Finders Keepers

  “Glad I could wow you this early in the day.”

  “There’s a negative and positive form of wow, you know?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately I’ve become very familiar with one form, but thanks for the reminder.” Generally, I didn’t care what people thought of me or how I chose to live. For some reason, Josie’s face lined with shock and disappointment hit me like a painful blow to the gut. A change of topic was in order. “How did dear daddy and mommy take it when you told them about me and my predicament?”

  Josie picked at her scrambled eggs. “Fine. I basically told them you needed a place to stay, we had a place for you, and that was that.”

  “They just agreed to it? No questions asked? No argument?”

  “Pretty much. Yep.” Whenever Josie kept her answers short and sweet, she was sugarcoating something. Given she was trying to sell me that her parents just went along with the villain known as Garth Black moving into their house without so much as lifting a finger, she wasn’t just sugarcoating. She was sugarblasting.

  “And they thought what about me sleeping here last night? In your room?”

  Josie took a sip of her juice and threw me a sideways look. “What are you talking about? Your first night here is tonight. In the guest room.”

  “My, oh, my. Did Miss Josie Gibson tell her parents a bold-faced lie? You did go to Sunday school growing up, right? The whole thou shalt not lie to thy parents . . . that’s something they taught, right?” I scooted my chair next to hers and leaned in close until she couldn’t not look me in the eye. I grinned.

  She scowled. “Since I lied to save your life since my dad has a shoot-first-ask-questions-second policy about guys being in my bed, I figured someone higher up would give me a pass.” She grabbed the brim of my hat and shook it before popping out of her chair to take her plate to the sink.

  “If anyone deserves a pass, it would be you.” I stuffed the last piece of toast in my mouth and carried my plate to the sink. She grabbed a washrag as the sink filled with sudsy water. I turned off the water and blocked her from the sink. “Hey, you cooked. I have clean-up duty. But that starts with getting myself cleaned up, then the kitchen.” I tried not to zero in on the triangle of skin just above her chest that popped out of her bathrobe when she threw her hands on her hips. Tried and failed. “Do you mind if I use your shower? Then I’ll clean up in here, and then I’ve got to head over to Willow Springs. Just to check in and make sure Neil really doesn’t need me today.”

  “Be my guest. Just save me some hot water.”

  “You could just join me, you know. That way you’d be sure to have hot water, and we’d conserve the world’s most precious resource.”

  “You and I both know your idea of the world’s most precious resource might be a liquid, but it isn’t water.”

  “Ooo, burn. Nice one.” I held my hand up for a high five, but all she did was flick it.

  “Away to the shower with you.” She sniffed the air in my direction. “You reek.”

  “Whatever. That’s all man you’re smelling. Might want to take note of that the next time Colt Mason shows up at your door smelling like eau de pussy.” That earned me a shove. And another when I didn’t head for the stairs. “Enough with the shoves already, pushy. No more.” She gave me a what are you going to do about it look. “Or else.”

  She waved her hands in exaggerated terror at my threat. As far as threats went, “or else” was definitely one of my weaker ones. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard Josie follow me. “What was your plan, Garth? You weren’t planning on living out of your truck the rest of your life were you?” She was at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at me with curious eyes.

  “I don’t know. You know me. I live life day to day, hour to hour. I’m not the guy with long-term goals or a five-year plan. I’m the kind of guy who lives for the moment.” I shrugged. “I’m sure if that truck had gotten cold enough, I would have figured something out. I just hadn’t gotten uncomfortable enough to make a change.”

  Her eyes widened. “Garth, it was two below last night, and I found you with icicles practically growing out of your nose. That doesn’t make you uncomfortable enough to make a change?”

  “Are you trying to say I’ve got the survival instincts of a wooly mammoth?” She was trying to say something; that was obvious.

  “No, I’m trying to say I don’t think you know what’s good for you. I’m trying to say you wouldn’t know what was good for you if it fell out of the sky and squirmed around on your face. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  I grabbed the handrail. “Okay, this is all a little too much . . . psychoanalysis for one morning. I’m hitting the shower.”

