Down Shift

  But it also means I’m doing this. Changes are really happening. And the past is over.

  In a show of defiance no one will ever see and only I will understand, I make a trail of my discarded clothes as I walk down the hall toward the bathroom light I purposely left on at the end of the hallway: a beacon of imagined hot water calling my name.

  Shoes. Shirt. Bra. Skirt. Panties. All come off one by one, throwing them to the floor in a messy trail as I go.

  I’m exhausted, my mind still preoccupied with the mistake I made tonight dropping the bottle, so that when I clear the doorway, it takes me a second to come to my senses. The reaction is instantaneous—an earsplitting scream, a physical jump back, a shock to my heart, and hands immediately reaching to cover my pelvis and breasts—at the sight of the man standing in my bathroom.

  And not just any man.

  No.

  But a buck-naked man. Dripping in water. I see a flash of ink on his back in the partially fogged-up mirror’s reflection. One hand holds a towel up to his wet hair. The other is doing I don’t know what, because I’m so fixated on his presence that thinking clearly isn’t a priority.

  “HELP!” I scream the moment I get my wits about me, body frozen in fear, mind reeling.

  And even though his blue eyes look as shocked as mine probably do, his mouth spreads into a slow, disbelieving but definitely cocksure smile. “I’ve had women go to extremes before,” he says with a chuckle, silencing my next shriek for help, “but this takes it to a whole new level.”

  In my confusion, my guard comes up instantly, although for some reason I don’t actually feel threatened like a rational person would. I’m naked, hunched over trying to cover all my lady bits, caught between stepping back down the hallway and grabbing my last discarded item to cover myself up. But I know damn well my panties sure as hell aren’t going to make a very good shield. Add to that there’s no way in hell I’m giving him the wrong impression, that I’m retreating in fear.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” I’m shaking with adrenaline as I hop around in the I’m-naked dance, every ripple and roll of imperfection on my body on display in the wash of bathroom light into the hall. My eyes flicker desperately to assess the situation I have absolutely zero control over. I want more lights on to flood the house and don’t want them on at the same time.

  “I believe I should ask you the same question,” he says as he slowly lowers his hand, the towel now hanging at his side. Of course I look.

  And there it is. . . .

  I jump back like my eyes have been burned and yet first impressions are hard to erase: cut abs, that V of defined muscles, a trail of happy, and a more-than-impressive package. What the hell is wrong with me? There is a man in my house. He obviously just showered in my bathroom. And I’m staring at his dick.

  “Put that thing away!” I command, with my hand reaching out to gesture at his waist before I realize that I’ve just removed my hand from my own breasts and offered a peep show of my own. Of course I replace it promptly but not before the man throws his head back and emits a deep laugh. It causes his Adam’s apple to slide up, then down, chest to heave, and dick to bob.

  I force myself to look away because . . . well, because he’s a stranger. In my house. Naked. And oh my God, something is wrong with me, because I’m not running and calling 911 like I should.

  When his chuckle subsides, he brings his head back down, so I can see the tears in his eyes from laughter. “That thing is my cock, and since this is my bathroom and you seem to be attempting to seduce me in my house, I don’t think you have any right to tell me what to do.” And with that, he leans a hip against the counter and folds his arms across his chest, eyes locked on mine and one eyebrow lifted. Everything else is left hanging out there in the wind.

  “Your house? Seduce you?” At that point I realize I’m sputtering and shaking my head. “This is my house. You’re in my house.”

  Confusion drifts across his face and his jaw falls lax. “Hold up.” He lifts his hands in the Hold on a minute position, drawing my eyes back to where they don’t want to be. If this whole situation weren’t so unbelievable, it would be comical, and yet as true as that is, I don’t seem to be laughing at all. “I think there seems to be some misunderstanding.”

  “No shit.” Sarcasm is my fallback and it doesn’t disappoint me now. A lot of good it does me, though, as I’m still doing the naked dance while trying to react to this surreal situation.

  The look of disdain he gives me at my comment earns him no points in my book. “While I’m digging the socks with your outfit,” he says with a smirk, eyes veering down and then back up to my strategically placed hands, “you should cover up.” I catch the towel he tosses me and immediately wrap it around myself. I’m certain my mismatching knee-high socks make a statement about me, but I’m beyond caring, because I’m still alone in my house with a strange man and have no answers as to how this has happened.

  With one hand clutching onto the towel at my collarbone, I use the other to motion to him. “You too.”

  A lightning flash of a grin glances across his lips. “Sorry, but you just took the only towel left.”

  Why is this funny to him? This is not funny. Not in the least. And neither is my procrastination over folding the load of towels currently sitting in the dryer. Shit.

  I glance around quickly. Needing to keep an eye on him for safety’s sake and not wanting to look too closely for obvious reasons. Instinct tells me he’s not a threat and yet sensibility tells me he is. So I do the only thing I can, look slyly around for a weapon. Something. Anything.

  But I’m in a hallway. Pickings are slim. When I take a step back, the ancient mini-blinds behind me rattle as my butt hits them. The sound clicks my mind into gear and I reach back and pick up the broken wand that opens the blinds sitting on the windowsill. Without thinking, I hold it up in front of me like a swashbuckling sword.

