Girl Next Door - The Complete Series (33 page)

“Hmm.” I decided to never order any other kind of pizza again.

“I want you to spend the night at my place tonight,” Troy said.

This time I did choke. Coughing, I took another drink of wine to help wash down the lump of cheese and crust stuck in my throat. “Excuse me?” I asked, my eyes watering.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” he said. “You can have the bed, alone. I’ll sleep on the couch. I just mean that you shouldn’t stay here alone tonight. And probably not any other night until whoever is systematically destroying your life is caught.”

I waved a hand in the air and drank more wine to give myself time to come up with another solution. I knew that I would end up sleeping with Troy if I stayed with him.

“I’ll go stay with Cat and Patrick. Or Nat and Aidan.”

Troy shook his head.

“You have no right to tell me what I will or will not do, Troy,” I snapped.

“Shut up,” he barked. Leaning forward in his chair, he rested his arms on the table. “Didn’t you say that Cat and Patrick have a little boy?”

I nodded.

“And isn’t your friend, Nat, pregnant with a little girl?”

I nodded again.

“Do you really want to go stay with them and take the chance that whoever is doing this shit to you will follow and fuck up their lives or even hurt them?”

I shook my head, tears threatening to fill my eyes. I hadn’t thought about any of what Troy was describing. But he was right. He was so right. If I went to my friends, I would be putting them in danger.

“Then you’re staying with me,” he stated.

What else could I do but agree.

Later that night, exhausted from the stress and physical labor, I followed Troy to his side of the duplex. He was carrying a duffel bag full of my clothes and what few cosmetics hadn’t been destroyed. I was hauling my shopping bags and purse.

At Troy’s insistence I had called in sick to work the next day as well. He hadn’t had to push very hard. I was tired and stressed out to the max. With the two of us working non-stop, we had managed to clear everything off the floor. The chaise and my mattress would have to be hauled off on bulk trash day. My sheets, comforter, and about fifty percent of my wardrobe were destroyed and stuffed in my city waste bin.

All I wanted now was a horizontal surface to stretch out on and about eight hours of unconsciousness. I wouldn’t even care if Troy were in the damn bed with me because I was too freaking tired to do anything about it.

I got the same feeling of surprise when I entered his side of the duplex as I did the first time. While his place was definitely masculine, it was clean and smelled like cinnamon. His sofa and chairs were dark brown leather. Oak mission style tables were at each end of the couch and between the two chairs that stood at an angle next to it. He also had a huge flat screen affixed to the wall facing the couch.

Troy carried all my stuff back to his bedroom, the one room I hadn’t seen. I stopped in shock when I saw it. The room was warm and cozy, with a deep red comforter set on the bed, dark brown furniture that was almost black, and cream colored paint on the walls that carried just a hint of gold. This room was not completely masculine. It was actually something I might have done myself if I hadn’t been crazy about the zebra print bed set I originally had.

“I love this room,” I said.

Troy dumped my bag on a padded leather bench at the end of the bed. “Thanks. My mom and my sister decorated it.”

I put my purse on the dresser and my shopping bags on the bench by my duffel. I watched as Troy opened a door and switched on a light.

“This is the bathroom. There’re fresh towels in the cabinet above the toilet. I have a new toothbrush in the medicine cabinet.”

“Thanks,” I sighed. I could not wait to take a hot shower. I wanted it to be a long one, but I knew I was too tired for that. I would be happy with a five minute bath just to wash the grime off my skin.

Troy left the room, and I stripped off my clothes. I went into the bathroom and turned the water on to let the shower warm up. While the water was warming up, I found the toothbrush and cleaned my teeth. I checked his shower. There was shampoo and body wash on the little shelf in the stall. I decided I could do without conditioner for tonight.

I stepped under the spray and heaved a huge, deep sigh. The hot water felt heavenly after the day I had. I shampooed, washed, and rinsed until my entire body was squeaky clean. I turned off the water, dried my body, and realized I didn’t have deodorant. Mine had been smeared into the bedroom carpet.

Well, I’d used everything else that belonged to Troy, might as well use his deodorant too. I found it in the medicine cabinet and swiped it under my arms. I went into the bedroom with the towel wrapped around my head and saw that Troy had picked up my dirty clothes off the floor. One of his T-shirts lay on the bed and I realized it was for me. All my cute nightgowns and pajama sets, including my favorite sugar skull flannel, had been destroyed.

I pulled the shirt over my head and it swamped me. After I dug undies out of my duffel, I found my wide-tooth comb and pulled the towel off my head. Once I dried off most of the water, I started combing the tangles out.

There was a short rap on the door and Troy came in, carrying a glass of water and two white pills.

“I brought you some ibuprofen,” he said.

That was an extremely nice thing to do. Considering his past asinine, inconsiderate behavior, it surprised me in a very good way.

“Thanks.” I took the pills and glass from him and took both pills at once. My head and back were pounding from the combination of stress and hours of cleaning.

