Spring Fling, page 5
Chapter Nine
Monica chewed on a mouthful of steak fajitas and scrolled through her laptop, sucking in a deep, pensive breath. It had taken her years to pay off her loans from cosmetology school, and as she looked at the fees per semester at Shelton State Community College, she realized there was going to be another long road ahead of her. Not only would she be basically starting all over again and taking classes with students half her age, she would be working and paying for her education for years to come. It would mean no more nights out. No more online shopping sprees. Going back to school was going to uproot every aspect of her life, and Monica wasn’t sure she was entirely motivated to do it just yet.
A loud boom sounded overhead as she rinsed her dishes, followed by a crack of lighting and then more rumbling noise. She screwed up her mouth and peered out the sliding glass door, hoping that Jim had picked up the plate of food she had left him before it rained. She nodded, seeing that he had indeed taken in his dinner and the bottle of aloe vera too.
Jim.
Monica had called Panhandle Vacation Rentals herself just as soon as he left and confirmed the information he had relayed with Analisa. They were indeed stuck together at the beach house for the time being, since neither of them wanted to give in and the rental company wasn’t going to mediate anything. Now, with a crazy storm rolling in and the Sun already set, there was even less of a point to trying to go home. Monica was not going to drive all the way back to Alabama at night in a tropical storm. And besides… Jim wasn’t all that bad.
The stunt he had pulled at The Rusty Hook pissed her off at first, but the more she thought about it, the more she was grateful for his intervention. Monica was always looking for attention, and now, with her thirty-eighth birthday on the horizon, she was finally beginning to recognize that less-than-savory aspect about her personality. She had gotten herself into some scary situations before, all in the name of not being alone, but more than that, she had wasted so much time with men and women alike who she didn’t really care about. If she was going to change herself, really change herself, then her attention-seeking antics had to stop, too.
Monica pulled out her weekly planner, jotted down the phone number to the admissions office at the college, and made a promise to herself to make an appointment for when she got home. She did some quick math as she reclined in bed and calculated the cost of credit hours, fees, books, and other extras she would have to account for. If she was careful with her money, she figured she could start college part time and pay for everything in cash just to get going. Hair and makeup was her passion, and she was good at what she did and made an okay living at it, but cosmetology just didn’t fulfill her the same way anymore. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do, but enrolling in school was the first step.
After what seemed like hours of researching online, Monica yawned and listened to the steady tapping of rain outside. The lights in the old beach house flickered now and then as the thunder boomed outside, and the old house made a variety of creepy, haunted noises through the storm. A loud cracking sound split through the night, causing her eyes to flash open, followed by a heavy thud outside. She sat up in bed and considered investigating, but another flash of light and a loud thunder crack kept her in bed. Monica continued listening to the wind and the crashing of the waves outside as the tropical storm raged on, her eyes trained to the ceiling. She wondered how Jim was doing in his pool house and began to feel a little bit guilty. She wondered if he ate her steak fajitas or if he tossed them in the trash, suspecting they might have been poisoned. She wouldn’t have blamed him. After what seemed like an eternity, the squalls finally quieted to a murmur and passed over the beach house, allowing Monica to drift into a restless, uncomfortable sleep.
***
A low growling noise woke Monica just before dawn. She sat up in bed, disoriented and forgetting where she was for a moment as she tried to adjust her eyes to the low light. Her heart thumped in her chest as she searched the room for something — anything — to protect her from whatever had made its way into the house. The rental home was situated on a wild part of the beach, and it occurred to her that perhaps a bobcat or possibly even a black bear had found its way into the cabin. She grabbed her phone and a decorative candlestick from the remnants of the old kitchen hearth in her bedroom and urged her legs to work.
The hallway leading to the kitchen and living room was dark, but she could tell that the noise was coming from there. It was a sound she had heard before, but the still-rumbling storm outside muffled the noise, making her question what it could be. A racoon? A wild boar? Maybe a stray dog? She couldn’t remember if she had secured the back sliding glass door that night, and it occurred to her that something might have nosed its way inside to shelter from the storm.
Monica gripped the candlestick in one hand, feeling ridiculous and scared all at once as she tiptoed to the living room. She considered calling 9-1-1 about the intruder but didn’t want to bother until she knew exactly what she was dealing with. Monica had dealt with her fair share of tornados growing up just outside of Tuscaloosa and knew all too well how wildlife could take shelter during a storm. She remembered back to the year she was in kindergarten and awoke to find a cow in her living room after a tornado had ripped through town.
Whatever was making the noise — and it was certainly not a cow — was getting louder as she approached the kitchen and living room space. The animal sounded big and, from her estimation, was likely located just on the other side of the kitchen island. Her hand reached out blindly in the unfamiliar layout feeling for a light and finally closed on the switch. She held her breath, ready to take on whatever creature she was about to startle, and held the candlestick high.
