I make a fast break for the door. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the day or any other day, but it’s going to happen because I’m no quitter, and Kayden is not going to win this round. I have no real idea what he wants, but I’m going to give him a bit of it right now.
I turn around like Kayden did before he came to sit back down, and then I dramatically flip him the bird. “Here’s the only closure you’re going to get from me,” I say before I slam the door behind me and listen to the echo bounce through the hallway.
CHAPTER 4
Kayden
I just bought a company that makes toilet paper in prodigious amounts, yet I have no use for it at my new abode.
What Rea said about it was true. The house is more bulldozer worthy than a fixer-upper. The water is off because there aren’t many pipes left throughout the place, and the previous occupant took everything they could when it was clear they were going to get foreclosed on. There isn’t a single running toilet. Heck, there isn’t even a toilet at all, and no sink either. I mean, looking at the bright side, I get to start from scratch with the renovation. I don’t even have to demo out the old stuff, so really, the last occupants technically did me a favor.
Unfortunately for me, my pride won’t let me stay in a hotel when I already told Rea I’m going to be living here. Camping out with an air mattress and a sleeping bag for my first night isn’t bad. I can also always order whatever I need, but there is one real problem. No bathroom. And it’s not like I can just go out and find a bush. This is suburbia, not the wilderness. The nearest corner store is also a ten-minute drive.
After work, I was going to go over to Rea’s house and reintroduce myself. You know, give her a handshake and a speech about starting off on the wrong foot, blah, blah, blah. I actually quite like the foot we started off on—today’s foot, I mean. The other foot is firmly planted eleven years ago in the past when we first met, but I like that one too.
I still remember Rea running through the rain, water sluicing off her sweet little upturned nose and dribbling over her full, rosy lips, starring her sandy eyelashes. The gray clouds reflected in her cool blue irises with the gray spokes that danced around the dark pupils. She was gorgeous, but she was also pissed at getting caught in one hell of a rainstorm as she was soaked to the bone.
I was driving by when I spotted her, and just like that, I knew. I asked if she needed a ride. After promising her I was harmless, that I wouldn’t kidnap her, and I didn’t have any dirty, pervy, or creepy designs on her, she finally got in the car. It was a hard top convertible, and halfway to the restaurant Rea worked at, which was where she was heading before the sky opened up on her, I put the top down and soaked both of us and the car.
Rea thought I was crazy. She’d stared at me, but as I drove through the rain, letting the droplets splatter all over my face and a hundred thousand dollar car, she finally started to laugh. It was the most beautiful sound in the world, and I knew then, from that very minute. I loved her.
All too soon, the urge to use the bathroom takes precedence over my fonder memories. I know I could just get in my rental—I have yet to buy a car since taking over a massive corporation and buying a house were my first priorities—and drive to that convenience store I was talking about, but the lights are on at Rea’s house, and I just can’t help myself, even if it is past ten at night.
I mean, it isn’t really an emergency yet, but it’s a good excuse to see her again, which I really want to do. I told her the entire truth today. I didn’t mean to, but when it was out, I was relieved. It was indeed true that I had no idea how I was going to put her behind me. I needed to figure it out, but talking to her would possibly be a start. Wait, I’ll rephrase that. Forcing her to interact with me would be a start. I’d hardly term it talking because I’m sure future interactions on Rea’s part will hardly be civil.
I step outside and take a good look down the street. The neighborhood truly is up and coming. I wasn’t joking about that. The houses are a mix of smaller, war time builds, bigger bungalows built in the sixties and seventies in place of the tiny little houses that were torn down, a few larger houses from the eighties and nineties, some from the early two-thousands, and brand new infills. It’s quite a smattering.