  “How’d you get in here?” I demand in my deepest, growliest voice.

  “With the key under the frog on the back deck.” He doesn’t even fight the smile on his face or make an attempt to cover himself up. Nope. He just stands there nonchalant as day, like he’s used to women staring at his naked body.

  Maybe he is. He said he thought I was here to seduce him. Is he some kind of male escort or something? No. Wait. I have that all mixed up. He would be seducing me, then.

  Focus, Getty. Focus.

  “What key?” How come I didn’t know there was a key under the frog on the back deck? I jab the wand toward him to emphasize each word. “And the wood on the deck is broken. How’d you climb—”

  “How’d you get in here?”

  “I’ve been here and I’m the one asking questions.”

  That laugh again. Full-bodied. More than amused. Enough to make me wonder what it sounds like when he really means it. “Right. I forgot. You’re one to give orders in a bath towel, socks, and holding that fierce sword of yours.”

  I fight back the urge to drop the wand regardless of how stupid I look, because I don’t know this guy from Adam. “Answer. Me.”

  “Testy.”

  “Now.” I jab the wand to show him that I mean it. The smile again, but this time he bites his bottom lip to prevent it from spreading all the way to dimple territory.

  “Smitty gave me instructions on where to find the key. We made a deal. I get to stay here so long as I make some repairs for him.”

  What? “There’s some kind of misunderstanding. Smitty messed up. I’m already living here.”

  “So I gather by your Custer’s Last Stand demonstration,” he says with an indifferent wave of his hand.

  “How do you know him?” I already have a sinking feeling that something is seriously screwed up here and that I’m not going to like his answer.

  “He’s like an uncle to me.” He shrugs. “You?”


  “Darcy’s like an aunt,” I mimic him in reference to Smitty’s wife.

  We stare at each other as the knowledge that we’ve both been given access to this house settles into place between us.

  “Well, Smitty must have forgotten that Darcy told me I could stay here, so you’re going to have to find somewhere else to crash for the weekend.” There. I said it. Take that.

  “Good one.” He seems unfazed by my comment as he waltzes past me in all his masculine glory and heads into the bedroom to the right of the bathroom. “But I’m not just here for the weekend. And I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Yes, you are!” I follow him the few steps into the bedroom and whoa, I’m greeted with a full male backside as he bends over to rifle through a duffel bag at the foot of the bed.

  “Get your eyeful now, Socks,” he says with a glance over his shoulder as he steps into a pair of boxer briefs and pulls them up. “Because after I call Smitty, I’m sure you’re the one who’ll find out you’ve overstayed the welcome.”

  He walks past me again, but this time I’m standing in the doorway. His body brushes ever so slightly against mine on the way out. I’m greeted with the scent of soap and masculinity fresh from the shower. I’m so busy admiring his ass, when I shouldn’t be, as he moves down the hallway that it takes a moment for his comment to break through his enticing scent clouding my brain.

  “Over my dead body!” I shout, rushing after him, clutching the towel tighter around me.

  “That would be a helluva waste with that body,” he murmurs from ahead of me. At least I think that’s what he says, but I can’t be certain and I sure as hell know he can’t be speaking about me.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said you sure are messy.”

  “No, I’m not.” He flicks on the hallway light just as the words leave my mouth. The path of my clothes is visible in all its cluttered glory. I cringe—not because of the destruction, but because he thinks he’s right. When really he has no fricking clue of what’s behind my messy trail. “Look, you don’t get to come into my house—”

  “It’s Smitty’s house,” he corrects as he holds up one finger and the face of his cell phone out with the other hand.

  “No, mine—”

  “Zander.” The phone crackles to life and a voice full of warmth comes through the speaker.

  So he has a name.

  “Hey, Smitty.”

  I open my mouth to speak but shut it instantly when Zander levels me with a look.

  “Did you find the key all right? Get in okay?”

  “Yeah. Right where you said it’d be. But man, that deck is a death trap waiting to happen.” He laughs again. This time it’s softer, flooded with the same warmth in Smitty’s voice.

  “I told you, you’d have to earn your keep.”

  “I will. I’m good for it.”

  A sudden heavy silence settles on the line. One I don’t quite understand, but it’s obvious at the same time.

  “I know you are,” Smitty finally says quietly. “Just as my word to you is good. I promised you I wouldn’t tell them you were there—”

  “There’s a problem,” Zander interrupts, unexpectedly changing the subject. And I can’t quite put my finger on it, but whatever Smitty was talking about, Zander obviously doesn’t want to. I can see it in the sudden darkening of his eyes and the tense set of his shoulders.

  “What’s up?”

  “There’s a woman here. At the house.”

  “Did you already forget what to do with one?” He laughs. “I thought you were long past the birds and the bees speech, Zee.”

  A genuine smile glances across Zander’s lips, and his eyes flash up to meet mine. “I assure you I know what to do with one. But, uh . . . that’s not what I’m talking about. There’s a woman here. Her name’s . . . ?” His eyes prompt me to respond.

