Boom - Sabrina Stark Page 0,8

flushed, grew a shade redder as she said, "Well, I do flip through the channels once in a while."

From the look on her face, she wasn't a fan. That was fine by me. I had millions already.

I smiled. "If you want my autograph, just lemme know."

She looked at me like I was the biggest piece of shit on the planet. "I don't want your autograph," she said. "I want to know what you're planning to do with the house."

"You mean my house?"

"I don't care if it's yours," she said. "You can't just demolish it."

I could if I wanted to. But the truth was, that wasn't part of the plan – not that she needed the details.

I almost laughed in her face. "Why not?"

"Because it's a waste and you know it." She was glaring now. "Just be honest. Are you doing this to get back at me?"

I paused. At her?

What the hell was she talking about? Tomorrow, I'd be sure to find out. But for now, I only shrugged.

She made a sound of disgust. "So you are?" Under her breath, she muttered, "I knew it."

She was wrong. No surprise there. In high school, she'd been wrong about a lot of things.

Even now, it pissed me off. "I never said that. And you're forgetting something."

"What?"

"You owe me answers, not the other way around."

"But—"

"Forget it," I said. "I'm not telling you jack – not 'til you tell me what you were doing in my shower."

"What do you think I was doing?" she said. "I was showering. What else do people do in there?"

Boy, if that wasn't a loaded question. My lips twitched. "Well, one time, there was this blonde in Milwaukee—"

"Oh shut up," she said. "That was a rhetorical question, and you know it."

"Do I?"

She sighed. "Alright, fine. You want the truth? I was going to crash here for the night. And before I did, I figured I'd just, you know, get cleaned up a little."

I frowned. So she was staying here?

If so, this was a new development. Just yesterday, after we'd closed the deal, I'd been through every inch of this place. And there'd been no Arden Weathers – or anyone else who didn't belong.

I'd dealt with squatters before – vagrants mostly. None of them had showered – or looked half as good as the girl in front of me.

I shook my head. "So you were squatting."

"I wasn't 'squatting,'" she said. "I was supposed to meet Jason here. And the truth is..." She glanced away. "… well, he didn't show."

I'd seen the texts. "No kidding."

Her gaze narrowed. "And I guess we both know why, huh?"

I didn't know why, but hell if I'd admit it.

Still, I had a decent guess. The way it sounded, this Jason guy had planned some sort of hookup, maybe a mid-week fling or whatever. And he'd picked this place as the location.

Short-term, it made sense.

The house was big, empty, and right on the beach. Summer was still a few weeks off, but a beach was a beach. And this one was nicer than most.

Still, what a sorry bastard. When I hooked up with someone, we didn't do it on the floor of some abandoned house, well, unless she was into that sort of thing.

But Arden – what the hell?

I didn't like her. But for some messed-up reason, I didn't like the idea of her hooking up with losers in vacant properties either. Call me sentimental, but the thought of my old chemistry partner rolling around in a dilapidated house, well, it was damned disappointing.

At the realization, I frowned. Shit. What did that mean?

Chapter 7

Arden

The longer we talked, the more I felt like throttling him.

When I considered everything Brody had cost me, this latest development was just icing on the cake.

I mean, who does that, anyway?

Who buys a house purely out of spite?

Brody Blastoviak, that's who.

And yet, the thought of him buying this place, only to destroy it, well, it was impossible to fathom. Something inside me twisted, and I couldn't stop myself from telling him exactly what I thought. "You're vile. You know that?"

If the insult bothered him, he didn't show it. With an obnoxious smirk, he said, "Hey, don't blame me if your hookup went South."

I shook my head. "Hookup? What hookup?" And then, it hit me. "Wait a minute. You think I was here to, what, have some sort of rendezvous?"

He shrugged. "That's a fancy way of saying it."

"What, compared to the way you talk?" I rolled my eyes. "That's rich."

"Yeah, I am," he said. "Deal