The Escape Collection: (The Escape Collection) (7 page)

I watched until Reid stuck his head into the back seat of his car and then turned my attention back to my call with William, who was talking. “So, I’ll see you about seven.” he said.

“Seven?”
 

“For dinner,” he said. “You did just invite me for dinner, didn’t you?”
 

I rubbed my eyes and forced myself to focus. “Yes,” I said. “I can’t wait to see you. Seven is great.”
 

Surely Reid would be gone by then. I dared to take another peek outside, where he was hauling more boxes from his car. I probably should help him. That would be the friendly roommate thing to do. But I wasn’t the friendly roommate, I reminded myself. I was the hostile takeover roommate. Besides, his back was strong, very strong if the way it was straining against his sweater was any indication. I shook my head to clear the thoughts. He could handle it. Reid turned around, a few boxes in his arms and smiled again in my direction. I didn’t care if he saw me staring. After all, it was my house he was invading. I had every right to assess the situation. William was saying something about his day in my ear, but Reid’s smile, and the way he was looking at me under that flop of hair, was distracting me.
 

“William?” I interrupted him mid-sentence. Reid reached for the door handle. “I’ve gotta go,” I said. I didn’t listen for his response as I clicked the phone off and tossed it to the counter.
 

I reached the door handle at the same time that Reid opened it and moved to step into the kitchen. I held it firm, preventing it from swinging all the way open.
 

“Hey there,” Reid said.

“Ever heard of knocking?”

Reid released his grip on the door and jostled the boxes in his arms. Part of me felt kind of bad watching him struggle, but I still didn’t let him in.
 

“Whitney? Is everything okay?”

“Besides the fact that you’re trying to break into my house?” I asked, my voice sounding bitchier than I intended it to. “Everything’s great.”

“I’m not breaking in.” I might have imagined it, but it sounded like he was laughing at me. I pressed the door closer, trying to force it closed but his foot was wedged in. “Your grandmother did talk to you about this, right?” Before I could retort with a smart-ass comeback, the boxes he was still struggling to balance tipped and I watched as he tried unsuccessfully to catch them before the box on the top of the stack tilted and fell.
 

The box crashed to the ground and split open. CD’s and notebooks spilled to the porch.
 

“Oh, my…” I swung the door open. “I’m sorry.” I crouched and tried to sweep his belongings in a pile.
 

“It’s fine,” he said. He looked over and met my eyes with another smile. What was it about this guy? He sure smiled a lot. Not that I minded too terribly much. It was a pretty cute smile.
 

“No, it’s not. I’m really sorry. That was so rude of me. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m not usually so—”

“I told you,” he interrupted me, “it’s all good. But I have to say, you seemed so normal when I met you earlier.” Reid finished putting his things back in the box and stood. He offered me a hand to help me up. I ignored it and stood on my own. “Can I come in?” He gestured to the kitchen door. “I mean, it’s the least you can do.”

“What do you—”

“I’m kidding.” He laughed and the sound washed over me, making me smile too. It might be too much effort to dislike him after all.

“You might as well,” I said, moving aside and closing the door behind him. “But you’re not staying.”

***

Reid put his boxes down in the corner and turned to look at Whitney, who, despite her soft moment when he’d dropped his box, was back to being angry. Or at least, she was trying to look angry. But he could tell by looking at her that she wasn’t the type of woman who could pull off the harsh, threatening act.
 

“You didn’t say,” he said. “But your grandma did tell you I was coming, right? Hazel said it would be fine.”

“Did she?” Whitney crossed her arms over her chest, and Reid had to stifle a laugh. She looked pretty cute, which was clearly not what she was going for.
 

He tried a different approach. “I should probably apologize,” he said and held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry I was going to walk in without knocking. It probably wasn’t the best idea. I honestly thought your grandma had spoken with you.”
 

“She did.” Whitney dropped her arms, and her tough act. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, honestly. But I’m not all that thrilled with having a roommate.”
 

