4
Landon
I’d been pacing the entirety of the first floor for hours, still wound tighter than ever. The stress of being back here undermined the hours I spent at the chopping block. It was midnight and there was no way I was getting to sleep without letting off some steam. I threw on a shirt, grabbed my work gloves and headed back outside.
“Edna’s gonna kill me,” I said flipping on the floodlight and headed to the side of the house. Just as I picked up the ax a scream came from the rental next door. Without thinking and ax still in hand, I ran across the yard. Poised to bust in the door, it swung open and out tumbled the girl from earlier, breathless, flushed, beautiful, and right into my arms.
“It’s a...there’s a...something in the...” she panted, looking up at me wide-eyed and scared.
“Stay here,” I said and went inside to see what had scared so bad she ran out of the house in just a towel. Ax at the ready, I searched the bottom level for an intruder. Finding nothing I headed upstairs, reasoning she was in a towel so upstairs was more likely than the basement. I searched all the rooms and came up empty. I double checked the closets and behind doorways but still nothing. I triple checked the bathroom and that’s when I found it.
I didn’t blame her for screaming. It was the biggest damn centipede I’d ever seen. I grabbed some tissue, scooped it up and flushed it down the toilet.
She was still on the porch when I came back downstairs. “Come on inside, it’s all right. I got it for you.” She looked at me, still unsure. “I promise, I got it. I don’t blame you one bit for being scared. Those things are nasty.”
She stepped in the house and shivered. “Blech! I just...ugh, I just CAN NOT deal with bugs. It crawled out of the drain like a horror movie!”
“Yeah, that’s pretty common if the water’s off. Want me to check it for you?”
She nodded and cinched her towel closer. “Thanks. I’m gonna put some clothes on.” She ran up the stairs and I got the distinct pleasure of watching her towel-clad ass bob up and down as she did. I headed to the basement and sure enough, the water was off. That was weird. Why hadn’t they sent over the caretaker to turn it back on for their renter.
If the water was off that probably meant the router was turned off too. I went to the other end of the basement and turned the router back on.
Back upstairs, the girl still looked shaken— beautiful and no longer in a bath towel, unfortunately— but shaken. She poured a shot of whiskey with unsteady hands, threw it back like a champ and introduced herself. “I’m Cass. Well, it’s Cassie— I mean, it’s actually Cassandra but I go by Cass.”
Her cheeks flushed as I smiled. “I’m Landon.”
“Um, let me get you a drink.”
“Not necessary. I should really be going.”
“No, please. I insist. You saved me from a huge gross bug. It’s the least I can do.”
“Really, I need to—”
“I insist,” she said, dark eyes flashing something that wasn’t just a neighbor returning a favor.
Dark eyes and hair with curves to spare— God help me. She was short, maybe five foot two at best. I could probably pick her up with one hand and pin her to a wall with just my hips, rip off her clothes... “I should go.” I was not stepping into my old role.
She shoved the drink in my hand. “I already told you it’s the least I can do. Now throw it back like a man and tell me how it’s possible for bugs to come out of my drain.”
I smirked at her and did what I was told. For now, anyway. “Alright, one drink and then I do have to go.” I took the shot and explained S-traps to her. “...so when they dry up it clears the path for any creepy crawlies to creep and crawl their way in. What I can’t work out is why they didn’t have the caretaker come over and turn the water and router back on before you got here.”
“Oh. I’m not a real renter. I’m a friend of their daughter’s. This was so last minute they probably didn’t have time to ask someone to come over.”
I nodded. That made sense.
“Wait a minute. Did you say router? You got the internet to work?” She flipped open her laptop, tapped a few keys and then she was flying at my neck. “Thank you!” she said as she gave me a surprisingly painful bear hug. It only lasted a moment before she stepped back, suddenly self-conscious. “I mean, I really shouldn’t be spending any time on the internet anyway, not with a thesis to get done, but I appreciate you getting it sorted out for me.”
Thesis, huh? So she wasn’t just a nice face and a great ass. “What’s your thesis statement?”
“Oh, I’m an economics grad so I’m sure it would be pretty boring to someone like—” she cut herself off before she finished the thought.
Someone like me.
I wasn’t surprised. I knew how I came across. Context is everything. If the first time she’d seen me was in a thousand dollar suit in front of a group of board members instead of, say, shirtless and chopping wood on my grandfather’s property, she’d have put me in a very different category. I leaned against the kitchen island, glancing at her submission paperwork. NYU. They have one of the best post-grad econ programs in the nation. She wasn’t just regular smart, she was gifted smart. “Why don’t you try me, Cass. I might surprise you.”
“Well, I’m an Economic Sociologist, so it’s not just the numbers but how the numbers affect a group or groups of people. My thesis attempts to ascertain the effect social media has and will continue to have on marketing.”
I nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, the way people consume media content has changed drastically within the last ten years. Gone are the days when you only have twenty-one-minute sitcoms because the network needs nine minutes for advertising. People aren’t watching commercials anymore. They aren’t seeing ads the way the used to. Smart businesses realize this and adapt with advertising to match. But with that comes an even smaller window to convince someone to buy your thing. Most streaming services offer no commercial options but even the ones that do run ads only give you five seconds before a user has the option to click away. If you don’t— convince them that is— they’ll click away every time. So, I’m asserting that future margins will decrease to zero and we’ll have to re-engineer marketing all over again.”
As beautiful as she was before, talking about her passion made her come alive. Her eyes burned with conviction and she spoke with authority and confidence. It was a huge turn on.
I sighed. “I should go.”
“Mmm. Right. You did say just one drink.” She followed me to the front door and let me out. “But, maybe you could stay?”
I looked down at her. Jesus fuck she was biting her lip. “I—I can’t.” I turned and walked back to my grandfather’s property.
I stomped into the house, slamming every door I could.
“Fuck!” I paced in the master bathroom, trying to decide if I was going to take a cold shower or go back over there and take her up on her offer.
A cold shower wasn’t going to calm me down, not the way I needed. Only something physical would do the trick.
I thought about pissing Edna off again.
Why do that when there was a perfectly willing, perfectly gorgeous girl right next door nearly begging me to fuck her brains out?
Did I really want to step back into the role I thought I’d left behind me?