Page 26 of Bossy Mess

She giggled too. This was nice. This was so nice that I wanted to just rewind the tape and start over from the beginning, getting to experience it all again. But even if I had that ability, I wouldn’t take it because I was too excited to find out what was going to happen next.

Or at least bask in the joy of cuddling with this beautiful, fascinating woman who was all mine.

But it was not to be.

Because, from downstairs, I heard the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut.

Somebody else was in the house.

CHAPTER11

***SLOANE***

“What’s that?” I asked.

It was a stupid question. I knew exactly what it was. It was the sound of someone — or someones — coming in the house. And, almost immediately, I knew who it was.

“I told you everything would be fine,” Marty said.

“It didn’t look so fine on the TV.” That was Rebecca. The two of them couldn’t be near each other for more than ten seconds without opening their mouths and arguing with each other. “And it wouldn’t have been fine if it wasn’t for the sandbags.”

Wesley listened intently, his ears alert like a guard dog.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“Hide under the blanket,” he said. “I’ll handle this.”

He crawled out of the bed.

“But Wesley,” I told him, “you don’t have any clothes.”

The clothes were still in the dryer — on tumble dry low — and we both had nothing to wear. Under different circumstances, I would have loved to lay there in bed and run my eyes over his shockingly muscular body. Seriously, why was a guy who looked like that hiding some of his best assets underneath a suit day in and day out?

“I’ll figure something out,” he said. “Maybe they won’t even come up here.”

He put his ear to the door, though that was completely unnecessary. Marty and Rebecca were loud enough to be heard halfway down the block.

“Well, who set up the sandbags?” Rebecca asked.

“Probably one of the neighbors.”

“Oh yeah right,” she said. “They wouldn’t piss on you to put out a fire. You think they’d come out in the pouring rain to protect our house?”

“They want the house to sell just as much as we do,” Marty told her. “They’re looking out for us. What are you thinking?”

“I’m just worried someone broke in,” Rebecca said. “The key is just out there in the lockbox. Anyone with the combination could be squatting in our house.”

Marty laughed. “Let me get this straight. You think somebody set the sandbags up and then broke into the house?”

“No, dumbshit, I think somebody has been living in our house and didn’t want it to flood.”

It was fascinating to listen to them because they were both complete idiots and whatever they fought about, neither one had a tenable position. When Wesley and I were talking about it in the car, we didn’t fully consider the possibility that we didn’t need to take either of their sides because the right thing to do was to just hate both of them.

“Look,” Rebecca said. “Wet footprints on the floor. And look! They’re moving away from the door.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, Ms. Murder She Wrote, nothing gets by you.”

“It’s Ms. Jessica Fletcher, Ding Dong. Would it kill you to just not say anything? Or maybe, ‘Yes, Rebecca, you’re right’?”

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