Not So Suddenly Soulmates, page 13
“I think it wants to be where we are.” Rhi grasped Levi’s shoulder. “Where’s a cat when you need one?”
“I don’t think Duke would mess with that.” Levi chuckled then put on his shorts before climbing out of bed.
“Be careful.” Rhi bit her lip.
Levi moved out of the tent and inched toward the bird.
The bird turned its head to look at him and took another step near the table.
“I think it’s going for the bread.” Levi crept over, grabbed one of the rolls, broke it in pieces, and tossed it to the animal.
The bird snatched up the pieces and gobbled them down.
Levi threw the rest of the loaf away from them and moved back to the tent. “It’s hungry.”
Rhi’s stomach growled. “Me too. We didn’t eat last night.”
“I’m assuming there’s a generator around here since the cooler has a cord coming out of it. And these lights are being run from somewhere. You wanna see what they left us?”
“Sure.” Rhi put on the long T-shirt and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
He pulled her down onto his lap. “How are you feeling about us this morning?”
She smiled. “Like I want to wake up with you every morning?”
“I’m feeling the same way, preferably without the bird though.” He kissed her nose. “Now the question is…whose bed do we sleep in?”
Rhi laughed. “Mine, of course. It’s newer and less contaminated than yours.”
“Hey, I wash my sheets, thank you very much.” Levi tickled her side.
She giggled. “More like I wash your sheets. You call me in there to walk you through the process every time you need to do something.”
“Yeah, I just like watching you bend down to pick up stuff.”
Rhi smacked him in the arm. “That would imply you wanted me well before we got together.”
“Nope, rule number one. No implying anything about the pre-Levi-and-Rhi relationship.”
The bird circled then landed on the table.
Rhi jumped. “Why is it back? There’s no more bread.”
“Are you seriously afraid of birds?”
“Ones this big that are staring at me, yes! Also, any flying insect besides flies but you already know this.” She climbed out of his lap and hid behind him. “Make it go away. Or I’ll tell it about your fear of spiders.”
“It’s not a fear. It’s a healthy reaction to a dangerous creature. And I don’t think this bird is going to care. It would probably eat them.”
“Healthy reaction, my ass. You screamed when a little one joined you in the shower.”
“Keep it up and I’ll let the bird have you.” Levi climbed off the bed and shooed the bird to get it to go away.
The bird hopped off the table and squawked again.
Rhi pointed to the cooler. “Dump the food. Give it anything it wants.”
Levi snorted. “What is this, a hostage situation?”
Rhi glared at him. “If you make me deal with this bird, I will make you deal with every spider in the apartment or any future residence for the rest of eternity.”
“That’s what exterminators are for.” Levi got closer to the bird and tried shooing it away again. “Go on, get out of here.”
The bird moved closer then stuck his beak between Levi and Rhi.
Rhi jumped backwards. “It’s attacking me.”
The bird snatched a lone piece of bread from the ground, lowered itself, pushed off, and took flight away from the camp.
“It attacked you so bad. Are you sure you’ll make it back all right?”
“My boss raises tarantulas. I may have her bring them over to show you.” She took a step toward him.
Levi reached out and pulled her close. “Oh yeah? Well I think our next pet should be a parrot.”
Rhi curled her hands around his neck. “There was a spider with a giant egg sack right outside our building. I wonder how many babies I could hatch in the apartment.”
He lifted her off her feet. “Rule number two. I will refrain from bringing birds in the house as long as Rhi refrains from bringing spiders.”
“Deal. Now shut up and kiss me.”
The chime of Rhi’s phone stopped him from kissing her right away. She growled and wriggled out of his grasp then hurried over to check her phone. “It’s my boss.”
“It’s Saturday. Doesn’t she ever take time off?” Levi dropped down on the bed and slipped his arm around her.
“She does.” Rhi read the text and grimaced. “She wants me back in the office on Monday.”
Levi shrugged. “We can look for houses another day this week or even this coming weekend. No big deal.”
Rhi shook her head. “Yeah it is. I took my vacation time the way I did for a reason.” She shot her boss a quick text and turned back to Levi, groaning the second her phone started ringing. She hit the answer button and put it on speaker phone. “Hello, Delilah.”
“I need you back Monday. This can’t wait until Tuesday. This social media calendar can’t wait any longer. It’s waited too long for you to get done with your blasted vacation. I need you in the office every day to make sure these are posted and answered as soon as possible.”
“I told you before I left, I’m looking at houses in Bryton when I get back and I might not always be able to be in the office.” Rhi glanced over at Levi who shrugged.
“Are you still on this whole moving with your best friend thing? What about your job? You can’t just up and move with your friend and have no job to fall back on. That makes no sense at all.”
“He’s not just my best friend now, Delilah.” Rhi reached out and took Levi’s hand. “We’re dating now.”
“Right. The two best friends who never wanted anything more than friendship are now dating. You think I’m that gullible?”
