7. Rosie

Chapter 7

Rosie

Dylan freaking Savage stood in the doorway, his nose clutched in his palm. He was taller than I’d imagined. At least six inches taller than me. He also looked less angry than I’d prepared myself for—though that could be the shock masking it.

Since I’d hit him in the face and all. He’d come out of nowhere, though.

“You’re not supposed to be here until tomorrow,” I informed him.

“No, it’s today.” A trickle of red ran down his fingers, but he otherwise stood as still as a statue, staring down at me with hooded eyes.

My brain short circuited.

“Are you bleeding?” My voice had entered the opera singer register, where glass broke and dogs wailed. I did not like blood. The sight, the smell, talking about it, seeing it, thinking about it, reading about it, even knowing that it existed right there under my skin gave me the ick.

I spun away from him. “I’ll get you a towel.” I turned back toward him. “No, I put out the new towels. You can’t get blood on those.” My stomach flipped. “Paper towels!”

I twisted away. “But you’re getting the floor bloody”—gag—”and the paper towels are next door.”

I faced him again, but had to brace myself against the wall near the painting of a bald eagle. Spinning around on a queasy stomach was a terrible idea. I took a deep breath and held it. You cannot smell blood, brain. You’re not a vampire. “I regret every decision that brought me to this point.”

“Me too,” Dylan muttered.

We stared at each other, him with his T-shirt lifted to cover his nose (and the blood), and me holding onto the wall as if it was my own personal knight in shining armor. Who needed a man when you had plaster and paint?

“Sorry. I don’t do well with blo—” I pressed a hand to my mouth. I needed a distraction right now. I looked around the room, my gaze locking in on his exposed abs. Solid muscles peaked and valleyed like the mountains outside the window. Oh. My.

“Yeah, that’s clear.” His shirt dropped, covering the toned muscles, revealing the bl— The red stuff. He felt around his nose and scrunched it like a bunny a few times. “I don’t think it’s broken.”

Oh, geez. I hadn’t even considered that I might have broken his nose. When I imagined us meeting for the first time, it usually involved other b-words: brooding, bonding, baby-making … Not the one I won’t mention again. The real b-word in my house.

My head had cleared enough for action. “Towel!” I raced to the bathroom and grabbed one of the fluffy white towels from the rack, ran it under the water, and raced it back to him. As he dabbed the skin under his nose with the towel, he studied the apartment.

The sagging futon sat in the middle of stacks of boxes that looked as though they’d been through a flood. I’d set mouse traps in every corner, and I was pretty sure that was a dead cockroach by the window.

Plus there was the smell. A mix of mildew, dirty socks, and paint thinner. Every single car freshener from the dollar store wasn’t making a dent in it.

“I’ll have this apartment ready by tomorrow, as we agreed,” I said as firmly as I could. “I’m Rosie Forrester, by the way.”

His exhaustion-lined eyes flared with alarm, and he took me in from head to toe. The gaze wasn’t necessarily appreciative, more assessing. “You’re the landlord?”

He didn’t have to sound so shocked. “I know we got off on the wrong foot, what with you coming a day early and all—”

“My contract starts today,” he argued. He pulled up our contract on his phone and held it out to show me the dates.

“Exactly. The seventeenth is tomorrow,” I said, triumphant.

He clicked over to the home screen on his phone—a generic, boring blue—where the date said … the seventeenth.

Oh no. I’d been so busy with working at the restaurant and trying to get new art into the shop that I’d lost an entire day somehow.

Suddenly, Dylan scrambled away from me as if I had contracted cooties. “Holy—”

Eliza B. wound her way around his ankles. She liked him.

“That is not a mouse.”

“No.” I laughed and leaned down to pick her up. Her bare skin was cool to the touch, and she curled into my arms. “This is Lizzy.” I nuzzled her pink nose. “Who’s a cute little kitten?”

“That’s a cat ?” He shuddered.

“She’s lived a storied life.”

“More like a cursed life.”

“We’ll forgive him, Lizzy,” I whispered. “He’s had a hit to the head.”

He removed the towel from his face with a glare. “This apartment’s not going to work.”

