Page 228 of Story of My Life
I decided on plan B and headed around the side of the house, fighting my way through the last of the overgrown landscaping.I took a dogwood branch to the face and tore my pants on something thorny before I made it to her office window. Light poured out of it.
She was sitting behind her desk, alone, thank God. Hair up in a crooked knot. Shoulders hunched. Her fingers moving over her keyboard in a blur. Her back was the most beautiful back I’d ever seen. I wanted to see that back every day for the rest of my life.
“You gonna stand there lurking all night or are you gonna make your move?”
I spun around and found Felicity peeking over the fence.
“Are you on a stepladder?”
“I prefer to think of it as an observational platform. Why are you all wet?”
“Because I was an idiot and now I’m not.”
“Hmm. Just to be clear, you’re professing your love and not committing some weird creeper crime, right?” she asked.
I sighed and made a mental note to buy and hang curtains for every window on this side of Hazel’s house, regardless of whether she gave me a second chance.
“Yeah, and I’d appreciate some privacy,” I said pointedly.
“It’ll cost you.”
“I’ll personally take your orders and deliver them for a month,” I promised.
“Pleasure doing business with you. Nice bandages, by the way,” she said as she disappeared from view.
I glanced down at my knuckles. My mother, the joker, had restocked the first aid kit with glow-in-the-dark emoji bandages. She’d used all the poop emojis on me.
I raised my hand to tap on Hazel’s window then paused.
Shit.She was wearing headphones. That meant I was about to scare the shit out of her. Suddenly this whole plan seemed stupid…and dangerous. What if she came after me with that piano bench leg or threw her pet raccoon at me?
Swearing under my breath, I pulled my phone out of my damp pocket, praying it would still work.
Me:Turn around.
I fired off the text and waited.
She glanced down at her phone, fingers faltering on the keyboard. But instead of reaching for the phone, she straightened her shoulders and continued to type.
“Seriously, Hazel?” Muttering to myself, I fired off another text.
Me:I can literally see you ignoring me. Just turn around.
Me:Please.
Her phone screen lit up again, and Hazel thumped her head against the back of her chair. She flipped off her phone and went back to typing.
Growling, I pressed the Call button.
“For fuck’s sake,” came Hazel’s muffled yelp from inside. She slapped a hand on the phone and answered the call. “What?”
“Turn around,” I ordered.
She spun around in her chair with fire in her eyes. Her phone went flying, and she nearly fell out of her chair as she let out a haunted house scream when she saw my hulking silhouette in the window.
“Everybody okay over there?” Felicity called over the fence.
“Go away, Felicity.”
