AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand her?” Katherine asks, picking her way through tools and left over furniture.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. A few quick taps and he thrusts it at her. “There’s no misunderstanding.”
I step closer and glance over her shoulder. She scrolls through a stream of texts and updates, even photos, keeping him abreast of the progress. Except none of the work in the photos matches this house. Not that I can see, at least.
He marches off, mumbling under his breath, and a second later, the heat kicks on.
“Small favors,” he mutters. Then, the kitchen faucet turns on with a sputter.
Katherine crosses the room and steps over a monster extension cord into the kitchen area.
“So she’s scamming you,” she says. “That’s not your fault, Gabriel.”
A shiver races down my spine at the way she says my best friend’s name. It’s somehow both soothing and stern, and damn, if I don’t want to hear my name on her lips next. Her tired eyes turn my way, and I see the prodding there.
She feels it, too—Gabe’s sadness and frustration. The way his mood shifted from pride to confusion and then exasperation. Some people think he can be hard to read. That he puts on a front for others or says one thing while thinking something else.
But he’s always been open with me. And somehow, Katherine sees him, sees through the veneer.
“How were you supposed to know, G?” I drop my go-bag at her feet and follow him through the house. The secondary bathrooms are missing toilets and showers, and there’s another seemingly random hole in the wall in the hall, but at least the lights are still on, and the heat seems to be chugging along.
I almost bowl Katherine over in the darkened hallway. She’s got her head down, scrolling back and forth through the pictures from Gabe’s designer.
“I don’t get it. Why not just do the work? Why lie to him?” she asks and hands over his phone.
“My guess is money.” Everyone wants a piece of his pie.
“But surely he didn’t pay for everything up front.” She rubs the pads of her fingers back and forth across her forehead.
I glance at the pictures on his phone again and see that they’re tight angles. Pretty tile work. A wood floor. Trim work. A table and lamp next to a corner of a bed. Nothing necessarily identifiable as Gabriel’s house. Whatever’s going on, this is not what he was promised.
“The hits just keep coming,” he says when I find him in a small bedroom. There’s an ancient nightstand but no bed.
“Yeah,” I agree because there’s no point in trying to deny what we both know. Someone screwed him, whether or not intentionally, remains to be seen. But it seems we ran from one wild situation right into another.
A loud crash echoes from the other side of the house.
“Katherine!” I race down the hall, leap over a stack of buckets, and storm into the main bedroom. Gabe is hot on my heels, and we burst through the doorway together, shoulder to shoulder.
Katherine stands next to a large mattress in the middle of the room. “Sorry that was so loud. It’s heavier than I thought.”
She shoots us an apologetic smile over her shoulder, and my pulse skips a beat. Then her high heels click across the hardwood floor, and she disappears into what I presume is a closet.
“What’s she doing?” Gabe mutters.
“What are you up to, Katie Bird?”
“Katie Bird?” Katherine and Gabe say at the same time.
“Just trying something,” I reply with a shrug.
She leans out of the closet, pegging me with a pleased look. “I like it.” And she’s gone again.
Her praise settles my heartbeat and, at the same time, makes me want more. I’m a greedy bastard and I want more of her smiles, more of her laughs.
We step deeper into the room and peer into the closet to find her elbow-deep in an old dresser.
Obviously sensing our presence, she says, “I’m exhausted. And while I hate this situation for you, Gabriel,” she waves her hand around in a way that encompasses the whole house, “I’m about to drop.”
