Page 17 of Reserved for Him
“Loving what you do is important.”
The game was still on, so we fell silent as we watched the final inning.
“Sounds like it’s raining,” I said to Junicia when the game went off. “I think they are saying it may be a thunderstorm.”
The rain came down hard, hitting the roof and the windows. I was glad I fixed her window, because if not, her house would have flooded.
Junicia stretched and yawned.
“I guess it’s time for bed. It’s been a long day.” I stood from the couch.
“Yes, it has. I’m going to head up for bed. Thanks again, Franklin.”
“No problem.” I watched her walk up the steps, leaving her scent behind, before I turned the TV off. I went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water, then made sure everything was turned off and the house was properly secured.
When I was done, I looked out the window to make sure nothing was going on, and the street was quiet except for the rain falling. I saw lightning in the distance and knew the thunder wouldn’t be far behind. Usually, I slept with no problem during a storm, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to be possible with Junicia in the next room.
Once I made it upstairs, I wanted to check on Junicia to make sure she was good, but I headed to my room instead. Hopefully, sleep would find me soon before I got the chance to overthink her being in my house.
Chapter
Nine
Junicia
I tossedand turned in Franklin’s guest bedroom. The storm had finally come, and the thundering and lightning scared the shit out of me. I hated thunderstorms, and usually, I would stay up all night or go to Lauren’s house. Sometimes, she would come to my house when we knew a storm was coming, but I was all alone with her being out of town.
I jumped and covered my mouth as a loud boom rumbled through the sky. I didn’t want to scream and wake up Franklin if he was asleep. If he was sleeping, I wasn’t sure how because the thunderclaps were loud as hell, and the lightning made the whole room light up.
My fear of thunderstorms started when I was six years old. There was a bad storm, and it knocked the tree in front of our house down, and the power had gone out. I ran into my parents’ room and got right in between them. Since then, as long as I lived with them, I was in their room whenever it stormed at night.
When I went away to college, I had a roommate who understood my fear, so she would sit up and talk to me during the storms. I really appreciated her for that, but we lost touch once we graduated. We followed each other on social media after I looked her up one day. She married a football player and lived in California. Last I checked, they had two kids, with another one on the way.
When it thundered again, I got out of the bed and paced the room. Lauren was in Oregon for some nursing conference, so it was two hours earlier there. I decided to call her so she could distract me from the disasters outside.
“Hey, cousin,” she answered on the second ring. “I thought you would be sleeping or at least boo’d up with neighbor bae.”
“Girl, no,” I whispered. “It’s a damn storm, and I am terrified out of my mind.”
“Give me a second,” she said to someone. “Why didn’t you go into that man’s room?”
I stopped pacing the room and sat on the bed. I wasn’t about to allow her to skate past the fact that she was with someone. I was sure it wasn’t one of the other nurses, at least not one of the females.
“First of all, who was that?”
I reached over and pulled the curtain tighter to try and block out the lightning, but it didn’t help. I hoped the storm didn’t last long because I was tired and needed some sleep. I wanted to go downstairs and get some water, but I didn’t feel comfortable roaming around in his house. The thought of going back home crossed my mind, but between the broken window and the storm, I nixed that idea. The last thing I needed was to be in my house alone, scared of the storm, and Leo coming back to finish whatever he tried to start earlier. I still couldn’t get over him doing that bullshit.
“It’s just a friend,” Lauren said, bringing me out of my thoughts.
“Like, a dude or…”
“A grown ass man that was about to give me some grown man dick.”
I heard the guy chuckle in the background. He must have already been familiar with my crazy ass cousin.
I laughed and quickly covered my mouth because my laugh could get loud sometimes, and I didn’t want to be noisy in the middle of the night.
“Damn. My bad for calling.”
