Page 65 of Little Sunshine

I ran my shoes through the dirt, disrupting the imprints.

“Mila.”

I looked over to where Ash stood at the top of the stairs.

He held a plate and a can of something, and even though I couldn’t see what either was, my stomach growled.

Loudly.

Before I could tell him he didn’t need to make me food, his phone rang. He set his load down to quietly answer it. After a moment, he pulled it away from his ear to speak to me. “Nothing is off-limits,” he reiterated randomly. Before I could confirm I knew that, he kept going. “Nothing except you leaving. Try that, and I’ll chase you over those damn mountains if I have to. You may get farther than Juliet did in the desert, especially if you take a four-wheeler, but I’ll still catch you.”

Like that wasn’t the most insane series of statements, he went inside without another word.

Assuming the food he’d held was lunch for me, I returned to the porch with my stomach twisted in knots. A massive Scooby Doo-esque sandwich, chips, a bottle of water, and a root beer were on the small table between two wooden chairs. There were also a few pain pills and an ice pack. With how sore and raw my face felt, the ice pack was the only thing I was interested in.

The food, view, and everything else had lost their appeal.

After keeping the ice pack against my burning cheek and eye for as long as I could stand, I set it aside. I peeled half the veggies and meat from between the bread so I could actually fit the sandwich into my mouth. It was probably delicious, but it had the taste and texture of the dirt I’d just walked through.

Because as I ate, a few questions rolled around in my head.

One, who was Juliet?

Two, had Ash chased her?

Three, and most importantly… Why did that thought bother me so much?

I could stay out here all day.

Never mind. No, I can’t.

I totally could’ve, though. There was so much more to see, and I hadn’t even checked out the backyard. But I’d already slept until one. I didn’t have time to waste.

Gathering my dishes, I went inside—and got slightly turned around—before eventually finding the kitchen. I loaded my stuff into the dishwasher, but since it was otherwise empty, I didn’t run it. Unfortunately for my grand plans, cleaning up my own mess was the only opportunity in there. Otherwise, there wasn’t so much as a stray crumb or a sticky beer bottle ring.

Who has a kitchen so clean?

Determined to clean something—anything—I moved into the living room next. Starting at the perimeter, I slowly circled around.

Every corner.

Every nook.

Every cranny.

There were no random solo socks under his plush couch or forgotten trash set aside to be dealt with later.

With an exasperated sigh, I decided to branch out to the rest of the house, starting with the upstairs.

Unlike earlier, shades had been lowered over the large windows at the back of the loft to block out the afternoon sun. That room was just as tidy as the others, so I headed down the unexplored hallway I’d seen that morning. I avoided a couple of closed doors, and the others seemed to be guest bedrooms with the same effortlessly cool vibe as the rest of the house. They were set up in a way that made them cohesive to everywhere else, but different enough not to feel like someone copied and pasted the design with zero effort.

And—surprise, surprise—they were all spotless.

I backtracked to the other hall, but the only door led to Ash’s giant room.

Going downstairs, I went down the direction Ash had come from earlier. The open door at the end of the hall showed a home gym.

A promising place to start.

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