Texting With the Enemy (Digital Dating #1) - Marika Ray Page 0,67
was too much for the tension rod. I grabbed the knot forming on my skull and tried to push the plastic shower curtain off me. The inanimate object decided it would try a second life as tape, sticking to my wet skin and almost making me wipe out on the slick bathtub bottom. Icy cold water hit my skin next.
With an expletive I wasn’t proud of, I stepped over the edge of the tub, the curtain still stuck to my legs, kicking and dancing about in a way that would have been comical. If it had been happening to someone else.
“Lord have mercy!” I said through clenched teeth.
Great. Three weeks in Solano Creek and I already sounded like I grew up here. Mom must be looking down on me from heaven right now, laughing her behind off. She’d always teased me about moving us back here eventually, but the car accident took her before she could make good on that threat.
With the shower curtain laying on the floor in defeat, I headed to the bedroom to put on my plain black jeans, a T-shirt, and the ever-popular yellow apron. I threw my hair into a slicked back high ponytail that would certainly cause a headache in a few hours but would also keep my hair out of the paint I poured for customers and headed to work.
Unfortunately, the second I grabbed the door handle to exit the bedroom, the whole thing let out a crack and tilted to the side. In horror, I realized the top two hinges on the door had given way, leaving it precariously hanging from the bottom hinge that didn’t look to be in any better shape.
I sucked in a huge breath and tried to calm the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Looking up at the ceiling, I tried to keep a lid on my anger.
“That’s enough now, Aunt Betty. I’m sorry for not visiting when you wrote. Okay?”
The ceiling didn’t answer, and neither did Aunt Betty, but I hoped she somehow got the message. Very carefully, I leaned the door against the wall and hoped for the best.
“Godspeed, little hinge,” I said to the last hinge standing.
Yes, I was talking to things now. I’d been living alone for so long, I had to make friends where I could. At least I hadn’t stooped to the level of the guy who came in to paint last week and had a mannequin sitting across from him.
I was an optimist at heart. Things were going to change today. I could feel it in the way people waved hello as I entered the downtown area. It was in the late-summer sun that warmed me through the window of my tiny car. And it was definitely a good sign when a parking space opened up right in front of Paint It, Pal as I swung down Main Street.
Not twenty minutes after opening for the day, the bell above the door jangled and in walked the cute guy I’d been daydreaming about this morning. Today he had a long, dark Henley on with jeans that had seen better days. Probably for the best, given the nature of painting crafts. But it was the way his brown eyes drooped at the corners behind his glasses that got to me.
“Morning!” I trilled as he approached the counter.
His lips quirked up, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Hey. Can I get a frog, please?”
It must have been the knock to the head by the shower curtain, but I just couldn’t let this guy paint another frog without poking my nose in his business.
“Are you sure you don’t want to move up the food chain and try a bird? We have a pretty good parrot, if I do say so myself.”
The guy leaned his hip on the counter and folded his arms across his chest. Up close, he was more broad than I gave him credit for. His eyes held humor now, and I gave myself a mental gold star for putting it there.
“But then I’d have to use more than one color of paint,” he replied, the rumble of his voice making me think of the rare rainy morning when I could burrow under the covers and sleep in.
I leaned my forearms on the counter, angling in and shamelessly inhaling his scent. He smelled like he rolled around in a pile of fall leaves before stepping foot inside my shop. “That’s generally the idea.”
He full-out grinned and my heart stopped. “I prefer a