Page 99 of Fish out of Water
Julia followed behind me as I went to the door leading to the place I never expected to take a woman.
Definitely not one I was interested in.
I opened it and stepped back, letting her go first.
She glanced my way, eyes lingering on my face a second before they went to the stairwell in front of us.
For a second I thought she was going to say something, but her lips stayed closed as her bare foot hit the first step. She held her skirt up with one hand and a set of forks in the other as she descended into what could be my doom.
My house was one of only a few in the area that had a basement. The elevation of the lot and the determination of the original builder, combined with a well-established drainage system, allowed me to hold tight to something I didn’t want to lose. The space was the only part of the house I had anything to do with designing and it showed.
“Oh my gosh.” Julia hit the bottom of the steps and stopped, staring around the space that was my haven.
The place where I hid my sins. Kept my secrets.
She stepped deeper into the main room, the hem of her dress dragging across the tile as she crept toward the length of built-in tables running along the edge of the room. She leaned forward, head tipping as she stared at my latest project, the pieces and parts separated into the divided wells incorporated into the surface. She slowly moved to the next section of table, looking over the figures there, lined down the smooth surface. She turned to face the final part of the setup. The computer I built. The ridiculously expensive chair where I sat more nights than I should, lost in a world that didn’t exist.
Julia finally turned my way. “Collette was right.” Her eyes dipped down my bare chest. “You are the holy grail.”
I was expecting many things from this.
Laughter.
Teasing.
For the way she looked at me to change.
And it had.
But not in the way I expected.
Julia pointed to the figures I’d been painstakingly painting by hand. “Tell me about them.”
“Um.” I felt more exposed than I had when I was locked in a closet with her.
Fully naked with a raging hard on.
“They’re the characters from Warhammer. It’s a strategy game.”
Julia crouched down to look over the tiny figurines I’d been collecting for years. “Like Dungeons and Dragons?”
“Not really.” I tried to come up with the simplest explanation for the game I used to play with my father. “It’s more like a board game on steroids.”
When my dad got sick he was limited in what he could physically do. Games like Warhammer were one of the things he could do even when he was too weak to stand more than a few minutes at a time.
Julia barely brushed the tip of one finger down one of the figures. “Did you paint all these?”
“Not all.” I risked a step closer. “My dad painted some of them too.”
Her eyes stayed on the display a few seconds longer before coming my way. “When did your dad die?”
“When I was seventeen.”
“That’s when he gave you Amidala.”
I nodded. “That’s right. She was the last thing he gave me before he died.”
Julia’s gaze came to mine, holding for a few long seconds before going to the first area. “And the Legos?” She reached out to finger a few of the stray pieces. “Did you do these with your dad too?”
