on it, shove my head down under the hand dryer. It’s no use.
It seems it’s permanent.
I can’t believe we just did that. In the storage room. Where I store books. Books are stored there and Ben did that and I have to get out of this bathroom. The redness is getting worse.
He’s waiting for me by the library exit with my bag in hand, checking his phone. He’s beautiful in his suit. His hair is only slightly mussed from my hands. He looks composed, nearly bored. I try to mimic his expression and probably come across looking as though I’ve had bad Taco Bell.
“All set?” he asks.
I take my bag with a little meek smile and then lead him through the door.
Mrs. Allen lives a few blocks from the library, which is the main reason I worked out the living arrangement with her. It’s not the ideal scenario. Like I told Ben, the garage apartment is not exactly the lap of luxury, but it’ll do the trick for now.
He guides me to his car and then I direct him to her house. Thankfully, the apartment has its own entrance and exit in the back alley, so I can come and go as I please.
We park and Ben sits quietly for a second. It’s an ominous silence, the kind that leads into bad conversations I don’t want to have.
I prepare myself for the following possibilities:
“Madison, that was fun, but I want to keep this casual.”
“Madison, now that I’ve sampled the milk, I don’t really care to purchase the cow.”
“Madison, bye.”
Instead, he turns to me, eyes narrowed in frustration. “That’s the entrance to the apartment?”
I turn to see where he’s pointing. The staircase off the alley leads straight to the front door. The light overhead flickers like we’re in a horror film. It’s charming, right?
“Yup. Just up the stairs.”
“And the apartment doesn’t connect to Mrs. Allen’s house?”
“No, thank God.”
His frown intensifies. “Has your dad been here?”
I’m confused. What’s he getting at?
“Not yet.”
My dad took the news of me moving out surprisingly well—so well, in fact, that I suspect he’s been waiting for me to be ready to leave the nest for a while now. I truly thought he needed me there. I thought I was doing him a favor by staying and looking after him, cooking him meals and keeping tabs on his health, but as it turns out, it might have been the other way around.
I’m wondering about the hilarity of that when Ben leans forward.
“Madison, this alley has no security cameras. Nothing. That door doesn’t even have a deadbolt.”
I frown, not quite seeing his point. Clifton Cove is safe. There’s nothing to worry about.
“You were held up at gunpoint a few blocks over from here—what makes you think that couldn’t happen again? Or worse?”
“So…you don’t want to come up and see it?”
He emits a low grumble—more like a growl, really—and then follows me up the stairs. Looking at it from his perspective, I can see his point.
“I was so eager to get out of my dad’s house, I didn’t really have many options,” I say, turning my key and pushing the door open. “The rent here is cheap, and it’s just supposed to be temporary.”
I step inside and the room seems even smaller than when I left this morning. I didn’t want to move any of my furniture over here since it’s not technically mine. My dad bought that stuff. I need new, adult stuff that I purchase with my own money, so I’m currently sleeping on a futon. The other furniture is all stuff that was already up here collecting dust. There’s a funky gold floor lamp beside the futon. A card table is currently covered with my two duffel bags full of clothes. Behind a door on the right, there’s a toilet and a shower. The toilet only flushes when it feels like it and I haven’t figured out how to get hot water in the shower, but I’m sure if I keep at it, I’ll figure it out. Easy peasy.
“Madison,” Ben says, his tone just as hard as it was down in his car. He doesn’t see the same charm that I do.
“What? It’s homey!” I say, pointing to the Bob Ross-style landscape painting covering most of one wall.
“Come stay with me,” he says, as if it’s the simplest idea in the world.
“For a night?”
“Yeah, sure, or for…longer.”
For a second there, I thought he was going to say forever. My eyes bug out of my head. “No.