“You’re not being a bitch,” Reid said, and ventured a step forward to the table. “And being roommates won’t be so bad, I promise. I don’t eat pickled eggs.” Whitney wrinkled her nose. “I don’t walk around in my underwear, well, not often anyway.” That earned him a raised eyebrow and the glimmer of a smile. “And I swear I’ll keep the snakes in their cage.”
 

“What?”
 

He laughed again as Whitney’s face transformed from horror to irritation when she realized he was teasing her. “See? It could be worse. You could be gaining a half-naked roommate who eats gross things and keeps snakes. As it is, I’d say you’re getting a pretty good deal.”

Whitney made a half snorting noise and turned back to the counter. She picked up an onion and started chopping. “You can’t stay,” she said.
 

He waited to see if she was joking. “Ever? But your—”

“I know what she said.” Whitney turned around, knife in hand. “Seriously, you don’t have to keep reminding me. I get it. Like it or not, you’re my roommate. We get to fight over the remote and have pizza parties. But not till tomorrow.” She turned back to her chopping. “Grams said you were moving in tomorrow and I have a date tonight. So you can’t stay.”
 

A date? Reid felt a flash of something that felt an awful lot like jealousy. He tried to push the thought of Whitney with another guy out of his head and focus on his more immediate problems. He’d been counting on Whitney letting him move in a day early.
 

“Pizza parties?” When she turned around and glared at him, Reid wiggled his eyebrows. “Seriously, though,” he said. “Can I move some boxes in at least? Since they’re already here.” One thing at a time. He’d figure out the rest later.

“Fine.” She shrugged, and went back to mangling the onion with her knife. “But you have to be gone by seven.”
 

“Deal,” he said, and headed for the door to empty his car of the remaining boxes.

“Oh, Reid,” Whitney said before he could get out the door. He turned around to see her, still holding the knife poised above the cutting board, the onion now a mashed up, semi-chopped mess that must have been her version of diced. “Your room is at the top of the stairs, first door on your right. You can use the bathroom across the hall. And there’s an extra house key on the hook by the door.”

“Thanks.” He grabbed the key and shoved it in his pocket. “Do you need any help?” He pointed to the mess of onions.

She glanced from the cutting board back to Reid. “No,” she said. “Why would you ask? I can do this.”
 

He smiled. “Of course you can,” he said. From the looks of it, if they were going to be sharing meals, he’d be doing most of the cooking. “Forget I asked.”
 

She tilted her head and opened her mouth like she was going to say something. When she didn’t, Reid said, “I’ll leave you to it then. Pretend I’m not even here.”

As he pushed his way out to the back porch, Reid thought he heard her mutter something else, but some things are best left alone, so he pretended he didn’t hear her and instead went to empty his car.

It only took two more loads before all of his belongings were in his new room, which was a good thing since the space wasn’t very big. It was cozy and clean, and had everything Reid would need—wrought iron bed, a dresser and what was supposed to pass as a closet. It was a bit cramped, but it had character. The whole house, from what he’d seen, had character. It reminded him of the way his Grandma’s house used to be. Quaint and comfortable and full of the yummy scents of home cooking.
 

Reid sniffed the air. Except what he smelled was definitely not the same smell that Grandma’s house used to have. Something was burning. It hadn’t looked like Whitney knew what she was doing, but he didn’t think she would actually ruin what she was doing.
 

Reid chuckled to himself and opened the door to the hallway. Maybe he’d go see if she needed help after all.

The second the door opened, his nose was assaulted and a haze of smoke filled the air. Shit. Something really was burning.

Chapter 4

I had everything under control. The steaks were seasoned and ready to go, the asparagus was steaming and the prawns were in the skillet. Everything was going perfectly. All I needed to do was mix up the hollandaise sauce and I’d be ready. Who said I couldn’t cook? I was holding my own in the kitchen pretty well. Even with all the distractions, and there were a lot of distractions.
 

For the last twenty minutes, Reid made what seemed like countless trips through the kitchen with boxes. I told him it would be easier if he parked at the front of the house, instead of coming in the back door, but either he hadn’t heard me or he’d ignored me. Regardless, it had been challenging trying to stay focused with him clattering through the room every few minutes.
 

