Wright with Benefits (Wright Series #8) - K.A. Linde Page 0,17

when Julian and Hollin tried to drag me in for weekend drinks. I’d spent one night here with Annie, and the memory lingered strong enough that I didn’t particularly want a repeat. Country music, line dancing, dirt floor, and cheap booze would never be my scene again.

But as soon as I stepped inside, the potential for what this place could be swept over me. It had character. I could almost see all the possibilities that Julian and Hollin had been trying to bang into my head since the get-go. Saw the truth in this dusty, old barn—the Wright Vineyard.

9

Annie

“I think this is the last bag,” I said, hauling the trash bag full of stuff out of my bedroom and dumping it into the mostly intact living room.

Jennifer looked on with a frown. “I cannot believe this happened. I was only gone for a couple days!”

“It wouldn’t have stopped the flood if you’d been here.”

“No, but I might have been home and caught it sooner. Before it decimated your room.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “That would have been nice, except that it wasn’t flooding when I went to sleep and something clearly burst in the middle of the night.”

“But I would have woken up before you,” Jennifer offered.

Which was true. I was as much a vampire as I could manage, and Jennifer believed that the early bird caught the worm. She probably would have noticed the flood at, like, five a.m. instead of almost noon. By that time, there had pretty much been nothing I could do, except panic. Which I’d done perfectly.

“What did the landlord say?” Jennifer asked. She stood from her seat on the undamaged living room chair and chewed on her nails. A bad habit she’d never been able to give up.

I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Bastard called me at the ass crack of dawn to come over and inspect the damage. He made some notes and then left. Said he’d be in contact.”

I’d had to get over here so early that I had to ditch Jordan’s place. He looked so peaceful that I didn’t dare wake him. I’d left a note on his fridge, but I hadn’t heard from him since. Guess that was that.

Probably for the better anyway. I had no time for…whatever that had been. The sex had been great, but if he wanted something more than sex, well, that wasn’t happening. I’d have to chalk it up to a drunken mistake.

“Well, the wedding was at least good, wasn’t it?”

Jennifer had just wandered into the kitchen and reappeared with a dreamy look in her eye and a bag of cat food. “Oh! It was amazing,” she said. “Come with me to feed Avocado and Bacon and then I can show you the pics on my camera.”

I couldn’t keep from laughing. “You know if you name the stray cats then they become your cats, Jen.”

She wrinkled her nose at me. “I don’t like cats.”

“You literally have cat food in your hand.”

“Well, I’m not going to let them starve,” she said as if that made sense.

We wandered outside and she filled two small bowls at the front of the house. I thought it was ridiculous that she was feeding two cats that didn’t even belong to her. But despite her insistence that she didn’t like cats, she clearly loved these cats. She’d named them, for God’s sake.

“Cado! Bakey!” she called.

And out of the bushes came a black cat, Bacon, and an orange and white cat, Avocado.

“Here you go, guys,” Jennifer said. The cats avoided her and went straight for the food. She stood as if all of this was totally normal. “Okay, my camera?”

I shook my head and followed her back inside. She disappeared into her room as I observed the wreckage with a sigh. I was going to need to go shopping or else I’d start and end my last semester of medical school with what I had in my room right this minute. Because there would be no time to go otherwise.

Jennifer reappeared with her fancy Canon Rebel and scrolled through the hundreds of images she’d taken at the wedding in Sedona this weekend. Over the last three years, she’d really embraced her photography. And as I’d always known she would be, she was now a coveted travel photographer. During the busy season, we never saw each other. Passing like boats in the breeze as I lived at the medical school all week and she darted off to unknown destinations every weekend. I’d be jealous of how