Surprise Visitor

I sat up again and grabbed my phone.  No missed calls, no texts.  It was about 4:30 am.

While I was trying to decide if I should answer the door or not, whoever was out there knocked again--hard.  I don't know why I was so nervous.  People that want to hurt you rarely knock on your front door first.  Right?

I finally decided to just go look at least.  I walked quietly downstairs in the dark and peeled back the edge of the curtain on the window near the door.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw James standing in the light of my front porch.

I pulled the door open.  "What the fuck is wrong with you?" I exclaimed.  "It's 4:30 in the morning, and you scared the everloving shit out of me."

"I'm sorry," he apologized.  "Can I come in?"

I regarded him warily.  I had no idea why he was here.  Apparently the events of the last week and a half had made me awfully suspicious of people.  "Sure," I said finally, opening the door the rest of the way and moving so he could get past me.  I shivered in the chilly pre-dawn air.  Once James was in, I shut the door and locked it, then flipped on the living room light.  "What are you doing here?"

"I got a weird text from Cassie, and it made nervous.  I came over to try to talk to her, but she's not answering the door.  Have you seen her lately?"  I shook my head and told him about the letter.  He pulled his phone out and showed me the text.  She had sent it at 3:13am, and it said, "I'm going home.  Don't call me."

"Home?" I asked, confused.

"Her parents live in Golden and she was talking about maybe moving back there for awhile and trying to find a job there.  But I wasn't expecting her to do it at 3 in the morning.  Her phone was off when I tried to call her back, and she's not answering her door."

I blinked at him.  It was weird.  But I didn't understand why it required James to scare the shit out of me at 4:30 in the morning.  "Okay, and?"

He sighed and rubbed his forehead.  "I don't know, Liv.  This whole thing has been really weird, and I don't know what's going on.  I'm worried about her."

"It is really strange," I agreed. 

"It's strange enough that I'm almost ready to break my own cardinal rule."  I raised an eyebrow, having no idea what he was talking about.  "I don't ever look into the people I'm seeing," he explained.  "It would make a weird power differential, and I'm sure I'd usually find something I didn't want to know."

"Oh," I replied unhelpfully.  Then I said, "Is it possible she just made a mistake, or got some weird information, and she's overwhelmed with quitting her job and needs some space for a bit?"  But even as I said it, I knew there had to be more to it than that. 

James shrugged.  I yawned then, and he said, "Shit, Liv, I'm sorry.  I'll get out of here so you can get some more sleep."

"Okay," I agreed, though I knew that sleep was unlikely at this point.  I stood and walked with him towards the door.  After he left, I locked the door and slid the chain into place.  I trudged back up the stairs and reset the alarm on my phone to the latest possible time that I could get up and still make it to work on time looking presentable.  Then I tossed and turned for two hours.  I finally dragged myself out of bed when my alarm went off, showered quickly without washing my hair, put on a bare minimum of makeup, and left.

My phone rang around lunchtime, and I looked at it and saw it was Brody.  "Hey," I answered.

"Hi gorgeous," he replied.  "How are you?"

"Tired," I grumbled.  I filled him in on the events of last night.

"Well, I was going to ask you if I could spend the night, but maybe we should stay at my house tonight," he said, when I had finished.  I agreed.  "I was also going to ask you if you wanted to check out a couple furniture stores tonight, just to get some ideas, but if you're not up for it, we can always go this weekend."

"No, I'd like to actually," I said.  I just wanted to do something normal and forget about what was happening with Cassie.  "I have some boxes packed up too, maybe I can bring them out and get them out of the way."

"Sounds like a good plan," Brody responded.  We planned that he'd meet me at home at 6, we'd put my boxes into his SUV, then we'd look at furniture for a little while, grab dinner, and head back to his house.  Our house?

I made it through the rest of the day by sheer force of will and was relieved to leave at 5:30.  I ran home, changed out of my work clothes into jeans and a sweater, and brought some of my boxes downstairs.  I jumped when Brody knocked on the front door, then unlocked it and pulled it open.

Brody frowned at me.  "You look exhausted," he said.

I made a face.  "Thanks," I replied sarcastically.

"Sorry," he replied, hugging me.  "Are you sure you want to do this tonight?  Why don't we just go this weekend?  We can load these boxes up, grab something to eat, and just head home."  I noticed he said "home" and not "my house" and that made me smile, despite my fatigue.

"No, I want to.  Maybe just one or two stores, but I want to do something besides just sit around."

