Quicksilver Dreams(20)
“Yeah. I’m going to cook for him tonight. I make the best pasta sauce, if I do say so myself. What about you? Rico’s handsome. Are you two going out tonight?”
“Naw, I’ve got work. The bills don’t pay themselves.”
“You work every weekend, honey. Don’t waste your youth. You only get it once.”
“Yeah, well, life gets complicated.”
“That it does. It can teach you things that aren’t healthy to learn, if you’re not careful. I know that one. I better go. I need to make a trip to the grocery store.”
It was an interesting way to leave things, and I was sure the cryptic comment was deliberately left to my interpretation, but critical thinking was not going to happen right after a hard-core workout. Still, her comment stuck with me as I walked all the way out to my car...and saw that the passenger-side window was smashed in.
“No,” I whispered, rushing to it in the parking lot. “Are you kidding me? Why? It’s a piece of junk!”
But it was my piece of junk. I’d managed to save for it, buy it used, pay for insurance and gas every month, take care of maintenance and repairs. There was nothing of value in it to steal. Even the radio was old and broken, but that was okay with me. It was my little junker that I’d been able to afford and rely on. And while I know cars get broken into all the time, it just didn’t make sense that mine was targeted.
Peering through the window, I tried to think if I’d left anything out on the seat, but the only thing I had that I considered to be valuable was my phone, and that had been safely tucked away in my bag inside the gym with me. So it just didn’t make sense. Glass shards spread across the passenger seat, the floor mats were tossed around haphazardly, and the map book I usually kept under my driver’s seat was ripped up. It was almost like someone was mad and just trying to do damage for some reason.
God, what a weird day this was turning into.
There didn’t seem to be anything missing. I shoved the pieces of map book out of the way, practically threw myself onto the driver’s seat in a huff, and drove home with the car as it was. What could I do about it in the parking lot? If I stared at it any longer, I was going to cry, and that was something I just didn’t do in public. Not a good badass image to project. What sounded good was a lukewarm shower, some time to cry on my pillow and a nap before work. I needed some cooling-off time before dealing with the problem.
An image of Ryder, my knight in shining armor from last night, came to mind. His intense green eyes and tough, not-to-be-fucked-with deadly silent demeanor somehow inspired confidence, and I felt better.
As though my thoughts manifested the man, I saw him sitting at one of the common-area tables by the pool in the courtyard, and my heart kicked up a beat. It was both exciting and disconcerting that he was just as devastating to my senses as I remembered.
He was reading the paper, with a bottle of water sitting in front of him. Black hair damp and wearing swim trunks, he looked like he’d just taken a swim. Unfortunately, he’d already put on a white logoed T-shirt, which was stretched across his muscular chest oh, so deliciously.
The view was letting me forget about my problems for the moment and just enjoy.
Disappointingly, as I came through the security gate, he didn’t even look up. I was deliberately making a lot of clanging noise, you know?
Hmm.
I thought about bypassing the courtyard completely and just going up the side stairs to my apartment. However, there seemed to be an invisible rope strongly wrapped around my sense of free will, commandeering it, and I found my feet carrying me toward him anyway. He sighted me over the rim of his paper and lowered it, startling me with his darkly grim expression. He did a split-second inventory of my clothing and gym bag before returning to my eyes. It was like he was mad at me. It gave me pause. I wasn’t sure what to make of his mood and questioned whether to continue toward him. Maybe he wanted to be alone? Not be bothered?