  “Have a nice shower. I hope it’s full of introspection.” She waved before heading into the kitchen.

  I leaned over the handrail. “The most introspection that will be happening is me deciding whether to soap my junk clockwise or counterclockwise.” When Josie didn’t have an immediate comeback, I smiled and headed up the rest of the stairs.

  “Haven’t you heard? Your junk has a reputation for not being discerning.”

  I hated when she got in the last word.

  I STARED AT myself in the mirror until the steam from the shower fogged it up. Again, not a vanity thing. It was a was-Josie-right? thing. Did I not have a clue what was good for me? I’d always believed I was one of the people who’d drawn the short straw in life. I’d accepted that fortune favored the few, and I wasn’t in that tight circle. I’d accepted life was a chore some days, a damn obstacle course other days, and out to get me most days. Could twenty-one years of waving my middle finger at social norms have given me a skewed sense of right and wrong? Of what was good and what was bad for me?

  Instead of driving my fist into the mirror like I wanted to, I gripped the edges of the sink until my knuckles went white. Up until recently, I’d never questioned anything and everything. I had all the answers. Lately, I had exchanged all the answers for all the questions. I was drowning in an ocean of questions, and even though I knew the answers would eliminate the questions, I was afraid of what the answers would be. I was afraid the answers would do the opposite of set me at peace. So my options were to stay lost in a sea of questions or drown under the weight of the answers.

  Yeah, I was fucked. I barely stopped my fist before it pounded through the mirror. Not even a second later, a different pounding sounded. It came from the bathroom door. “Yeah?”

  “Unless you want to come out smelling like honeysuckle body wash—which you’re totally free to use, by the way—I brought you a bar of soap.”

  With handful of words from Josie, my mood shifted to a few levels above depressed. “Thanks, Joze. You know how I hate honeysuckle.”

  “I’m not doing this for you, Black. I’m doing this for your date tonight. I wouldn’t want her to crawl into bed with a man whose junk smelt like honeysuckle when she thought she was in for a wild night with Garth Black. That’s a way to crush a girl’s fantasies.”

  “You’re so selfless.” I chuckled before wiping the steam from the mirror with my forearm. “Hey, Joze? You wouldn’t happen to have a blade I could use to shave my face, would you? I’m about to turn into Grizzly Adams.” I didn’t mind a little bit of scruff and, let’s face it, neither did the ladies, but there was scruff and there was the monster I was growing on my face.

  “Um, yeah, I think so.” The doorknob twisted. “Are you decent?” That was a question I didn’t need to answer. “Never mind. Most obvious question ever. How about . . . are you clothed?”

  I glanced down. “Mostly.”

  “Given you said you were naked last night, but the opposite turned out to be true, I’m going to go with the same trend this morning and assume that you saying you’re mostly clothed means you’re bare-ass naked.”

  The girl’s reasoning was solid, but trying to apply reason to me was a huge error. “There are no bare asses in view. I promise. Unfortunately.”

  “You swear t
o god and hope to die?”

  I smiled. That had been our favorite way to promise things as kids. “I’ll even stick a needle in my eye.”

  “I’m trusting you, Black.” The door opened slowly before she slipped inside. Her eyes were sealed closed. “As much as trusting Garth Black is counterintuitive.”

  I settled my backside on the ledge of the sink. “See? No bare asses in view since it’s sitting on your bathroom sink. Only bare fronts in view.” Josie’s face ironed out in shock before her eyes flashed open. Just as quickly, they narrowed on me. “Made you look.” I winked.

  “You and those jeans.” She tossed the bar of soap at me. “You seem more like the guy who’d be waltzing around in his underwear every chance he got.”

  I shrugged. “I probably would be, but that would require wearing underwear in the first place. Which I don’t. Which you might remember if . . .” Insert foot here.

  Thankfully, Josie didn’t look as uncomfortable as I felt. “Even if I hadn’t been so drunk I couldn’t remember my name, I’d still repress that night into the darkest recesses of my mind.”