With a flick of the switch, Monica heard the creature snort again, and something big moved on the other side of the island. She froze for a moment, knowing that she should turn around the way she came. She should have stayed in her room and called 9-1-1. She never should have come here all alone in the first place. It was too late now for should-haves.
“Ahhh!”
A rush of adrenaline flooded her system as the creature on the couch behind the island stirred again. Before she realized what she was doing, the candlestick flew from Monica’s hand in the direction of the creature, whizzing through the air and landing with a soft thunk. She had investigated enough. Monica turned on her heels and bolted for the safety of her bedroom with her phone in hand and was just about to dial 9-1-1 when she heard a familiar “Ow.”
Monica blinked and pivoted back around, frowning as she tried to process not what but who was in her home. She tiptoed back down the hallway with her phone in her hand and the emergency number at the ready to investigate one last time. She let out a sigh of relief when she realized that it wasn’t a bear or a boar or a wild animal at all that had snuck into the house in the middle of the night but her very red-faced and exhausted-looking pool house neighbor.
“Jim!” she said, clutching her chest. “You scared the life out of me!”
He let out a cry of surprise, rubbed his forehead, and sat up, dressed only in a soaking wet cartoon character T-shirt and a pair of baseball shorts. He breathed heavily for a moment, then glared at her with his one good eye, finally letting out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a cry.
“Man,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “You almost got me. Again.”
Chapter Ten
Jim stared up at the ceiling of the pool house, watching the stain above his head slowly darken and spread.
He had been trying to sleep through the storm without much luck; the combination of sunburn, Scotch, and fajitas kept him awake. He didn’t even bother to pull out the sofa bed anymore and slept on the couch instead, so even though Jim was miserable with indigestion and scorched skin, at least his back wasn’t aching. He was actually doing just fine until a steady drip, drip, drip woke him from his almost state of sleep. The sudden spring storm had tested the old pool house roof to its limits, causing a trickle of rain water to stream steadily down upon his head.
Jim bolted upright and frantically searched the unfamiliar space for something to collect the dripping water. He flipped on the light to investigate and quickly realized there wasn’t much in the way of buckets or dripping water containment vessels at his disposal. Before he could think of what else to do, a loud noise crashed into the roof and the lights went out again.
Forget this, he thought to himself.
Acting on his fight or flight instincts, Jim exited the death trap pool house just in time to see a huge oak tree branch crash down on the roof. The crunch of breaking glass and the whine of timber filled the air, but Jim didn’t bother to stick around and investigate the damage. He ran towards the main house in the dark and wind and rain, not thinking much or having a plan, only trying to get to safety.
I’ll just pound on the door until she wakes up, I guess, he thought to himself as he stood on the pool deck getting soaked in the sideways rain.
Instinctively, Jim tried the door handle and was surprised and grateful as the sliding glass door opened for him. He slipped into the darkened house, relieved to finally be in a safe spot during the storm as he dripped rainwater all over the floor. His T-shirt and shorts were soaked, and all of his things were still in the pool house, but for now, he was okay at the very least.
The living room sofa behind the kitchen island didn’t look any more comfortable than the sofa in the pool house, but it seemed like the best option at the time. He had considered going to sleep in a bed in the upstairs portion of the house but didn’t want to risk waking Monica on the probably creaky stairs. Jim didn’t think he would sleep that night anyway and sat up watching the storm rage outside through the sliding glass doors. Eventually, he started to nod off as the lightning subsided and the rain on the roof dulled to a soft pitter-patter while the thunder rumbled in the distance once again.
***
The next thing Jim remembered was the sound of something crashing and a heavy thudding sound right next to his head. His heart pounded in his chest and his body went into panic mode as he bolted upright at the sound.
Jim was never one to get into fights as a kid and especially not as an adult. He knew that, with his size, he could look intimidating, but because he was so big, no one ever had actually taken a swing at him before. He never got involved in contact sports (or any sports, for that matter), so it was funny to him that, at thirty-five years old, he got his first black eye from a woman he barely knew. Still, the past few months had left him shell-shocked and fragile on the inside, even if he looked big and tough on the outside.
Jim rose from the couch, confused and panicked; he was finally starting to get some good sleep for a change, and now this. He didn’t know what the hell she had thrown at him or why, but it sounded heavy. He squinted at her in the early morning light as Monica looked down on him with her hands over her mouth and her eyes open wide. She was wearing a white nightgown that was semi-translucent and low cut, and it was all he could do not to notice.
“Jim! What the hell are you doing in here?” she said, heading to the fridge. She grabbed a glass from the cabinet and went to the sink to fill it with water.
“Good morning to you, too,” he groaned. “What the hell did you throw at me?”
“A candlestick. Don’t worry, I think it was plastic,” she said, handing him the water. “Here.”
“Thanks,” he said, taking a grateful sip. “I almost jumped out of my skin.”
“You? I was ready to try and fight off an intruder. Seriously, why are you in here? You scared me to death. We had an agreement.”
“The pool house is… uninhabitable,” he said, standing up to stretch. “Look.”