Panic flashed through me. “Why not? You signed a contract!”

“Under the false pretense that this place was livable.”

“You look just like your dad when he glares at me like that.”

“No, I don’t.” His face smoothed out, but I could still see the resemblance.

I needed to turn this ship around, and quick. I set Lizzy down and motioned with both hands toward the window. “This apartment is a diamond in the rough. Look at that view!” The cloudy window didn’t offer much visibility for scenic sights, so I quickly swiveled to the futon. “And the luxurious fut—”

“Don’t.”

I continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “—on. It’s a two-in-one. One of the world’s great inventions. And new towels.” We both looked at the b-word-stained towel in his hand. Or, I looked at him, keeping my eyes averted from anything red, as he looked at the towel.

“And, um,” I continued, “it’s super quiet here at night. All of Main Street closes down after ten, and then you can hear the ocean. Let me show you around,” I said, sounding increasingly desperate.

He followed me a couple of steps to the kitchen, which at least looked clean. I’d even stocked the fridge with fresh milk, eggs, and butter, which hadn’t been strictly necessary, but I thought was a nice touch. “And this is the bathroom.” He peeked inside to see two clean, white towels folded next to the sink, which had fresh toiletries.

I turned to head back into the living space, but he pointed to the closed door adjacent to the bathroom. “What’s in here?”

“Oh that?” I waved my hand casually. “That’s nothing. Just a locked bedroom.”

“That’s not creepy at all.”

I put my hands on my hips. “It’s filled with art supplies. Mostly.”

“Wait. You’re using my apartment as a storage unit? While I’m living in it?”

I motioned at the futon with exasperation. “You have the futon!”

“I can’t live here,” he said, his last word cut off by a huge yawn. His exhaustion-lined eyes looked one minute away from closing.

“But the contract,” I rallied to say, though my voice was sounding weaker. Was I really going to hold him to a contract when it was clear the apartment wasn’t ready yet? Would never be ready? He was probably wealthy enough to buy out the contract, but I wasn’t feeling right about that either.

“Maybe I’ll just stay with my parents.” But even as he said it, with a pained expression, he walked across the room to sit on the futon.

Which collapsed beneath him with a loud crack.

I gaped at where he lay sprawled on the broken futon. “How much do you weigh?”

“I am not the problem,” he bit back. “I’m a hockey player, not a tiny redhead with a creepy animal sidekick.” I was going to ignore that slight toward Lizzy, but only because this was the second injury he’d received since arriving. The scales of balance and all that.

I held out a hand to help him up, but he waved it away and stood with much more agility than I’d imagine someone his size would have. Guilt zinged through me. Even with an extra day, I didn’t know how to make this place livable. Once again, I’d bitten off way more than I could chew (but with the confidence of a contract and first and last month’s rent this time.)

“Okay. Okay.” I let out a long breath. “You can take my apartment next door until we get this one figured out.”

“Where will you sleep?” His folded arms put a shield between us, but he couldn’t hide the concern in his eyes. The Beast I’d seen on television wouldn’t have cared about displacing me.

“Here,” I said cheerfully. We both looked at the broken futon, the rusted metal legs stretched out to the sides like a dog sprawled out on ice. “I have a houseboat if I get desperate.”

He shook his head, but I wasn’t above begging. “I’ll be honest, Dylan. I need the rent money.”

Was that a slight softening in his eyes? Maybe? “You really have a houseboat you can go to?”

“If I need to,” I replied. But since Dad was there, I’d just make sure it wasn’t necessary.

“Fine,” he grumbled.

Before he could change his mind, I led him next door to my apartment. With its sunny yellow walls, perfect view of Main Street’s cute shops (including Max’s bookstore), the mountains behind them, and some of my best paintings, it was one of my favorite places in Winterhaven.

If I couldn’t be on my houseboat, then this was definitely the next best.

His gaze went straight to the open bedroom door and my white-duvet-covered queen sized bed.

“This will work,” he said with a decisive nod. And before I could grab some of my things or offer to change the sheets, he’d ushered me from the apartment and shut the door between us.