I put the glass on the nightstand, not sure what to do or say. I wore nothing but his T-shirt and my panties. I felt extremely awkward.

Suddenly, I felt the knot that had settled in my chest earlier that day start swelling. I couldn’t breathe. My heart began to pound against my sternum so hard I was surprised that I couldn’t see it. I struggled to suck in air, but my throat tightened and I wheezed each breath. I felt as though an elephant had stomped on my chest.

“Amy?” Troy’s face appeared in front of me.

I blinked at him rapidly, still struggling to breathe.

His hands cupped my face. “It’s okay, Amy. You’re having a panic attack. Just try to breathe slowly. I know it’s hard, but try to relax.”

With his face the only thing I could see, I focused on his eyes and his voice. After a few more scary seconds of struggling for air, I no longer felt like I was being strangled by invisible hands. Little by little the tightness in my chest loosened until I took slow, yet stuttering breaths.

When I finally had control, Troy kissed my forehead and released my face. “Better?” he asked.

I nodded. “That’s never happened to me before,” I whispered.

“You’ve had a rough couple of days. I wondered when you’d break down,” he murmured.

My spine stiffened. Break down? That wasn’t a break down, just a few moments of weakness. I thought I had been holding up really well, and he made it sound like it was a bad thing because I fell apart for a little while.

“Calm down, calm down. It’s not a bad thing to have a meltdown in your situation. Considering what’s happened to you in the last three days, you have been incredibly tough but you need to let that tension out somehow or you’ll lose your mind, Amy.”

I let my shoulders relax. I knew I was being extremely touchy, but I couldn’t help it.

“Go ahead and get into bed,” Troy said.

He held the covers back so I could climb under them then tucked them around me as though I were a child. Troy bent and turned out the lamp. As he started to straighten, I grabbed his hand.

“Lie down with me for a few minutes,” I asked.

Oh my God, why had I said that? What the hell happened to my hard-to-get strategy? I started to tell him that I was kidding, when he sat down next to me and gently shoved me over. He slid under the covers next to me, shoved an arm under my neck, and rolled me into his side. Troy’s body was warm, and I was so cozy and comfortable that I immediately decided I didn’t give two shits about my hard-to-get strategy, I wasn’t kicking him out of the bed. Besides, he was dressed in flannel pajama pants and a cotton tee, so it wasn’t as though he presented a huge temptation.

Actually, he did, but he was less of a temptation fully clothed than he had been when he was shirtless last week. I shoved my face into his neck and smelled his skin.

“I smell like you,” I muttered against his skin.

“I know,” he replied quietly.

“You smell good.”

He chuckled softly. “So do you.”

I fell silent and just enjoyed the sensation of being held close by a man. It had been a while since I’d been held like this. Several of my ex-boyfriends had just not been the cuddly type. There had been a couple that liked to snuggle from time to time but usually only in postcoital bliss.

The nightmare next door was beginning to seem like the nicest guy I knew. He wanted to help me clean up the mess the vandal left behind the last few days. He made sure I ate. Now, he was insisting I stay with him so he could protect me
and
he was holding me like I was important to him just because I asked him to.

“Troy?” I whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Were you asleep?” Crap, I sounded like an idiot.

“No.”

His one word answers weren’t exactly encouraging, but I went on anyway. “Thank you for your help today.” I paused. “And for giving me a place to stay, especially since it might mean that your furniture is in danger.”

His arm squeezed me a little tighter. “You’re welcome, Amy. You need to sleep.”

“And thank you for making sure I ate today.”

“Just go to sleep, baby.”

I liked hearing him call me baby in that quiet voice. It was sweet, and it made my belly flip over.

“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t shut my brain off. I’m so tired, and I want to sleep, but I can’t relax.”

Troy’s fingers stroked my scalp, running through my hair. I was asleep after the third pass of his hand.

The next morning I came awake slowly. My face was pressed into Troy’s chest, right between his collarbones, with my head tucked under his chin. One of my arms was under me, and the other was thrown over his waist. My leg was thrown over one of his. Troy’s thigh was pressed up against my girlie parts. That gave me a tingle in that exact same area that was touching his leg.

I moved my head back slowly, not wanting to wake him. He looked peaceful. And still asleep. I managed to climb out of the bed without waking him up. I tiptoed into the bathroom and took care of typical morning business.

Feeling refreshed after washing my face and brushing my teeth, I padded out of the bathroom. Troy was still on his side, eyes closed. Grateful I was going to be able to avoid an awkward conversation, I made my way down the hall to the kitchen. I was desperate for coffee.

I looked around the kitchen and saw Troy had a single cup coffee maker. He had everything set up like a little coffee making station. There was a tree with mugs hanging from their handles, a big glass jar was filled with different flavor pods, and there was a sugar bowl sitting in front of the jar. I wondered bitterly if one of his other ‘babes’ had arranged his kitchen.