“Whatever you want to believe, I’m telling you now that I’m not going to be in the office everyday anymore. We talked about this and it sounded like you were okay with it.”
“Well, I’m not. And if you can’t commit to this company, maybe you need to find another job.” Delilah hung up the phone.
Rhi’s jaw dropped. “Did she just fire me?”
“Kinda sounds like she did.” Levi laid back on the pillows. “Come lay with me. We’ll talk about it.”
Rhi stared at her phone before lying down next to Levi. “I’ve never been fired.”
“At least if she fired you, you can draw unemployment and still have money coming in while you’re looking for something.”
“I know but I don’t know how much unemployment is. I’ve never even thought about that.”
“Sixty percent of your base annual income, if I remember right.” Levi ran his hand down her arm. “You’ll do fine on that.”
“But we’re moving.”
“Like I said, you have money. We don’t have to worry about this. Not to mention the fact that I’m partnering with your dad and pretty much running the company. I have expensive taste but not enough to spend a ton on a place to live.” Levi pulled her into his arms. “It will be all right. I don’t mind taking care of the bills while you look for something.”
“But I’ve always picked up my share, even if we split it month-by-month.”
“We’ve also never been in a relationship before.” Levi brushed her hair out of her face. “It wouldn’t have mattered if we were just friends or not. If you’d lost your job or were looking for another, I wouldn’t have a problem helping out.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t like not being able to pull my own weight.”
“Shit, I forgot to tell you. Link mentioned something yesterday about a part-time position in social media. They’re looking for someone to take over on a temporary basis until they find someone to replace the guy that just screwed them over.”
“That would be great but it’s not going to work if I have to stay here.”
“You’ll have to talk to him about the details but if you could do it from home, it would be a great way to supplement your income.”
Rhi took a deep breath. “It would make it so I wasn’t worthless.”
“You’ll never be worthless to me no matter how much money you did or didn’t bring in. Besides, if you’re not there, who’s going to have dinner on the table for me every night?”
Rhi laughed. “Right, we’ll be in Bryton. Where do you think we’re going to eat most nights?”
“Mom’s, takeout, occasionally Dad will torture food for us?” Levi chuckled.
“Exactly. We’re both culinarily challenged.”
“I wouldn’t say challenged. We both like to eat and know good food. Domestically challenged would be more correct. Remember when you turned all my whites pink?”
“I fixed that before they went in the dryer. I’m thankful for whoever created color catchers.” Rhi laughed. “And who broke the dishwasher overloading it?”
“I swear that was Robby. I had it full and everything was all nice and neat then he went through and added a bunch more shit.”
“Sure, it was.”
“Dude, I know how to load the dishwasher. Grandma Edgerly drilled it in my head because I put them in wrong the one time when I was ten.”
Rhi snuggled in closer to him. “We should have done this a long time ago.”
“Nothing wrong with not recognizing it right away. Sometimes you just need extra time to get things right.” Levi traced his fingers between her hip and her knee.
“Keep doing that and we’re not going to get back on time.”
He glanced at his watch. “We have exactly two hours until we need to start packing up. That gives us plenty of time to get lost in each other at least one more time.”
“If that’s the case, shut up and kiss me.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
RHI
June 14th
Rhi sighed as she packed up her things. She wasn’t ready to go home. Would she and Levi fall back into the routine of just friends?
His arms snaked around her waist and his lips touched her neck. “I don’t want to leave paradise.”
“Me neither.” She groaned. “Keep that up and we’ll be late for the boat.”
“Yeah, right. Your mom will be in here forcing us out of this room in five minutes.”
“I know. I’ve been waiting for her to come in for a while.” Rhi turned and hugged Levi. “We’re not going back to being friends, right?”
“No way.” He squeezed her. “It’s you and me now.”
The door opened. “Okay, you two. I need you ready to go in two minutes,” Jen called from the other room.
“I’m surprised she didn’t barge in. We should get naked in case she does.” Levi winked at her.
Rhi laughed. “Almost ready, Mom.”
“Good. Then get out here so I can do the final missing item inspection.”
Rhi pulled away from Levi and zipped her suitcase. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” Levi gripped the handles of their suitcases and moved into the other room.
Rhi threw her overnight bag over her shoulder and followed him.
Her mom smiled at both of them. “You have no idea how excited I am that you two are together.”
“You’ve told us a thousand times, Mom.” Rhi rolled her eyes.
“Well, I figured since it took you so long to get together, you might need a couple reminders. Time for the final sweep.” Jen shuffled through the other rooms checking for last minute items.
“Didn’t you do that?”
“Of course I did. I’ve been through every room three times this morning. Where do you think I got it from?”
“You’re gonna do that when we move from our condo in Indy?” Levi put his arm around.
“Do you not remember when we moved out of the apartments on campus? Auntie Jackie did the final inspection like she does with her real estate clients.” She laughed.
“I remember.”
Jen stepped out of the last room. “All clear. Rhi, I think you have this clearing out a hotel room thing figured out.”
