What kind of a bathroom has four different doors?
This one.
That’s what kind of bathroom.
And it was cool yesterday, when I was renting a beach mansion with a bathroom so large it has two closets and a private hidden sitting room, but today, when I needed to make a spur of the moment decision about which of the four doors to lunge toward, I went the wrong way, and now I’m trapped in a closet with an intruder who’s glaring at me like I’m in the wrong.
I have two weapons at my disposal.
One’s the hair dryer, which is only scary if you’ve ever had one short-circuit and almost catch your hair on fire while using it, and the other is my phone, which gets no signal in this house—thank you, obscure wireless plan—and which I’m finally able to silence inside the pocket of this robe, killing Ariana Grande’s voice probably as surely as this man is about to murder me.
“My name is Hayes Rutherford, and this is my house.” His voice is quiet and controlled, and he has a commanding air about him that might be the tux—side note, who breaks into an island mansion in a tux?—or it might be that anyone named Hayes Rutherford innately carries around an air of importance.
Why does that name sound familiar?
And why does the fact that he claims that’s his name immediately assure me that he’s not going to kill me?
Probably because if he were planning on killing me, he’d tell me his name was Freddy Krueger or Mr. Death or Chad, because god knows I’ve had enough Chads in my life. The universe would definitely send a Chad to murder me.
But this man—Hayes Rutherford—is staring at me expectantly as though he’s just answered every last one of my questions, and while the tic in his jaw suggests he’d like to strangle me with the cord on this hair dryer, the rest of his expression says I am entirely over this bullshit.
He’s not old. Maybe upper thirties, early forties at most, based on the lines at the edges of his eyes and the strands of silver dotting his dark hair rather than overtaking it. He’s clearly in good shape. No fluff hanging over his belt, his rolled-up shirtsleeves showing off what I’d call forearm porn in any other circumstances, posture straight, tendons straining in his neck.
And there’s a single lock of hair falling across his broad forehead like it’s tired of behaving, or possibly it just doesn’t have any fucks left to give about doing what it’s supposed to do.
Are those one and the same?
I don’t know.
But I do know I should’ve been enjoying cheesecake for breakfast right now, and if I don’t get this hair dye out of my hair soon, there’ll be no chance of I didn’t see you standing there, Begonia ever again, because my hair will glow so bright, astronauts could see it from Mars.
As if that’s my biggest worry when there’s an intruder trapping me in a closet.
If I try to dash out of here, Marshmallow will think it’s playtime, and I give myself a fifty-fifty shot of getting through the door before this Hayes Rutherford person attacks.
And then it clicks. “Oh my god, Hayes Rutherford. Like the president, but backwards. Did your parents do that on purpose?”
He blinks one slow blink at me, and I get the impression no one has ever asked him that in his entire life.
Note to self: Do not make jokes about presidents’ names with a burglar who might have murder on his mind.
Other note to self: If I’m living out a horror flick, I am definitely the first victim. It’s always the vain one who gets it first, which is so stupid, because I’m not vain. I’m having a single morning of pampering myself in a luxury bathroom. This has happened approximately five other times before in my life. The pampering part, I mean. Not the luxury bathroom part. I’m usually pampering myself in a bathroom a third of the size of this closet. It is definitely a first for a luxury bathroom.
And one final note to self: I’m growing more and more confident by the second that he’s not planning to murder me. But I still don’t like this situation.
Marshmallow, my Shiloh shepherd, is slowly calming down. I have maybe twenty seconds before this Hayes Rutherford person realizes the dog’s more likely to flip the lights off and shut the door in here than he is to actually bite.
Poor Marshmallow.
His best wasn’t quite what they were looking for in service dog school.
“Yes,” Hayes Rutherford finally says. “That’s exactly it. My parents have a presidential sense of humor.”
“You’re lying.”
He makes a face like there’s a fly attacking his nose. “How did you get in here?”