Jim pointed out the window, through the drizzly morning, in the direction of the pool house. A huge oak tree branch was lodged into the roof and leaning on the main power line to the pole.
“The ceiling started to leak, and then the branch must have cut the power,” he said, returning to the couch. “I didn't know what else to do, and the back door was unlocked, so I just let myself in.”
“I thought you were a wild animal,” she huffed, returning to the kitchen. She retrieved a bag of ground coffee and a filter from the cabinet. “The sounds you were making scared me to death.”
“Sorry,” he said, still babying his eye. “I was asleep. My wi— my ex-wife, Julie, couldn’t stand my snoring, either.”
“Ex-wife?” she asked, filling the coffee carafe with water.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sore subject.”
Monica cleared her throat.
“I guess we need to try and call the rental agency again and let them know about the storm damage,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Jim looked outside again to assess the situation. The log on the roof didn’t look too bad, but the line running from the pool house to the power pole looked precarious.
“It’s not raining that hard anymore. You should go see if you can get your things and bring them in here,” she said, starting her pot of coffee. “You know, in case there’s a leak. You wouldn’t want your camera to get wet.”
“Good point,” Jim said, eyeing the back of her head suspiciously.
Monica had been mean to him from the moment they met, and now, she was bringing him dinner and willingly sharing her space with him? He didn’t want to let his guard down, but he also didn’t have any other choice at the moment.
“Don’t forget to bring back my aloe vera,” she said.
There it is, he nodded. She isn’t done being pissed at me yet.
Jim gingerly walked back out onto the patio into the aftermath of the tropical storm. Fluffy dove gray clouds billowed and raced overhead, sprinkling the beach house with misty rain, but by all accounts, the weather was considerably more calm than the night before. A giant palm frond and hundreds of slash pine needles filled the swimming pool, and the deck was littered with pine cones and leaves and other storm debris as well. When Jim opened the door to the pool house, he was greeted with a puddle of water at his feet. With the exception of a few pieces of dirty laundry on the floor, all of his personal items were still intact, and it didn’t take him long at all to clear out of his tiny vacation home.
Monica was seated on the living room couch, drinking a cup of coffee, when he returned. She was reading a paperback again, with her long coils of dark hair swept up into a bun and her face free of lipstick or heavy eyeliner. She was just as pretty without her features hidden behind false eyelashes and layers of makeup, in his mind, and he had to stop himself from staring.
“I’m going to change into some dry clothes, and then I think I’m going to head home,” he said, staring at the ground. He looked over at her from the corner of his eye. She had stopped reading her book.
“I think the universe is telling me it’s time to give up. The house is all yours.”
“Jim, wait,” she said.
He shivered and closed the bathroom door behind him before she could say anything else. He realized just how cold he had become, sleeping in his clothes all night, as he peeled off his soaked shirt and shorts. Jim took a hot shower then rummaged through his bag, found his only pair of jeans, a long-sleeve tee, and his hoodie, and hazarded a glance in the mirror. His face was puffy and red from sunburn, all except for his left eye, which still made him look like he had made it through nine rounds in the ring. Jim was just a tired, lumpy mess, and he was sure that Monica would be more than happy to have him out of her hair. He checked his phone and saw yet another text message from Julie.
On my way to see you, she said, with a kissy-face emoji. Be there soon.
Jim snorted and rolled his eyes before deleting the message.
Well, I won’t be home, Julie. Joke’s on you.
Jim ignored his messages and checked the time on his phone instead. It was just after seven a.m., and he figured that if he got on the road and drove straight through, he could make it to New Orleans and enjoy a late lunch. He could start with an etouffee at Broussards and then spend the rest of his vacation blitzed out of his mind on Bourbon Street. Maybe he could even drive over to Lafayette and use his camera in the swamplands up there. His vacation didn’t have to be ruined just yet.
Jim stepped out of the bathroom and was surprised to see a breakfast burrito and a hot cup of coffee waiting for him on the counter. Monica was seated at the couch again, reading her book with a fresh cup of coffee at hand.
“Figured you might need something to warm yourself up on the way out,” she said, without looking up. “There isn’t a fast food restaurant for about fifteen miles.”
“Thanks,” he said, his mouth screwed up in a confused smile again. “I, uh, never really thanked you for dinner last night, either. It was delicious.”
“It’s no problem. I couldn't eat all of that anyway,” she said, waving him off. “So where’s home?”
“Just outside of Atlanta,” Jim said. “You?”
“Tuscaloosa,” she said without looking up. “Nowhere near the beach.”
Jim nodded and continued chewing.
“What are you reading?” he asked around a mouthful of burrito.
Monica blinked as he chewed and looked down at the cover of her book.
“Oh, it’s just this romance novel… it’s about this man who falls in love with a ghost that he is forced to share an apartment with,” she said, showing him the book cover.
“Huh,” Jim said, taking another bite. “This breakfast burrito is really good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, giving him a warm, genuine smile.
Jim finished his burrito, wishing he didn’t have to go just yet.
