The Treble With Men (Scorned Women's Society #2) - Piper Sheldon Page 0,53

But I didn’t have my headphones.

A second later, I chucked off the blankets and ran into the hall. The lights flickered with the next flash and crash. I yelped and gripped the wall. I wasn’t scared. It had startled me. There was a difference. This was fine. I was totally fine. I might just wander the house to see if Devlin was awake or go to the music room and play. Not that I needed company but—

Another flash and rattling boom.

“Eep!” I quickened my pace. The living room was the central point of the house. I’d make my way there and decide what to do next. Where did Devlin sleep? Not that I was going to bother him; I just wanted to make sure he was around.

He had to have a bedroom. An image of him hanging upside down like a bat in his music room flashed through my eyes. But no, if anything, he probably didn’t sleep. He probably just hunched over his giant piano composing brilliant music while the rest of us mere mortals slept.

The living room was cold and dark. The fireplace sat empty. The whole room loomed large in the dark. Thankfully, his fancy house was full of motion detecting lights. The first few scared me but after feeling my way into a couple rooms the automatic lights brought me comfort. If I could find the remote for the sound system, I’d play some loud music and wait for the storm to blow over. It wouldn’t be like I was alone at all.

Despite the lights coming on and the sound of crashing rain against the windows, I was still very aware that this was a huge house. Somebody else could be living here, and I wouldn’t know. Devlin had to have people who cleaned and cooked while he locked himself away for hours at a time. What if he had a humpbacked assistant that would come lurking around a corner, dragging a leg behind him?

Chills wracked my body. Seriously, where the cluck was this man’s room?

I hated how scared I felt. I hated that I was basically a little child. I hated that I wished more than anything I was home where I could knock on my parent’s bedroom door. I was an adult, for crying out loud. An adult who was so sick and tired of being alone.

A loud thump somewhere behind me injected me with adrenaline. The lights flickered again. Back-up generator. It would be fine. I wouldn’t be in the dark. I made my way back to the fireplace and picked up a fire poker. Gretchen had instilled the comfort of wielding heavy objects in me.

Another thump and soft shuffles.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

My fear ratcheted up to brain-clogging hysteria.

Something was getting nearer. I backed up until I was tucked behind the corner of a long hallway. Only one way in. Along with a wicked sense of curiosity, I had been cursed with an overactive imagination, and now all I could picture was a serial killer that had been hiding in the house for months headed toward me with murder on their mind.

I gripped the poker tighter, ready to swing. My body rocked forward, ears pricked and desperate to catch the serial killer’s arrival.

More footsteps. I held my breath. The element of surprise was all I had on my side now. When the stranger was right upon me, I took a deep breath in. I jumped out and bellowed like I was facing off a mountain lion, the poker straight out in front of me.

“ROAR!” I yelled.

I wasn’t sure actually saying the word roar counted, but it got the job done. My assailant jumped a foot in the air away from me.

“Ah!” Devlin screamed.

I screamed.

We both screamed … but there was no ice cream. We took each other in. He squinted at me with one eye closed, and his T-shirt was on inside out and backwards like he’d gotten dressed in the dark. He wasn’t wearing pants. Boxer shorts, yes, but that was it. He was practically Porky-pigging it.

The lights were on. I wasn’t hiding. We made eye contact. He had to know it was me.

But surprising us both, a full second later, he screamed again.

It was not a manly shout. It was a high-pitched scream that some might say resembled that of a little girl. It’s me. I am some. I would say that.

I dropped the poker out of pure shock at his terror. As my heart slowed down, a smile grew.