In fact, she’d looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her.
“You know, the tenant,” Annika said when I didn’t answer. “Her name is Audrey Young. She’s from Pinecrest.”
“Yes, I apologized.” I paused. Had I apologized? “Sort of.”
“You should probably go back over there and tell her you’re sorry. Just, you know, knock first like a normal person.”
“I’m not going back over there.”
She sighed. “Sure, leave it to me to do damage control.”
“You’re better at it than I am.”
“True. Although if you didn’t barge in on our tenants, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“You say that as if I’ve done it before.”
“Haven’t you?”
“No.”
“Huh. Seems like something you’d do.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks.”
She laughed. “Okay, I gotta go. I’ll call Audrey tomorrow and make sure she knows we’re not crazy people who won’t respect her space.”
I grunted in acknowledgment.
“Bye, big brother.”
“Bye.”
I ended the call and tossed the phone on the other seat. Great way to end the week.
Oh well. She’d get over it.
She wasn’t my problem.
I started up my truck and drove home, and when I went to sleep later that night, I closed my eyes to visions of a hot brunette falling into a bathtub.
I was not going over there.
My attention kept wavering from the work I was supposed to be doing—pulling up a layer of ugly old linoleum from the kitchen floor—to the house next door.
She’d fallen pretty hard. Had she gotten hurt?
She had seemed okay afterward, but you didn’t always feel blunt trauma immediately. Adrenaline and everything. What if she’d hit her head? Had she woken up this morning?
Damn it. She wasn’t my problem.
Like the cabinets, the linoleum had been glued down with an obscene amount of adhesive. I was on my hands and knees with a crowbar, pulling up chunks of disintegrating particle board along with the flooring. Small chunks. Every time I thought I’d be able to peel back the linoleum, it would break off, bringing a piece of particle board with it.
This was going to take an eternity.
The only good news in this disaster was that the subfloor underneath it all still looked decent.
I didn’t know why whoever had done the work originally had such a hard-on for construction glue. Unfortunately for me, I was the guy who had to deal with it.
This was my problem. Not Audrey.
It was weird that I remembered her name. I generally wasn’t good with names. Like the latest girl Aunt Louise had tried to foist on me. No idea what her name was. Not that I cared. It was just odd that the name Audrey rang so clearly in my memory after only hearing it once or twice.
I ripped up another section, swearing under my breath when the particle board split. Complaining wasn’t going to help—I had to suck it up and get it done—but nothing was going to stop the litany of curse words coming out of my mouth.
Sweat beaded on my forehead and I lost track of time as I settled into a rhythm, ripping up the godforsaken floor piece by piece. It was slow and tedious work, but also oddly calming. My mind was clear, my arms and back flexing, my muscles hot and tense with effort.
After a while, I looked up. I’d made it about halfway across the length of the kitchen. Not bad. It looked like a bomb had gone off, with chunks of flooring scattered everywhere—not to mention all the dust—but I’d made good progress.
I decided to clear out the debris before I got to work on the rest. I loaded up an armful of linoleum and broken particle board and took it out to the dumpster.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a black and brown dog appeared. He ran a circle around me as I dropped my load on the ground, then stopped, looking up at me with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and his tail wagging so hard it made half his body wiggle.
He’d seemed similarly excited to see me last night, just before I’d walked in on his owner.
“Not much of a guard dog, are you?” I picked up a chunk of flooring and tossed it into the dumpster.
“Max!” Audrey came running after her dog, dressed in a tank top and a pair of cut-offs that showed off her legs.
Nice legs. Not skinny, exactly, but firm.
I tore my eyes away. Looking at her skin was going to remind me of what she’d looked like naked.
“Hi.” She flashed me a friendly smile. “Sorry about Max. He thinks everyone is his best friend.”