Page 25 of Gideon
But there was no answer.
“Naomi?” I called out again. Perhaps she was upstairs working on something. I took the stairs two at a time, holding tight onto the railing to avoid tripping. I had done so more times than I cared to admit. The stairs were too steep, that was the long and short of it. I peered into the bedroom, but there was no sign of her. The bathroom was empty, the light turned off. The spare bedroom! I opened the door and did a full-on double take. The room was… was… clean!
This had been my catchall room since the day I moved in. No one came to visit, let alone stay here. If one of my brothers needed to crash — usually after a night of drinking, we almost always ended up on the boat, not here in the house. But instead of the cluttered disarray of items that usually greeted me when I opened this door, it was a clean, organized room that at least looked somewhat normal. It wasn’t super functional, as there wasn’t a bed or anything like that, but it was passable as a normal room of the house. Sure, it held one or two too many dressers and shelves, but who cared?
I walked around the room, forgetting the whole reason I was in here for a moment. Fuck! Even the closet was clean! I looked through the closet for a moment, noting the fact that I suddenly had loads more storage space than I had realized. I closed the top dresser drawer, there in the closet, with a loud bang.
And something shifted behind it.
What was that?
I bent over, getting on all fours as I looked behind the dresser to find a small container. Why was that back here? The dresser would have sat flush with the wall if this wasn’t back here. I pulled it out, opening the top lid of it to see a crisp twenty-dollar bill laying there, folded in half. Why was that in here?
Everything in this house belonged to me, save the one lone suitcase Naomi had brought with her. I eyed the small container. It was mine. That much I recognized. I enjoyed having lots of small containers for storage, especially on the boat. I had a fair few of them in here, but this one I definitely recognized. The troubling part was why there was a twenty-dollar bill stuck inside it.Thatwas not something I would do. I kept all of my cash in one of three places. I stood a little too quickly, and cursed as my head smacked solidly into the shelf above me. Seeing stars, I made my way back down the stairs, taking extra care not to trip and add insult to my injury.
“That is going to be sore in the morning”,I thought to myself, rubbing the spot ruefully.
Reaching the living room, I threw open the drawer that held my watches, just below the television, and pulled out the cash I kept hidden there. Just what I had thought. It was twenty dollars short. That little minx had stolen my money and stashed it away! Why on Earth would she do that?
Then it hit me.
If she had taken money from here…
I ran to the door, eyeing the Ataraxia from the small window.
There was a fuck-ton more money on the boat. And Naomi was not here.
She had gone searching and found my valuables.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or scream at the sheer fucking audacity of the woman. She fucking stole my money! I was seeing red.
Without a second thought, I stormed out of the house, fists clenched, towards my beloved boat. I saw the light on in the cabin and my anger increased tenfold. I knew it. How I had missed the light being on when I drove up, I did not know.
I tried to be as stealthy as possible as I climbed the ladder up to the top deck. It would be almost impossible for her to not hear me once I stepped foot on the boat. The sun was quickly fading below the trees, painting the sky into a brilliant canvas of golds, pinks, and purples. It was gorgeous. Or would have been if I could have actually taken a moment to enjoy it. Instead, my only thoughts were about my annoying, brazenly klepto wife, and the fact that she had more audacity than God himself in this moment.
I could only imagine what sort of excuse she would try to come up with for stealing my money. Jesus Christ. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t have given it to her! She just needed to fucking talk to me. I thought this morning had been a breakthrough of sorts, a bit of a white flag between our bouts of bickering where we might find some common ground and start making headway in this whole fucked up mess.
I carefully stepped onto the deck, standing stock-still as I listened for any sound of her. I could hear her below deck, moving about, but nothing in her movements made it seem like she had heard me. Lucky fucking me! I quietly tiptoed across the deck to the small staircase that led down into the cabin room. I skipped the second step, knowing it was a creaky one on the best of days and today was decidedlynotthe best of days.
I made it clear to the cabin door, still hearing the muffled sounds of her shuffling about. No doubt rifling through every fucking thing I owned. Fucking nosy little shrew.
I did my best to open the door as quietly as possible, but that seemed to be where my luck had ended for the night. The door clicked, the sound echoing through the chamber as I opened the door.
She stood there, standing over the bench seat. The hatch that held all of my kinky fuckery was open, and she held a hank of rope in her hands. Well, more like clutched. She had gone completely still, her back stiff and ramrod straight. Her hands held onto the rope so tightly I could see the way her knuckles had gone white with the tension.
So, this was how it was going to be. This was where it all came out. On the Ataraxia.
In a way, it was almost poetic. Or would have been, had she not turned into a kleptomaniac hellion who set my teeth on edge with every other word she spoke.
Everything went silent at that moment. I saw her going through my things. She could hear me there in the room. And neither of us spoke a word.
I could hear her breathing; the short, almost choppy breaths creating a staccato rhythm that filled the eerily quiet space.
“What. Are. You. Doing?” My words came out angry, with a dangerous undertone, yet were barely more than a whisper as I spoke through gritted teeth. My hands held tight to the doorframe, making myself take up more space.
Her shoulders lifted. I could see a fight-or-flight response with relative ease, and this one was as plain as day. My little klepto vixen was about two seconds from running. Running away from me? Or running away from her consequences?
That was the question burning in my mind.
