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That cut through my fear just a little. My shoulders softened. “You’re important to me too.”
“Do I get a cookie for this?” MacKay asked. “It can be break and bake. It doesn’t have to be from scratch. But I could go for a chocolate chip.”
That made me laugh softly. “Only if you take me to the store later. I’m not stocked for cookie baking and I don’t think that Wanted has a cookie delivery service. This isn’t exactly Nashville.”
“Rain check on the cookies then. But just so you know, I never forget.”
“You’ll get your cookie,” I told him. I sat on my kitchen counter and swung my legs. “This is the first time I’ve ever lived alone, you know. I’m giddy on the power of where to put my plates.”
“If you want you can put my plates away too when I get my stuff out of storage. I hate unpacking.”
“That sounds more like servitude than a generous offer.” Yet I didn’t even care, because hearing his deep voice on the other end of the phone was calming. It felt like he was there with me.
We chatted like that until he announced he was in the parking lot behind the building. “I’m coming up.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t feel nearly as freaked out as I had earlier.
MacKay seemed to have gone in the opposite direction. He sighed in relief when he saw me open the door. He touched my shoulders with his large hands and shook me a little. “You scared the shit of me.”
“We’ve been talking for twenty minutes.”
“I just needed to see you with my own two eyes.”
We entered the apartment and he shut the door firmly behind us, locking it. “I knew you needed a security system. I’m pissed at myself for not getting you one before you moved in.”
That he had even thought about that was both overreaching and romantic. It wasn’t my imagination he cared for me. I wasn’t supposed to feel giddy about that, but I kind of did.
He did a thorough search of the apartment, opening my two closets, all my kitchen cabinets, and checking behind the shower curtain. The bed wasn’t even set up yet, it was just a mattress on the floor, so no monsters under the bed. MacKay pulled himself up into the hole in the ceiling of my closet that led to the attic.
“How did you do that?” I asked, astonished as he just jumped, grabbed the edges of the wood, and hauled himself up through the opening. “I thought there would be a drop down ladder or something.”
“There is no ladder.” His face appeared in the hole. “And these ceilings are really low. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“It’s kind of a big deal. I couldn’t do that.”
“I’m taller than you.”
“I also think you’re stronger than me. By a lot.”
His phone light flashed around the attic. “The good news is there’s no psycho killer.”
“Thank goodness.”
“The bad news is it’s worse than a psycho killer. It’s a raccoon. Which could be confused with a demon.”
“Are you sure?” I didn’t want to share an apartment with a raccoon.
“We are currently having a staring contest. Ha, he blinked first with those beady glowing eyes.”
“Get out of there!” I said, suddenly alarmed. “Raccoons carry rabies, don’t they?”
“I think they do, yes.” He appeared in the hole, using his arms to lower himself halfway, then dropping down onto the floor. “We can call the exterminator in the morning and he’ll trap him. There’s only one. You have a bachelor raccoon, which is good. Families are really hard to evict.”
“I feel sort of guilty for kicking him out.”
“Their droppings can cause serious lung problems to humans.”
Lovely. “Fine. He’s on the streets first thing tomorrow.”
