“I am. Goodnight, Becker.”
“Goodnight, Cassie. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Count on it.”
Staring up at the ceiling, I thought about this beautiful mess. I could fall madly in love with Becker. It would be so easy for me to drop everything in my worthless life and follow him anywhere. The one thing I couldn’t do was share. Why did I have to be so nosey? I should’ve just let Marti close the case and move on. Sure nothing good could come from this I sighed, rolled over, and snuggled with Snowball
I thought about my mom and what she would say about the whole messed up situation. I could only remember one time we ever talked about boys. I missed that. I wished I had my mom to talk about the things my dad knew nothing about. It was my first year in kindergarten and my mother had just picked me up.
“How was your day?” she asked, beaming proudly from ear to ear.
She buckled my seatbelt and I held her face in my hands. “Mom, boys are so dumb.”
Tugging on my seatbelt, she kissed my forehead. “Tell me about it,” she agreed, amused with a happy smile. “What happened? Why are boys dumb?” she asked.
Waiting for her to walk around the car, I explained. “Well, Mathew Willow said I was his girlfriend at first recess, then he said Allison was his girlfriend at lunch. How can a boy have two girlfriends? He’s sooooooo dumb,” I dramatically expressed my first real opinion of the opposite sex.
My mother smiled through the rearview mirror.
I wondered what she’d think about this. Becker loved more than one girl. They lived with him as his wives. Surely she wouldn’t be okay with it, either. Would she?
I didn’t even remember dozing off. Snowball would have normally pawed my face, waking me up by then. Instead, it was the ringing of my phone that did it.
“Hello,” I sleepily said, finding my phone on the floor. That’s what that noise was in the middle of the night.
“You’re still in bed, aren’t you?” Becker asked.
It took me a minute to register what was happening. SHIT! I overslept. “Crap. Yes. I am. Give me twenty minutes. Go get us some coffee at the convenience store on the corner. I’m a fast get readier. I’m sorry.”
I jumped up, pulling my shirt over my head and sliding out of my panties, tripping over them around my ankles. It’s a good thing Becker couldn’t see in the window. My phone went sliding across the room when my elbows caught my fall, my ass went straight up in the air and my panties tangled around my feet. I had to clean my room. Had I not stepped on an empty bottle of lotion I’d tossed and missed to the trash, I could have handled walking and stripping at the same time. I hung up after crawling bare-ass to my phone. I wasn’t explaining that one.
Becker didn’t make my tardiness awkward at all. He took my advice and waited for me with a cup of coffee in hand. I smiled and took it.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked, kissing me just in front of my ear.
“I did, thanks to you,” I said with a blush, feeling that sensation deep in the pit of my stomach. What the hell was that? Hoping I wasn’t getting sick, I reverted my eyes. My foot was constantly in my mouth around this guy.
He snorted, amused at my rosy cheeks. “Let’s go. You’re taking me on an adventure.”
“I’m taking you?” I asked, confused while sliding into his classy Buick.
“Yeah. You told me you like to explore abandoned places, remember?”
“I told you that?” I asked, puzzled. I didn’t remember telling him that.
“Yeah, when you first joined Picked. You were trying like hell to blow me off.”
“Hmmm, okay. I did tell you that.” I vaguely remembered.
“You did. Tell me about it. How’d you get into doing this?”
“I don’t know. My grandma, I guess. I used to do it with her and with Justine a couple times, but she doesn’t really like it. She’s sort of a girly girl. She doesn’t like to get her hands dirty,” I explained.
“And you do?”
“It depends, I guess. You don’t really get dirty exploring abandoned buildings, unless you want to. Do you have a place in mind?”
“Sort of. I don’t know what you’ve already explored, though. There’s an abandoned furniture store over on Route 3. You know it?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“What?”
“That’s not really abandoned. They just closed up shop. This is a little more in depth than that. How much time do you have? I drove past a place a couple months back with Justine. I tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn’t. We could go there if you want.”