His Assistant - Alexa Land Page 0,61
he bails out by this time tomorrow and returns to the mainland. What do you think?” Loco bobbed her head a couple of times, and I said, “You think he’ll last two days? That’s pretty optimistic. Of course, he might stick it out to try to prove a point, but his constant need for stimulation will win out sooner or later. There are none of his usual fallbacks, like parties, or video games, or loud, obnoxious friends to provide a distraction.”
Loco bobbed her head again, and I said, “Nice to see you agree with me. Come on, let’s go inside and make some dinner.”
I plugged my phone into an outlet when we reached the kitchen, and then I took a look around and pulled some things from the fridge. The housekeeper had thoughtfully provided a huge bowl of local produce, so I diced up a slice of mango and put it on a paper plate for my companion before making us sandwiches for dinner.
The chicken and I were just finishing our meal when Harper returned. He was soaking wet and covered in mud, and I said, “So, that obviously went well.”
“Yeah, it was great.” He started stripping off his clothes and piling them beside the front door as he told me, “The SUV got stuck in the mud over halfway down that dirt road, so I had to abandon it and walk back.”
“Awesome.”
“I’ll figure out how to free it tomorrow.” Once he’d stripped down to just his briefs, he came into the kitchen, rifled around in the cabinets, and found a bottle of tequila. He took it with him as he headed across the living room muttering, “I can’t for the life of me remember why I thought buying a house in a remote corner of Kauai would be a good idea. Seriously. What was I thinking?” He disappeared into the master suite, and after a minute, I heard a shower running.
By the time the water shut off, we were back outside. I settled in on the couch with my guitar and a mug of Kona coffee, and the chicken jumped up beside me. “I’m glad you’re here,” I told her, “even though I don’t approve of Harper’s half-baked smuggling operation. You’re good company.” Loco’s response was to peck at one of the leaves printed on the floral couch cushion.
After tuning my guitar, I started to play a song I’d written when I was seventeen. I liked it because it reminded me of a simpler time, when Dallas and I believed in miracles and the whole world seemed full of possibilities. There was always something soothing about traveling that well-worn path.
My peace and tranquility only lasted about two minutes though, because Harper found some kind of sound system and began blasting AC/DC. All the windows and doors were closed, but that did little to deaden the sound.
I swore vividly and looked over my shoulder. He was dancing around the living room dressed in just a pair of basketball shorts, and he was using the tequila bottle as a pretend microphone and singing along to ‘Thunderstruck’ at the top of his lungs.
There was absolutely no way to play my music while that was going on, so I returned my guitar to its case, then fished through my messenger bag and found a pair of earplugs. While I was shoving them in place, Harper climbed up onto the back of one of the couches, then added super inaccurate air guitar to his one-man concert. He balanced there for a minute before falling off in a cascade of tequila. I waited to see if he was okay, and a moment later he popped up, took a long swig from the bottle, and went back to his ridiculous air guitar extravaganza.
I tried to go back to reading, but the earplugs only reduced the volume instead of blocking the music entirely. After a few minutes, I hit my limit and leapt to my feet. This alarmed the chicken, who’d been sitting beside me, and she squawked and flapped her wings as I marched to the back door and threw it open.
When I yelled at him to turn down the music, Harper said, “Huh?”
“I said, turn the fucking music down!”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t hear myself think!” A moment later, the whole house went dark and fell silent, and I yelled, “Ha!”
As I took out the earplugs, Harper asked, “What did you do?”
“Nothing. You probably tripped a circuit, and I’m fucking delighted because it’s finally quiet.” It was