted nest from the hot tub, tied up high on my head, screaming for a bird or two to find a new home. I’d stripped out of my new leggings and sweater at some point in the night and standing in just my lacy boy shorts, it was easy to see I’d taken more of a beating than I realized in what was quite possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life.
There were spots of dried blood dotted on the shin of the leg opposite my injury, probably from when Anderson carried me inside, and bruises had already formed on my thighs, hips, and forearms from the fall. I wiped at the dark circles under my eyes with a pathetic laugh, head throbbing as I scratched behind Rev’s ear on my way into the bathroom.
I felt marginally better after I’d showered, applied a full face of makeup, and popped two ibuprofen. I settled in on the back porch with a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll, eyes on the broken board that had led to my demise the night before. I’d have to fix it like I’d promised Abdiel, but I had no idea how, so I just stared at it instead.
And then I thought of Anderson.
He must have lived close by, being that he made it to my cabin and up my back porch stairs in about twenty seconds flat, and I wondered why Momma Von hadn’t showed me where he lived yesterday or talked about him at all. Still, I remembered Sarah mentioning him, and that only piqued my curiosity more. I wondered if she was his girlfriend, and then I kicked myself for wondering about his relationship status at all. I came to this cabin to be alone, to spend time with myself, to get space and find clarity.
Yet when I replayed last night, the hardness of his blue eyes on my body, the grip of his hands on my ankle, the baritone of his voice when he’d told me his name, a foreign tingle shot between my thighs and I squeezed them together, shifting on the couch. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt need, want. I hadn’t felt it with Keith in years, and the one man I’d slept with since him was a drunken one-night stand orchestrated by Adrian to make me feel better.
It hadn’t.
But when there was only a thin towel between my wet body and Anderson’s hard chest, when his strong arms cradled me like I was the only thing in the world he cared to protect, all those sexual molecules in my body that had been asleep for years woke in a frenzy.
Shaking him from my mind, I reached for my phone and dialed Adrian. It was Sunday, which used to mean he’d be three mimosas deep by now. But ever since he and Oscar had adopted Naomi, Sundays had changed to early-morning diaper changes and bottle feedings.
“Well, good morning, sunshine,” Adrian sang into the phone after four rings. He whispered something to Oscar as Naomi cooed in the background, and then a door shut, silencing the noise. “How’s my little cabin girl this morning?”
“Hungover,” I groaned. “And bleeding.”
“Bleeding?” The panic rose in his voice instantly. “What happened? Are you okay? Do I need to come get you?”
I laughed, tucking my legs under me just as Rev trotted out onto the porch. He stretched his front legs out and arched his back, claws scratching the wood before he hopped up onto the couch. “Relax, I’m fine. I thought there was a snake or a bug or something in the hot tub and I wigged out, dropped my wine glass, stepped on the broken glass and fell through a broken board on the porch. I cut my foot, but nothing seriously injured. Well,” I added, running my nails down Rev’s back. “Unless you count my pride, which is practically in a body cast after just one weekend here.”
Adrian let out a long breath of relief and then chuckled. “Only you. So you’re okay?”
“Yeah, just nursing a hangover and trying to laugh at myself.”
