Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 95340 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95340 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
This guy works hard. He’s so focused on doing his job well that he dedicates his time to hockey and hockey alone but when he sets his mind on something, he kills it.
Like oral.
He concentrated so hard on getting me to come that he managed something few guys have done; getting me to ’gasm.
“Lizzy?”
“Huh?”
“I said it’s your turn.”
“Oh.” Right.
Speaking of focusing…
“What’s your question?”
His mouth contorts as he ponders what he wants to know. “If you could go anywhere in the world next week, where would you go?”
“Somewhere warm. With a beach and palm trees.”
Plunk goes my piece.
I watch as it falls, ready to—
“Did you hear that?” Brodie stops shuffling his remaining blue checkers and goes still on the bed.
“Did I hear what?”
“Shh.” He holds a finger to his lips to silence me.
“What?” I whisper, still not shushing.
Brodie wraps his hand around his ear, cupping it so it’s like a megaphone, pantomiming that I need to listen.
Ugh.
I listen.
Hear nothing.
“Would you knock it off.” I lean across the game board and nudge him with the tips of my fingers. “That’s not funny.”
Scratch, scratch.
“Did you hear that?” I gasp.
Brodie nods. “Yup.”
Shit. “Is it the squirrel?”
He nods. “Probably.”
He moves to the edge of the bed, stands, and walks quietly to the closet, pulling back the corner and standing still to listen.
We listen some more, attentive to the other noises in the house: the furnace kicking on, the sounds from my roommates upstairs, and the wind blowing outside.
“There it goes again.”
Why am I stating the obvious? The man is standing inside my closet near the crime scene.
He disappears behind the curtain, and the next sound I hear is of him knocking on the wall. Knock, knock, knock. Little warnings, most likely so the little bugger stops his digging and goes to another part of the house.
The last thing I need is a repeat performance of him busting through my wall when I’m minding my own business. Or attempting to woo a boy who I’ve invited back to my place. God, can you imagine if we were fooling around, and suddenly, the squirrel makes his grand entrance?
No thanks.
“What do we do?” I ask when Brodie reappears, all broad shoulders and bare chest and masculine energy.
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do. He’s in the wall.”
“Okay but…” I flounder, hands flailing. “What if he eats his way through again.”
“Doubt it will be tonight,” he says. “You’re gonna have to have that landlord of yours set traps in the attic if he didn’t already. More bait should do the trick.”
More bait.
As if I can call Mark right up and give him orders when we can barely get the dude to come replace a broken light fixture.
“Ugh! Why can’t he torture someone else?” I muse. “Now I have to move.” Ha ha. “How much do you want for the right side of your bed?”
Brodie grins. “I sleep in the middle.”
“I don’t take up much room.”
“You’re cute.”
“What am I supposed to do?! I can’t live like this—it’s worse than having a ghost. He’s like…like a tiny ghost, but one that I can see and hear!”
“How cute would he be with a tiny sheet over his tiny head and little tiny eye hole cut out?”
Real cute. “That’s not funny.”
Brodie laughs, walking back to the bed and sitting down, still wearing those dumb pajama bottoms I’d rather see in a pile on the floor.
I begin cleaning up the game, done for the night thanks to that itty bitty buzzkill ruining the mood. I set the box on the floor next to the bed so it’s out of the way, then climb under the covers so Brodie and I can brainstorm my next move.
About the squirrel.
Not my next move with him.
Sheesh, give me some credit.
We settle in on the bed but my eyes never leave that spot in the closet where the squirrel lives, the little monster clearly out to destroy my life by disrupting my sleep, my peace and quiet, and my sanity.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”
“No, I didn’t think you would,” Brodie allows, arms behind his head as he leans against my headboard, looking out of place. My room pink—thanks to that can of paint from our visit to the hardware store—and white and dainty versus his dark hair, dark scowl, and big body.
He’s a stark contrast to my white sheets.
Scratch, scratch.
“Brodie,” I whisper. “What’s our plan?”
“Our plan?”
“Yeah, in case he manages to get in.”
“I doubt he’ll get in. He has a lot of work to do before he bursts through the drywall again. Look how long it took him last time.”
“He was upstairs in the attic. I wish he’d stayed there.”
“You could google how to get a squirrel from livin in your wall?”
Good idea.
I do type in How to remove a squirrel from wall, and hit search. Then I read the results out loud so Brodie can hear it, too.