Page 19 of Room 1003

The dream hadn’t been about my husband. I waited to feel guilty about the betrayal, but there was nothing. Nothing except the yearning for more, for more with Ben. It was such a foreign idea to my brain and body, and while part of me balked against it, a much larger part of me welcomed it.

I looked to my left where I’d woken up to find Ben the past three days, and my bed felt cold and empty in his absence. It seemed like my mind had decided to take the next step without me. And I had to admit, it was a nice dream. Too bad it wasn’t real.

WhenBenshowedupat my door just before 9am, I couldn’t even look him in the eye, the memory of the dream still lingering. “I hope you’re ready to drool,” he said in a teasing voice.

“What?!” I squeaked, jerking my head up to look at him, my eyes wide with shock.

He frowned, confused by my reaction, and held up a cardboard box. “I brought donuts. What did you think I meant?”

“N-nothing,” I said sharply, shaking my head and attempting to offer him a relaxed smile, though I suspected I looked like a loon.

He laughed. “Okay, well, I’ll be here all day if you decide you want to talk about it.”

“Mm-hm,” I murmured, taking the box from his hands and bringing it through to the kitchen. “What’s on the agenda today?” I asked, rerouting the conversation to safer territory.

“I was thinking now that we had the loose plaster dealt with—”

“And the broken water pipe,” I added.

“Yes, let’s not forget that. Now that we have all the surprises out of the way, I’ll get back on track with switching out the wires.”

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. “You shouldn’t have said that.”

“Said what?”

“The part about all the surprises being out of the way. You’ve just invited further disasters into our lives. It’s Murphy’s Law. If anything can go wrong, it will.”

He snorted. “You’re not superstitious, are you?”

I raised an eyebrow and jabbed my finger into his—gulp—very firm pec. “You just wait and see,” I said.

Ben snatched up my hand from his chest and held it in his warm grasp. “No matter what surprises lay ahead, we’ll take care of them—together.”

I opened my mouth to say something terribly witty in reply, but nothing came out. Instead, I stood there, jaw hanging slack, body overheating. My entire focus was on that point of contact between us, his calloused hand firm on mine. In the end, I just nodded.

He started and released my hand with a gasp, like he’d been shocked. “Uh, sorry. I’ll… I have work to do.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder and backed away quickly.

“Yeah, me too. I’m getting my office set up upstairs, so if you need me—”

“I’ll find you,” he finished for me. I was sure he meant, like, if he needed to ask me a question, but the way he said it, with this firm confidence, his gaze boring into me, it sounded more like a long-term kind of search. Lifelong.

With his voice still ringing in my ears and in my heart, I made my way upstairs. I needed to put some distance between us, because there was no way I could keep my head on straight when I could peek at him whenever I wanted—which was too often to be productive with my time—not to mention his scent, which I swore invaded my senses no matter what room of the house I retreated to.

I trudged up the stairs on autopilot, my brain spinning.

What did all of this mean? Sure, I was attracted to him, and if his morning wood the other day was anything to go by, then he felt the same, but did that mean it would extend beyond physical attraction, to a relationship? It felt like such an inevitable conclusion, like one plus one equals two. But even then, I wasn’t the only one to consider in this equation. Me, my dad, and Kit, we were a package deal. So, in the extreme unlikelihood that Ben was still interested, even with all the baggage that came with me, I still had to tread carefully. I wouldn’t bring another man into Kit’s life until I was certain it was serious. His poor heart couldn’t handle losing another father.

I rounded the corner to the room that would be my office. I’d already set up a standing desk and given the window a wipe to let in as much light as possible. It wasn’t much of a view, angled toward the neighbor’s roof, but at least that meant no trees shading the window.

As distracted as I was, I didn’t hear the ominous creak beneath my feet. I didn’t pause as I walked straight across the room toward my desk. The only warning I had was a slight shift of my balance, before gravity took over. With a splintering crash, the floor caved in, and I plummeted down. On instinct, I threw out my arms, barely catching myself in time. I halted with a thud, the jagged edge of the hole digging into my armpits. There was nothing beneath me but empty air.

“Help!” I yelled, my voice pitched so high only dogs could hear me. I kicked my legs uselessly.

“Shane! Hold on!” Ben shouted from somewhere beneath me.

Wedged as I was in the floor, I had confidence that I wasn’t going anywhere, but that was before I felt a crawling sensation across my stomach where my shirt had hiked up. “Um, Ben?” I called uneasily. “Please hurry.”

I heard him coming up the stairs, but the tickling feeling was getting worse. It felt almost like thousands of itty-bitty feet marching across my skin. I was torn between staying still so I didn’t fall the rest of the way through the floor, and flailing with utter panic becausesomething was crawling on me!

---