I turned to survey the counter and all my ingredients for the hollandaise. Eggs. Check. Butter. Check. I’d never made it myself, but Grams used to make Eggs Benedict for us on Sundays. It didn’t look too hard, but—

The simultaneous smell of smoke and the shrieking from the over-sensitive smoke detector assaulted my senses.
 

“Shit!”

I turned around to see the prawns, or what used to be prawns, smoking in a completely black frying pan. I moved to grab the pan, but fortunately stopped myself before I could touch it with my bare hand. Where was the potholder? I looked frantically around the mess I’d made, but the intense beeping of the alarm made it increasingly hard to think and I couldn’t find it.

In a panic, I grabbed the tongs and started jabbing at the pan.
 

“What are you doing?” Reid’s voice rang out over the alarm. He pushed past me, grabbed a tea towel, picked up the burning pan of black shrimp and dumped it fairly unceremoniously in the sink.
 

He turned the faucet on over the blackened mess and ran to open the door. I stood mute and dumb as the cool air washed over me. It took me a moment to realize the screeching of the smoke detector had stopped.
 

“Whitney.” Reid waved his hand over my face, snapping me to attention. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“It was all going so well.”

“Yes,” he said, with a laugh. “I can see that.”
 

I shot him a glare and went to assess the damage. Using a fork, I tried without much success to scrape a shrimp from the bottom of the pan.
 

“I hope you weren’t too attached to that skillet,” Reid said. He came up behind me and peered over my shoulder into the sink.
 

I whipped around faster then I intended to and had no idea he was standing so close. I inhaled sharply, catching a scent of him. A second later, I recovered. “This is all your fault.” I jabbed my fork in his direction and he took a few steps back, his hands in front of him.
 

“My fault?”
 

Clearly he thought the whole mess was funny, but instead of being thankful that he hadn’t burst into laughter, it just pissed me off.

“Yes.” I jabbed again, and for a second, I think I really did want to spear him with my fork. “If it hadn’t been for you and your…” I waved the utensil in the air, trying to find the words I was looking for. It was an annoying trait that when I got angry, I couldn’t focus on what I wanted to say. It only served to make me angrier, and make me look foolish. “Stuff.” I found the word and finished lamely.

“My
stuff
is to blame for this?” Reid leaned back against the counter, just out of reach of my flailing fork. His smile was a mixture of cocky and adorable, and it softened my anger. But just a little.

“Of course it is,” I said. “I had this whole dinner planned and if I hadn’t been distracted by you and your…”

“Stuff,” Reid supplied.

“Yes, stuff.” I glared at him. “If it wasn’t for your stuff, I would’ve been fine. But you’ve been traipsing in and out, distracting me.”

“I’ve been distracting you?” He raised an eyebrow and I threw my fork at him. Fortunately for him, I didn’t throw it very hard and it clattered unceremoniously to the floor at his feet.
 

“Now what am I going to do?” For the first time, I really surveyed the damage of what was supposed to be a nice, if not somewhat romantic, evening.
 

I turned the faucet off and lifted the skillet from the sink. Reid was right; it was a good thing I wasn’t very attached to it. The blackened shrimp appeared to be permanently fused. Impressive, really, for only a few minutes of negligence. I wasn’t upset at the loss of the prawns myself, since I hated them. I could never get past the fact that I was eating the tail of a buggy-looking creature. But they weren’t for me. William loved shrimp. And I was trying to make things work with him. I really was.

The sting of tears pricked at my eyes. I would not cry, I commanded myself. Not in front of Reid. It was only shrimp, nothing worth getting worked up about. In an effort to prevent embarrassing myself by blubbering over the burnt crustaceans, I waved a hand in front of my face, and took deep breaths.
 

“Hey, Whitney,” Reid said cautiously behind me. I could tell he knew I was on the verge of losing it. Men tended to get that tone in their voice whenever a woman cried. That tone that might as well have said, get me the hell out of here. “It’s not that bad,” he said, surprising me.