Page 8 of SlapShot Sweetheart

“Theo?” she hollered angrily. “This isn’t funny, and you don’t get to push me around! Theo? Theo!”

Yet there was silence.

What if it wasn’t him? What if it was a coincidence?Grabbing her phone, she quickly texted him, leaving the scratching post on her front porch.

Are you here? Don’t creep me out…

Hi – how are you?

This isn’t funny.

What?

And with that, Aimee called his phone.

“You’re not funny,” she fumed. “None of this is.”

“I’m not trying to be funny – and what did I do this time to deserve you yelling at me? Did I breathe wrong? Start my car incorrectly? Am I in the wrong lane?” he snapped defensively, and she hesitated.

“Are you leaving my house?”

“Have you told me where you live?”

“No.”

“Then no. We agreed to meet at the restaurant, remember?”

“I don’t understand. Then you didn’t…”

“I’m glad you called,” he said simply as her voice trailed off. “Did you want to try to go to dinner again? I think if we go on an off day when I’m not…”

Aimee hung up.

Staring at the front yard, looking at her bushes, and surveying the entire area, she finally pulled the scratching post inside just as her phone beeped.

We lost phone connection – or that was a hard ‘no’?

No

Maybe we could grab lunch sometime or a movie?

She didn’t respond as she stared at the scratching post that was a blatant hint to her. If Theo didn’t leave the scratching post, then who could have? Who else knew she was looking at kittens the other day except him? And why would they leave a poem on the door?

Are you sure it wasn’t you leaving a gift on my porch?

Did you want it to be me?

That was a great question,Aimee realized, swallowing nervously. Did she want some mysterious person or Theo leaving her gift on her porch? And what kind of problems would that create? Was this a one-off, or would it happen again? Doublechecking the locks on the house, she inspected the windows and made sure the blinds were closed before settling in for the evening… to think.

Two days later, her mysterious person struck again.

This time, Aimee was soaking in a bubble bath reading one of her trashy romance novels and living vicariously mentally as some woman who had been ‘bibbidy-boppidy-booped’ by her fairy godmother to another time where a vigilant knight swept her off her feet. Yeah, it was hard picturing some of the stranger things like battlements and arrow slits high upon the walls above a moat, but in her mind, this man was cleanly shaven, had short hair, and a thick accent…

“Oh well, crapola…” she muttered, flinging the book to the side in frustration as she realized the hero in her mind was a certain Frenchman from her awful blind date. The doorbell sounded, and she froze, realizing just how vulnerable she was right now, naked in the bath. “No freakin way I’m answering. They can go away or leave whatever it is on the porch.”

She closed her eyes, sank down a little further, determined to enjoy the heat and the soapy, scented bubbles… and then cracked an eye, glaring at the door of the bathroom. Snatching the towel off the top of the toilet where it was perched, she angrily got out of the bathtub, cursing Theo up one side and down the other.

“If it’s you playing a stupid prank on me, you will never hear the end of it… do you hear me? I’m gonna haunt you into eternity for becoming nightmare fuel in my life. How exactly am I supposed to get past the world’s worst blind date when you won’t leave me alone? You keep popping up, texting, and now this?” she snarled, yanking on her pajamas over her damp skin and shoving her hair back into a sloppy ponytail as she stomped toward her living room angrily.

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