Spring Secrets - Allie Boniface Page 0,29
gotten oil, so they shouldn’t be making noise, but his mom had let the place go in the last few years. Every time he turned around, something else needed fixing.
“Hello?”
Dash froze at the top of the basement stairs.
The knocking had stopped, but now he swore he could hear a voice calling his name. I’m going crazy. He retraced his steps through the living room. The sound came again, but not from the basement. This time it came from the front door.
“Dash?”
He almost jumped out of his skin when he saw her face at the living room window. Sienna? And here he stood half-naked. He couldn’t decide whether to put on clothes or let her in.
“Hi!” She waved when she saw him, as if oblivious to the fact he was wearing nothing but a towel.
Well, he couldn’t leave her standing out there in the freezing temperatures. Dash opened the door. Cold air rushed in, along with a blanket of snow. “Hey, Sienna. What are you doing here?” He gripped the towel and held it firmly in place. With his luck, it would hit the ground while she was standing six inches away from him.
She stepped inside and rubbed her arms. And then she did realize how she’d caught him. Her gaze slid down his torso and back up, and her cheeks turned bright pink. “Oh. I didn’t—I am so, so sorry.”
“Hang on.” He hurried to his bedroom and dressed in under two minutes. Shorts, t-shirt, nothing else. He ran his palms over his wet hair. “Sorry,” he said when he returned to the living room. “You caught me right out of the shower.” As if she hadn’t figured that out. He cracked his knuckles. “Ah, what can I do for you?”
She opened her purse. “I think this is yours.”
Hell, his phone? Where had he left it? No wonder he hadn’t been bombarded with calls and texts the way he usually was. “Thanks. But where—”
“I think you dropped it in the hallway at school.”
He felt like a complete idiot. “And you brought it over? You didn’t have to.”
She glanced around, and he saw the room, the whole house, through her eyes. Dark. Dingy. Threadbare. Without personality. “Hans gave me your address. Hope that’s okay. I know what it’s like when I lose mine.”
“Somehow I find it hard to believe you ever lose anything.” Sienna Cruz was so put together, he felt like an oaf around her most of the time. “Well, thanks.” He took the phone and rocked back on his heels. An awkward silence filled the room.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
“Want a beer?” He crooked a thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “I don’t keep a whole lot of things stocked, but I can offer you that.”
“I’d love one.” She slipped off her coat and let it drape over the couch. “I’m sorry about your mom,” she said as he got two beers from the fridge and popped the tops. “I didn’t know she passed.”
He took a long pull and sat on the edge of the recliner. “Thanks. It was a tough few months.”
“I’ll bet. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I lost my mom. Or my dad.”
He let the bottle dangle one from one hand and wondered if he should start a fire, bring some kind of life and warmth to the room. He didn’t have anything else to offer her, no food, no wine, nothing classy at all.
“This is a nice place,” she said after a few minutes of silence.
He laughed. “Liar.”
“I’m serious. I love these mid-century homes. They’re all over Whispering Pines.” She took a few sips of her beer and stood up again. “I mean, obviously it’s a bachelor pad now.” She gave him a look over her shoulder as she peeked into the kitchen and down the hall. “But it has potential.”
“If you say so. It’s just a place for me to crash most nights.” He joined her at the end of the hallway and flipped on the light. “That was my mom’s sewing room,” he said as he pointed at the first room on the left. “The other room’s my bedroom, then the bathroom, and that’s about it back here. I’m thinking about selling it,” he added, and realized only at that moment that he actually was. “I can get an apartment closer to the gym. Cut down my commute time.”
“Because it’s so long now,” she quipped. “What does it take you, a whole ten minutes to get to work?”
He