  “You mean the Black recesses of your mind?” The words and smile I’d given her totally deserved a slap across the face, but instead she gave me a look that made me feel half a foot tall. Pulling open a drawer, she grabbed a razor and flashed it in front of my face. “Do I look like the kind of guy who uses a razor to shave my face? A pink one at that?”

  “No, you look like a guy who doesn’t have a lot of options, and unless he wants to go into the rug-growing business, he’ll take what’s offered. With a smile and a thank you,” Josie finished with a sigh. “Besides, if you don’t use a razor like this, what do you use? An electric one? I think my mom still has the one she uses—”

  I lifted my hand. I did not want Mrs. Gibson’s electric shaver—wherever she used that sucker—up against my face. “I use a straight-edge. I’ve got one in my truck, so I’ll just grab it and shave tomorrow.”

  “A straight-edge? Isn’t that one of those things that can slice through a man’s neck with just a hint too much pressure?” I shrugged. “Seems a little barbaric given there are modern options and advancements.” She waved the pink razor at me again.

  I grabbed it and tossed it in the garbage can. “A barbaric tool for a barbaric man.” Josie shoved my chest, but that time, I caught her wrists and pinned them behind her back, grinning victoriously at her. She rolled her eyes at me. “I warned you with my intimidating ‘or else’ threat. What are you going to do now, tough girl?”

  She didn’t waste any time trying to physically over power me. She didn’t go for the cheap shot and knee me in the nuts either. She just stood there for a few moments, focusing on a spot just past my shoulder, as the wheels turned in her head. She was working something out so hard I was waiting for smoke to billow from her ears. A few seconds later, I saw the light bulb go off. Her eyes widened for a split second before a smile so small it could barely be detected fell into place.

  And then, her eyes shifted up. They locked onto mine, and something in hers softened something in mine, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do more: get down on my hands and knees to worship her or throw her up against a wall and screw until we passed out. My breathing picked up, my heartbeat even more so, and she was still a half a foot away from me. When she stepped forward so that her body, and all its curves and bends and soft spots and hard spots, formed into mine, my breath and my heart stopped altogether. My mind was made up. I was one stalled heartbeat away from doing what I needed to do most with her when a door slamming jolted us out of whatever fog we’d been in.

  “Josie! We’re home, sweet pea.”

  “Shoot,” Josie hissed, breaking free of my hold and rushing toward the door.

  I took another moment to break free of whatever spell she’d put me under, then uttered my own estimation of the current situation. It wasn’t Josie’s PG version either. “I thought you said they were running errands in town.”

  “They are. They were.” Josie fumbled with the doorknob like she was hoping a lock would magically appear. A pair of footsteps marched up the stairs. The next thing Josie hissed wasn’t a shoot.

  “What do you want me to do? There isn’t a window for me to jump out of, and I’m not a damn gopher who can burrow my way out of here,” I said.

  “Stop being such a smart-ass.”

  “Start giving me a little more direction and a little less attitude.”

  “Josie? Are you in the bathroom?” Mrs. Gibson asked, almost outside the door.

  “Uh, yeah, Mom. I am. Just a minute!” Josie powered up to me, and lowered her voice. “Sorry I don’t have a lot of experience sneaking guys in and out of rooms. I thought you were the expert on this.”

  “Sneaking guys out of rooms?” I gave her a look.

  “Unbelievable. You still manage to be a comedian when your life’s thirty seconds away from being over.”

  I never knew a woman whispering could be more intimidating than one screaming, but I made sure to take note. “Fine. Since my options in the escape route department are limited, I’ll hop in the shower and hide out there.”

  “Josie, I have to show you this dress I picked up for you. You’re going to love it.” The door was just opening when I dodged behind the shower curtain. Who walked in on someone in the bathroom without being invited? Oh, yeah. This is Mrs. Gibson we were talking about. She didn’t do personal space well—or keeping her thoughts to herself.

