I turned off Ocean’s Eleven and sighed. I had been fast-forwarding through a handful of movies for over half an hour. Why did no movies about robberies have a helpful lock-picking scene?
Probably because they didn’t want to aid lunatics like me. I’d just need to keep trying my bobby pin. I put the movie back on the shelf and walked over to the basement door.
Again, I pressed my ear against the wood. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to hear. Someone crying for help? An animal begging to be let up? But it was completely silent. I couldn’t even hear the whirl of a sump pump. Not that it had been raining.
It’s just a basement. A normal, regular, everyday basement. My thoughts didn’t stop me from dropping to my knees and stuffing my bobby pin back in the door. Come on. Opening that door had completely taken over my thoughts. I needed to get in. I needed to know what secrets he was hiding. Because I couldn’t be the only one with skeletons in my closet. There had to be something wrong with him too. I couldn’t be with someone so perfect.
That wasn’t really the issue. The question was, why the hell would he want to be with someone as messed up as me? He should have seen me fall and ran in the opposite direction. I was trouble. And Ben was out of his mind if he wanted me.
But he did want me. Every glance, every touch, I wasn’t insane. I wasn’t making our connection up in my head. He liked me. So he was the crazy one. Maybe that was his flaw. Wanting me. Desiring something so clearly broken. Wanting to save someone who couldn’t possibly be saved.
Come on. I wiggled the bobby pin to the left. My psychologist said I needed to think more positively. So for once in my life, I was attempting that technique. The lock would make a click or something soon. Any second now the door would open for me. Any second now. The bobby pin snapped in my fingers, half of it jammed into the lock. Shit. No! I put my eye right up next to the doorknob. Oh God, oh God, oh God. The end of it was lodged into the lock.
I grabbed the small piece that was jutting out and tried to pull it, but I couldn’t make purchase on it. It just slipped from my fingertips before I could even try to get it out.
How long had Ben been gone? An hour and a half? Tops. He said he had a few jobs. It took him a little less than half an hour to mow his lawn. That meant he could be home any minute. He couldn’t see this.
I had looked all over his house and I hadn’t seen a toolkit. Where did men keep their toolkits? I slammed my palm against the basement door. The basement. They kept them in the basement. What have I done?
My fingers slipped from the end of the bobby pin again. I couldn’t give up. There had to be something I could use. I ran into the kitchen and started throwing open drawers.
I lifted up the wine opener. With all the metal things sticking out of it, I thought one might be useful. But of course none of them were. I threw it back down and opened up another drawer. I almost screamed in delight. Tongs! I could use tongs!
I pulled them to my chest and thanked a God I didn’t believe in, before running back to the door. I knelt down and pinched the bobby pin with the tongs. The tongs immediately slid off the piece of metal. No. This was going to freaking work. It had to. I moved my fingers to the end of the tongs and tried to keep my hand steady as I performed what could have been classified as the hardest medical procedure ever known.
The end of the bobby pin was just starting to come out when I heard the front door open.
“Addy, I’m back!”
It felt like my heart was beating in my throat. Come on you stupid piece of… The bobby pin flung out of the doorknob, pinging against the wall behind me.
“Addy?”
I did the first thing I could think of and kicked the mutilated bobby pin under the gap underneath the basement door. No! Why? I reached my fingers underneath the door but couldn’t find it.
“Addy?”
His voice was closer. There were scratch marks all over the front of the doorknob. A perfectionist would notice. I would have noticed. But Ben was a guy. He wouldn’t notice. Please don’t notice. I stood up and stuffed the tongs into the back of my jeans. “I’m here.” I sounded out of breath. I’d be suspicious of me. I ran into the kitchen and started shutting the drawers and cabinets I had opened.
“What are you doing?”
My hand froze on a drawer handle. “Oh. Um…” I closed the drawer and looked up at him. Half of the cabinets were still hanging open. Jesus. “I…” My voice trailed off. “Looking through all of your things of course.” He had caught me. There was no use lying. Besides, I couldn’t come up with a lie even if I had wanted to. The sight of him was too distracting. His shirt was damp with sweat below his neck and he had a smear of mud across his cheek. And all I wanted to do was jump him.
He laughed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the island. “I was able to avoid temptation.” He set my purse down on the granite countertop. “You must have left this in my car last night.”
I had been so suspicious of him, yet he hadn’t done anything wrong. We were the personification of good versus evil. I grabbed my purse off the counter and put it over my shoulder. “Okay, well…I guess I’ll just go.”
He laughed again. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I was going through your things. I’d want me out. I get it. Really, I’m just going to go before I make things even worse.” I tried to brush past him but he caught my arm.
“You’re adorable.”
Adorable? Ha. Not even a little bit.
He ran the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. I hadn’t even realized I was pouting. “Stay. I need to go shower. You can finish snooping around before I get back down.”
I sighed. “Honestly, I’m already done.”
He raised both his eyebrows. “You’ve looked everywhere?”
“Pretty much.”
His smile never faded. “Find anything good?”
I was very aware of the pair of tongs shoved down my pants. The metal was digging into my back. “No. You’re officially perfect.”
He leaned forward, until his lips almost brushed against my ear. “I’m far from perfect. You’re just not looking hard enough.”
I gulped.
“I’ll be back down in a minute. Have fun looking around.” He walked away without another word.
Maybe he wanted me to get into the basement. My fingers itched to try to break into it again, but I didn’t want another disaster. Looking through drawers was one thing. Picking a locked door was another.
I couldn’t even believe he wanted me to stay. Although, he had been in my house while I showered. He had probably looked around. He had at least looked around enough to know that my trash needed to be taken out. He wasn’t as good at avoiding temptation as he claimed.
As soon as the water started upstairs I pulled the tongs out of my pants. I was just about to wash them when I heard my phone buzz.
I lifted it out of my purse. Ten missed calls. What the hell? Twenty text messages. A knot had formed in my stomach before I even clicked on the most recent text. It could only be from one of two people. And both would be bad. It was from my husband.
“Don’t make me come find you.”
The blood in my veins turned to ice. I scrolled back to the first text.
“I have a layover. I’m stopping by for a few hours so we can get lunch.”
Shit! I shoved my phone back into my purse. He was home and I wasn’t there. He was going to kill me. But I couldn’t let him find me here. I wouldn’t let him hurt Ben too.
But I couldn’t just leave. Ben would come down from his shower and wonder what was wrong. He’d come to my house. I grabbed a slip of paper and a pen from my purse and jotted him a quick note.
Ben,
Something came up. I’ll be back later. Thank you so much for the best first date ever.
-Addy
I ran to the door and cringed. His tongs were still on the kitchen counter. I didn’t want him to put butt tongs back in his drawer. And I didn’t have time to wash them. I went back to the kitchen and stuffed them in my purse. He stole my sneaker, I stole his tongs. We were even.
I grabbed the note I had left him and added my number to the bottom. Just in case he needed to reach me. Hopefully he’d call me instead of showing up unannounced. I was already in enough trouble.