"Okay," he agreed reluctantly.  "Then let's get these boxes in my car."  We carried them out and loaded them into the back of his SUV, then grabbed the last couple that were upstairs.  There were 8 boxes total already, some of them filled with heavy books.  "Next time, please don't fill boxes completely with books," he groaned, lifting the last box into the back and pushing the button that shut the back tailgate. 

"Sorry," I said sheepishly.  "I normally don't, because they get damn heavy, but I had just put them all in those boxes to get them out of Lauren's room."

"You're lucky you're pretty," he teased.  I glanced at Cassie's townhouse, next to mine.  It was quiet and I couldn't see any lights on.  "You okay?" Brody asked, slipping an arm around me and following my gaze.

"Yeah," I said, shaking my head a little to clear it.  "Sorry.  Let me just grab my bag and we can go."

Brody got into the driver's seat while I grabbed my purse and overnight bag and locked my door.  When I got in the car, I asked how things were going with the auditor.  "Pretty well," he responded.  "He found a couple small discrepancies so far which he traced to the same person, but they were small enough that he thought they could be mistakes.  So I'll be keeping an eye on that.  But so far nothing big."

"That's good to hear," I replied.

We wandered two different furniture stores, inspecting coffee tables and sitting on couches.  I got particularly comfy on a loveseat/chaise lounge combination that wouldn't really work anywhere in Brody's house, but was amazing nonetheless.  We got some good ideas, and it was fun.  I was glad we had gone, even though I was just about ready for bed.  We decided to go somewhere quick to eat and stopped at a diner for breakfast for dinner.  

We were on our way back towards Brody's house by a little after 8 and when he pulled into the garage at 8:30, I groaned at the thought of bringing the boxes inside.

"How about this," he suggested.  "We can leave them in the garage for tonight.  I'll get them out of my car and you can go inside and relax.  Maybe you should give that giant bathtub I never use a little attention."

Brody had an amazing whirlpool tub that he claims to have only used a couple times, which is tragic.  "That's an amazing idea," I said. 

"Alright, then go!" he directed me.

After a quick look around his bathroom, I realized that one of my first purchases for this house needed to be some bath bombs or bath salts or something to make the bath a little more interesting.  Oh well, the hot water and jets would be good enough for tonight.  I filled the tub up while I combed out my hair and wound it into a topknot so it stayed out of the water.

When the tub was full, I eased myself down into the hot water with a grateful sigh.  I sunk into the water up to my neck and closed my eyes.  I had been laying there for about 10 minutes when there was a gentle knock on the door.  Brody opened it a little and said, "Can I join you?"

"Yes," I replied, sitting up so I could drain some of the water so the tub didn't overflow.  Brody came in with a glass of wine in each hand. He handed one to me and climbed into the tub and settled behind me, and I leaned back against him.  The tub was the perfect size for both of us, and I made a mental note of that.  I closed my eyes again as I said, "Get all the boxes out of your car?  I can bring them in tomorrow."

"No you can't," he replied.

"Why not?" I asked confused.

"I already did.  I figured I might as well.  I took them all downstairs for now until we get everything sorted out."

"Thank you," I said gratefully.  "I feel bad that I didn't help now."

He slid his hands up my arms and to my neck, beginning to massage the tense muscles there.  "Don't," he said.  "It only took me a few minutes."

I sighed softly as he continued to knead the muscles in my neck and shoulders.  "I feel like you're trying to butter me up," I joked.

"What? Why?" he asked.

"You hauled in my boxes while I laid in this tub, you brought me wine, and now you're rubbing my neck."

He laughed. "I'm not trying to butter you up," he insisted. "I just feel bad because you had such a shitty night last night. I thought we could both use a little relaxing and a good night's sleep tonight."

We relaxed in the tub until our wine glasses were empty and the water was tepid. Once we were out and dry, we went straight to his bed, where we had the laziest sex we could possibly manage.

When we were laying in bed after, Brody asked, "how much stuff do you have left to pack and move?"

"Not much," I replied. "I packed up a lot of stuff to make room for Lauren, which was most of the stuff we brought today. I didn't bring much with me from Wisconsin and I haven't accumulated a ton of stuff. Really, all that's left is stuff I use regularly, kitchen stuff, clothes, and furniture."

"Well, just let me know when you want to schedule movers for the furniture. I'll make sure my old stuff is taken care of then."

"Maybe tomorrow we can pick a day?" I suggested. "I'm thinking one of the next Saturdays I'm off, so I have that Friday to get everything ready. I'll need to let Lauren know then too." Brody agreed with that plan.

Even though it wasn't even 10pm, I was exhausted from not sleeping much the night before.  Brody must have been tired too, because we were both out within minutes of saying goodnight.