I already know Blythe could never believe that someone who looks like Jase would ever bother sneaking into the house to seeme. Vanessa, on the other hand?
His social connections may make him intimidating to someone likeme, but looks-wise, Jase is right up my sister’s alley.
And it would take one look at him for Blythe to draw the two obvious conclusions. Either he’s a late-night booty call who waited to sneak out after he assumed the house was empty, or he hoped to sneak in and wait for Vanessa to get back home.
I could always tell Blythe the truth…
But that’s laughable.
Even if she walked in to find feathers littering the entire room and Jase holding the bird in his hands, she still wouldn’t believe what happened. Not if it involves me.
Blythe’s shadow casts down the hall, and I’m about five seconds from a heart attack…when I turn back to the window to find Jase climbing out of it. He just manages to duck out of view as Blythe storms into the room, her cell wielded in her hand like she might literally throw it at me.
“What the hell?I’ve been calling you for the last five minutes—” She looks down at my nightstand, where, yes, my phone is still sitting. And I can’t even use the excuse that it’s dead, because the screen is all too happy to light up, flashing theawaiting notifications. To say that it looks like I was purposely ignoring it would be an understatement. “Very mature, Ali. All I needed was for you to make sure the coffee pot was turned off. Instead, you scare the hell out of me.”
Her attention goes to my abandoned breakfast on the floor, and her scowl only deepens. Thank God the plate landed on the area rug around my bed and didn’t break, but smears and globs of cinnamon and icing stain the hardwood floor around where the pastries lie.
As expected, she doesn’t ask what could have happened to me to cause such a mess. Nope, I just get a short lecture about cleaning it all up. “I don’t want to see any residue. The last thing we need is to attract fleas.”
Without so much as a “goodbye,” she storms off back downstairs and into the kitchen.
Not until I hear her officially leave the house do I dare move to the window, grateful to find both the lattice and the yard below empty.
The following morning,I find myself in an empty house once again. Dad isn’t coming home from his work trip until tonight, and Vanessa left with Blythe to go to the country club before I even woke up. Since I had to spend most of yesterday disinfecting and/or washing everything (including myself) that the bird touched, I don’t mind being able to just kick back and relax…for the first few hours. It’s barely ten-thirty, and I’m getting a little stir-crazy. It isn’t that I get bored quickly. I just have pent-up anxiety that seriously needs to be exorcised. I’d usually do that with a run or a trip to the falls. However, with my so-called ankle injury, Blythe ordered me not to leave thehouse. The one upside? I have sole control over the whole-home stereo system.
The sounds of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll” follow me from room to room as I finish up my laundry, grab the box of doughnuts on top of the fridge, and dance my way back upstairs. Just as the song ends, I pop open the container to find only two pastries left. Praise Jesus. They’re both vanilla Long Johns, my absolute favorites!
Another perk to being home alone.
If Dad or Derek had been here, this whole box would have been devoured within a day of it being brought into the kitchen.
I sink my teeth into the soft pastry, savoring the icing and cream, when a sharp knock strikes my window!
Okay, maybe it’s not “loud,” but in the absence of music and the fact that I’m supposed to bealone, the noise may as well be a blowhorn. Before I can even turn to look in its direction, I also can’t miss the sound of the window being pulledopen.
My reflexes are better this time, because without a thought, I chuck the first thing I have at the sound…which sadly happens to be my Long John.
It seems I just might be making a habit of hitting Jase Rivers in the face, because that’s precisely what I do,again. My bar-shaped projectile smacks him in the forehead, and to my horror, he cowers back from the glass, dropping out of sight!
“Oh my god!” I wait for the horrible moment of impact when I hear Jase’s body hitting the ground…but it doesn’t come.
Just as I’m about to reach the window, he heaves himself up, his upper half practically spilling out onto the floor in front of me. “You have a funny way of sayinghello,” he huffs.
“Excuse me?” is all I can say, because, seriously,what the hell?
“If you’re going to chuck baked goods at me, you could at least have the decency to aim for my mouth.” He wipes the backof his hand over his forehead, where my precious vanilla icing and cream are indeed smeared. There’s even some in his hair.
I’m not sure what’s come over me. Maybe it’s low blood sugar or the fact that he’s scared the shit out of me again by showing up, but whatever the cause, my brain and body can’t process my anxiety like they usually would. I should be a stuttering mess. Instead, I’m left with the consternation that can only be fueled by anger. “How about younotinvite yourself inside random people’s windows?”
He actually has the gall to chuckle. “You also have a funny way of sayingthank you, apparently.”
Seriously?
“Thank you,” I correct with a snarl, “foryesterday. As for right now, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing anything to warrant another drop-in.”
“Oh, but that would be where you’re wrong, Birdie.” The devil in his smile at those very words should have a field’s worth of red flags springing up in my mind, but against all better judgment, I still find myself annoyed more than anything else.
“Birdie?”