  “Hold up, Mom!” Josie called, but it was too late. Mrs. Gibson was already in the bathroom. How did I know? Heaps of experience in lying in wait, or hiding from, all sorts of people. Boyfriends, husbands, and lovers mostly, but name a kind of person and a certain place, and chances are I’d hidden from it or in it. I could detect when the air moved inside a room from a door opening or closing. I was just that good. Or, thanks to the things I was doing leading up to finding myself in that kind of a situation, I was just that bad.

  “Would you look at this? Isn’t it to die for?” Mrs. Gibson said, her excitement so extreme I could feel it.

  “Yeah, Mom, it’s . . . great.” Josie’s voice bounced around the room, which meant she kept looking over her shoulder. If she didn’t cut that out, mama bear would figure out what was going on, and then papa bear would get his gun, and then I would be a Garth-skin rug on display in front of their fireplace.

  “I thought you could wear it tonight for dinner. It’s just your color. Brings out the gold in your hair and eyes.”

  “Sure, that sounds . . . great,” Josie said. I sighed quietly. The girl really didn’t have any experience hiding a guy from her parents. She was a damn rookie. “But are you throwing some party for dinner tonight I don’t know about? Why do you want me dressing up in silk chiffon?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? Oh, dear me, it must have slipped my mind . . . Your father and I invited Colt Mason over for dinner. He’s such a nice boy, Josie, and we haven’t seen him around lately. He comes from such a good family, and all of that money . . .” Mrs. Gibson sounded close to fainting from the thought of it.

  I was close to boiling over. I did not want Colt Mason over there, sitting around Josie’s dining room table, checking her out in whatever pretty dress her mom had picked up for her. The mere thought of him running his eyes all over her made me want to squish his head with my boot until it went splat.

  I had a lot of anger. I was working on it.

  “That’s great, Mom, but tonight is Garth’s first night here. I thought we could do a dinner with just the four of us. You know, ease him in before having a bunch of company over.”

  “It’s just Colt. One extra person hardly qualifies as a bunch of company. If you ask me, Garth Black could learn a lesson or two from Colt. Let’s hope he takes notes tonight.”

  Colt Mason was a grade A poser douche. The day I took notes from him was the same one I tied a noose around my neck and pulled the lever myself.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure that??
?s the best idea.” Josie sounded about as uncomfortable as I was pissed off. “Colt and Garth aren’t exactly best friends.”

  “They don’t have to be friends, but they do have to tolerate each other while under my roof. And we both know who would be the first to break that rule.”

  Yeah, that made three of us who knew that. No matter if I was under the Gibsons’ roof or inside a seedy bar or he was heading into that damn tanning salon where he kept a standing weekly appointment—I didn’t tolerate Colt Mason.

  “Sweetie, were you about to take a shower? Of course you were. I’m sorry. You’d better start warming that water up now if you want a warm shower before lunch. With these frigid temperatures, the water’s taking its sweet time heating up. I had to wait a good ten minutes before the shower downstairs was ready, and the water up here takes much longer to warm up.”

  I glared up at the shower head.

  “That’s okay. I’m sure it won’t take that long.” Josie’s voice had a nervous wobble.

  Mrs. Gibson let out a long sigh. “You are a stubborn one, Josie Belle. Fine. If you don’t want to turn it on, I’ll do it.” A pair of heels only got a couple of clacks toward the shower.

  “No worries. I got it.” Josie’s nervous wobble was gone, but something close to frantic had taken its place. “You’re right. I should warm it up first.”

  Josie’s shower was small—old farmhouse small. I was already cramped up as small as I’d go on the floor of the tub. There was no way I could cramp up smaller to position my body away from the shower head, so it looked like I’d be getting that shower after all—minus the warm water. Josie peeked her head inside the shower curtain, an apologetic look on her face. Mouthing I’m so, so sorry, she cranked on the water and ducked back out again. The pipes inside the old farmhouse didn’t work as quickly as modern pipes. That gave me a few seconds to brace myself.

  When the water finally burst out of the shower head, I realized how wrong Mrs. Gibson had been. The water wasn’t cold. Not even close.