False Start - Jessica Ruddick Page 0,62
time to get caught up. The first order of business was going to my apartment to retrieve some things. I wasn’t ready to go back, but I didn’t want to put it off any longer for precisely that reason.
I parked outside my building and watched my neighbors go about their business like normal. A tiny bubble of fear took root in my chest, so I exhaled and tried to talk some sense into myself. It’s broad daylight. There’s no reason for the guy to come back. There are plenty of people around.
Still, I would feel much better when the cops caught the guy. So far, the police hadn’t had any luck, and my father was sure as heck getting daily updates. At least the perp hadn’t struck again. Maybe running into me had scared him enough that he wouldn’t break into anyone else’s place. Not likely.
Clutching my bag of dirty laundry, I climbed the stairs to my apartment. I unlocked the door and pushed it open, not realizing until I saw the empty living room that I’d been holding my breath. Exhaling, I entered and closed the door behind me then slid the deadbolt home. Not going to make that mistake twice.
After I dumped a load of laundry into the machine, I headed to Lucy’s room to survey the damage. Her drawers were open, and some of their contents were spilled onto the floor. The only thing she’d had of value was a couple hundred dollars in emergency cash, which she kept in her nightstand. The best I could tell, that was the only thing that had been taken. It could have been so much worse.
Not wanting her to come home to such a mess, I gathered up all of her clothes and sorted them into loads. I was going to wash every piece because that was what I would have wanted if the burglar had had his hands on my things. It felt good to be putting things right.
With the laundry all sorted, I made myself some dinner: soup from a can, the dinner of champions and poor college students everywhere. My phone rang, and I smiled at the caller ID. “Hi, Carson.” Unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten to see him before the team left for Boston. He’d told me before that he didn’t like away games. The farther they had to travel, the more of a pain in the ass it was.
“Hey. What are you doing?” In the background, I heard his teammates and what sounded like road noise. He was probably on the bus on the way to the airport.
“I’m in my apartment, doing laundry and getting caught up.”
“What?” He sounded alarmed. “What the hell? Why are you there?”
“I can’t stay away forever.” I appreciated his concern, but he knew that as well as I did. Despite the recent development in our relationship, it wasn’t like I could just move in with him. Besides not wanting to abandon Lucy, that would be moving way too fast. Things were good right now, and I didn’t want to risk doing anything to screw it up. As happy as I was, I felt a little like I was tiptoeing on cracked ice, waiting for the bottom to fall out beneath me.
It was so strange, though, to suddenly be in a relationship with someone I knew almost as well as I knew myself. There would be no cute getting-to-know-one-another phase. We would probably skip straight to the old married couple phase, in which we annoyed the hell out of each another. I was oddly looking forward to it.
“Is Lucy back yet?” Carson asked.
“No, not until Sunday. So don’t worry—I’m still planning to stay overnight at your place.”
“Good.” He sighed. “I wish this game weren’t away.”
Me too. But I wouldn’t tell him that. Life had to go on, and I wasn’t going to give more power to the situation by letting it dictate my actions. With the exception of not staying alone in my apartment, I planned to take reasonable precautions and go about my life as normal.
Except my life was no longer normal because everything with Carson had changed. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours, but nothing would ever be the same. In a good way. Please, God, let it stay good. Butterflies filled my stomach as I remembered how it had felt waking up next to him. I hoped I would never take that for granted.
“You’ll be back Sunday,” I told him. “Focus on the game. Don’t worry about me.”
“I always