“I learned from the best.” She smiled at her mom and gave her a hug. Jen could be a handful sometimes but she admired her. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, honey. Now let’s head for the docks. We don’t want to be late.”
“Like they’d leave without us. We’re family.” Levi put up his hands.
“Well, Link and Liam are piloting today, so you never can tell with those boys.” Jen grinned. “Let’s go.”
The ride to the docks was chaos. Kym was convinced she left something in her room, despite her and Jen checking three times. Chelsea and Lex hid in the back whispering to each other.
Rhi leaned into Levi as they arrived at the docks. “It’s times like these I remember why I’m glad I moved in with you right after college.”
“I mean, I’m only one person, but I think I stir up some drama now and then. Watch this.” He climbed off the cart. “Hey, Kym, did you look behind the nightstand?”
Her eyes went wide. “No, I didn’t. Mom, we have to go back and check.”
Jen glared at Levi. “You may not be blood but when you were five, your father gave me full permission to spank you, and don’t think I won’t take advantage of that now.”
“I can go further. You know what Lex and Chelsea have been talking about?” Levi grinned.
Rhi clapped her hands over his mouth. “We just started dating and I’d like you to live past this trip.”
Levi licked her hand, and she pulled it away. “I mean, you just told me how much you miss your family in times like this. So I had to up the ante.”
“Go get in the boat before Jen beats you.” Leon smiled and pushed them forward.
Rhi took Levi’s hand and they walked onto the dock.
Liam greeted them as they climbed aboard. “I saw the look Aunt Jen gave you. You messing up again?”
Levi laughed. “I may have freaked Kym out a bit and now she wants to go back to the house to do another sweep for anything left behind.”
“Teenage siblings are the best to mess with.” Liam snickered. “How’s the Social Media Queen today?”
“Sad we’re going home. Levi said you talked to him about a job for me?”
“Our last social media director ran off with a bunch of money, so we’re out both the money and the director. Dad’s not sure what he wants to do as far as a full time thing but he’s looking for someone temporary for now. Interested?”
“Let me get back home and see what I can work out. I think I was just fired. If that’s true, I’d love to help. How much time would I be expected to be on the island?” Rhi smiled at him.
“We have a photographer on site, and Liam and I can send you all the information about upcoming events and stuff like that. I don’t see why you couldn’t do it from home.”
“Now I wish Delilah had been more clear.”
Levi took her phone.
“What are you doing?” Rhi quirked her brows at him.
“Finding out if you’re fired.” He tapped on the screen a few times then handed the phone back.
“What?!” She stared down, waiting for a text to come through. “At least let Uncle Len know I’m interested. If it’s part time, even if I still have a job, I’m sure I could work it into my schedule.”
“I’ll tell him later today and have him send you the details but I guarantee the pay is good.”
“Nice. I’ll wait for his message.” Rhi stepped aside so others could board the boat.
Levi put his arm around her and they walked toward the bow of the ship. “You should quit and take the offer.”
“I definitely want it but if she didn’t fire me, I don’t want to leave her in a bind.”
“From what I heard, she’s firing you if you’re not in the office Monday morning.”
“I don’t think I can be in the office then. We’re not going to be back until tomorrow, and I wasn’t even planning on us leaving Bryton until Monday. There’s no reason to rush home if we plan on spending the following day there.”
“Right. I guess we wait to see what she has to say.”
Her phone chimed and she read the message from Delilah.
DELILAH:
You’re fired. Is that clear enough? Your stuff will be in a box whenever you decide to grace us with your presence.
“That was fast. It’s official. I’ve been fired.” Rhi held up her phone to show Levi.
“Good. Go tell Link you want the job.” Levi chuckled. “We’ll stay in Bryton until we find a place then head back to Indy to start packing things up.”
Rhi bit her lip then let a smile grow. “This feels like the start of something good.”
“You bet it is.”
Rhi laughed and leaned into Levi’s chest. “I want every day to be like this.”
“I don’t want to live on the water. And considering I just signed a contract with your dad, I’m not sure staying here would be the best idea.”
She glared at him. “You and me…together like this. Not necessarily on this boat.”
“Well, that we can arrange.” Levi hugged her close. “I want us to be together as well.”
Chapter Thirty
RHI
June 16th
Rhi rubbed the back of her neck then climbed into the car. “I’m not sold on any of the apartments so far.”
“Jackie said there’s condos, townhouses, and duplexes we could look at as well.” Levi reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’s not like we have to decide anything today.”
“I know. I’m being too picky. The ones on the lake weren’t too bad.”
“We’re not settling for something that’s ‘not too bad.’ We’ll find something you love, even if it takes a bit.”
There was a knock on the window.
Levi opened the door to talk to Jackie. “Where to next?”
“I know you’re not sold on the idea of houses but there are two cute ones down the street. They’re relatively new, so there shouldn’t be much updating and they’re still on the small side.”