  All of a sudden I can’t find my voice and when I do, I’m shy. Hating that giving him my name is almost an invitation for him to get to know me, when I want nothing more of this strange, obviously charismatic man than to see him walk out of the house and not come back.

  I clear my throat. “Getty.”

  “Getty?” He gives me a curious glance as if he’s questioning if I know my own name. I nod slowly to him because he’s right—it still sounds a little foreign to me too.

  New person. New name. New life.

  “Smitty, her name’s Getty. She says Darcy—”

  “Oh shit.” Smitty laughs into the line.

  “Yeah. Oh shit.” Zander’s not amused.

  “Hmm,” he muses, “Darce went on a girls’ trip up to the mountains. No service. She’ll be home midweek. . . . I’ll have to ask her about it then.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Not in the least. There’s two beds. One bath. You’re a big boy. Figure it out,” he says with another chuckle before the line goes dead.

  “Goddammit. Smitty?” Zander swears again as he drops the phone onto the countertop with a thud. He braces both hands on the counter, head angled down looking at his phone while I look at him across the dimly lit room. Waiting. Wondering. Pushing aside the tickle of unease on the back of my neck as I hold tighter to the towel.

  My gaze flickers around the room frantically. My instinct is to try to find the smallest corner to fade into. Figure out where the fallout of his temper will have the least impact.

  After a moment, he lifts his head up and smirks. The tightness in my chest, the fear that crept in out of conditioning, slowly eases as I exhale.

  “Well, shit. I guess we’ve been told,” he says as he breezes past me down the hallway.

  It takes me a moment to regain my bearings and realize I’m not back there and this stranger isn’t Ethan, before I turn on my heel and rush once again down the hall after him.

  “Whoa. Wait!”

  “What for?” Zander turns back around like he has not a care in the world. Like he’s not in his underwear with one foot currently trapped in the leg of my skirt, and I’m not in a towel with knee-high socks on.

  “You’re not staying here.”

  He chuckles. “Yes, actually, I am.”

  “No, you’re not. There’s a hotel down the road on the boardwalk. A bed-and-breakfast too.”

  “You heard the man. There are two beds. One bath. Pretty straightforward.”

  Oh my God. The man is infuriating. And pigheaded. “You’re not hearing me.”

  “No, I’m hearing you all right. I’m just choosing not to listen.” He works his tongue in his cheek and lifts his eyebrows in a nonverbal challenge. “Besides, I promised Smitty I’d fix the place up and as of recently, I’m a man of my word. So I’m going to do just that.”

  Something about the way he says the last statement tells me there is more behind it than he’s letting on, but I’m tired from my shift and can’t find the effort to care.

  “You can do your repairs but stay at the hotel,” I instruct in my sternest voice as he turns around and heads toward the back of the house. “A win-win for both of us.” I attempt to infuse enthusiasm in my voice.

  “Did you take the big bedroom?”

  “What?” My head is spinning. Did he not hear a word I just said? He is not staying here. He can’t. This is my space. Well, technically Darcy and Smitty’s space, but it’s been mine for almost three months. The first place I’ve had as my own, ever, and it’s working—I have no other option but for it to work—so there is no way this is going to happen.

  “I asked if this is your shit in the big bedroom in back?” he asks over his shoulder as he goes to turn the knob on the door.

  “Did you touch it?” My defiance comes back immediately. My scattered thoughts are now focused. After being trivialized for so long, my privacy is so very important to me. Did he go in, rifle through my stuff? See my wor
k, the bleed of my emotion onto canvas, and judge it?

  “No.” His answer is resolute. I’m right behind him, so when he turns around and sees what I can assume is the panic on my face, he angles his head and stares for a moment longer. “I opened the door, figured the stuff was Darcy’s from the last time they were here. Didn’t want to touch anything I wasn’t supposed to, so I dropped my shit in there.” He points to the only other bedroom in the house, right next to mine.

  He’s too close for comfort, so when he steps back to turn to face me, I retreat too. The space between us is clogged with his . . . his . . . everything about him, and I find it hard not to react.

  “Wait. Stop.” I hold my hands up, shake my head. “Just give me a minute here.” Give me space.

  “Take all the time you want in the world, Socks,” he says, eyes full of a strange mix of humor and sincerity. And yet he doesn’t step back, doesn’t shift out of the way, so it’s the wall behind me and him directly in front of me.

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.” He doesn’t move, just continues to look at me with a face that’s the portrait of innocence, and yet a hunch tells me he’s anything but.

  “Personal space, here,” I say sternly, motioning with my one free hand for him to back up some.

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.” He takes a small step back and fights the half-cocked grin on his lips. “But you’re going to have to get used to us sharing it, since it looks like we’re going to be shacking up together for the next couple of days until Darcy gets back and tells Smitty that your time’s up.”

  That grin comes at me full force once he knows his comment has hit its mark with my sputtering lack of response.

  “You’re frustrating and irritating and . . .” And handsome and too close and too many things I don’t want to cloud my space when men are the last thing on my current agenda.

  “And you’re still standing here naked in a towel. And socks. I’ve had a long few weeks. I’m tired. It’s late.” He looks at his watch and then back to me. “Why don’t we go to bed and we can figure out the rest in the morning?”