Page 99 of Marc

Looking around her almost empty room, I envision how to load all of this onto the truck.

“How about we get all of this loaded onto the truck before packing up the other rooms?”

She glances around at her bed, dresser, and night stands. “Sounds good.”

It doesn’t take long to load up the few items into the truck.

I follow Staci to her hallway, stopping when we get to the other two bedrooms.

She points to the room behind her.

“I have Christmas decorations and wrapping paper in this closet and table decor in a cart in the other room’s closet. Jared emptied the linen closet, so there probably isn’t anything left in there.”

I should remember if there are towels and sheets that survived, but it seems like so long ago and Staci was an absolute emotional mess.

Plus, my only goal that day was to try to get her out of here as soon as I could. I didn’t want her to have to see the destruction that Jared caused.

A soft, small smile forms on her face.

I wrap my arms around her waist. “What are you thinking about?”

She tilts her head back and looks up at me. “You.”

My heart skips a beat. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, about how great you are.” Her voice is soft, like she’s embarrassed to admit she was thinking about me.

“In bed?”

The cutest little chuckle comes from her. “Well, that too, but no, I wasn’t thinking about you in bed.”

I pull her closer to me so she can feel my growing erection. “I bet you are now.”

Her face flames as she looks down at our touching bodies. “Guilty.”

If I don’t get her home, I’m going to take her here again and since she doesn’t have a bed anymore, it will be either on the kitchen counter, her small dinette table, or bent over her couch.

“I’ll get a couple of smaller boxes to pack up these rooms.”

I head to the living room and grab two small boxes and bring them back to the hallway.

In the time it took me to get the two boxes, Staci has moved everything from the two rooms into the hallway.

We only use one box for the linen that survived Jared’s assault. The Christmas decorations and wrapping paper are all in one plastic container and the table decorations are in their own rolling cart.

I move all of this to the garage as Staci disappears to her room.

She comes back carrying a medium duffle bag and her two blue curtains. “I’m going to leave the curtain rods for the next homeowner. We’ll need a small box for the laundry room and I’m going to see if I can find someone that needs a washer and dryer.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“Well, it just makes sense, since you already have them at your house. There’s no point in us moving them just to have someone come to yourhouse to pick them up. Maybe the new owner will need them.”

“That’s a possibility. I’ll pack up the laundry room.”

I grab the small box and load up the detergent, fabric softener, box of dryer sheets, and stain remover. There’s still room in the box, so I leave it open to add other things that we come across.

Joining Staci in the kitchen, I watch as she carefully wraps her glass figurines in the newspaper before placing them on top of her plates and bowls in the small box.

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