Page 34

Lizzy

From inside my bedroom, Brodie lets out a bloodcurdling scream that could wake the dead. The kind you’d hear coming out of a teenage girl in a horror movie.

One who’s being murdered.

Then he comes bursting through the door, his large body almost plowing me down as he dramatically slams the door closed behind him, collapsing against the wall.

“I-it...it...almost…” He huffs and puffs and puffs some more, like someone seriously out of shape that’s just run up twenty flights of stairs, and I know he’s not out of shape because he’s on the hockey team of a division one university.

“Almost what, Brodie?” I patronizingly ask, crossing my arms because he has been blowing this situation out of proportion since the second he walked into the house.

“A-almost…got…me.”

Oh, brother. He’s being so dramatic.

I put a hand on his shoulder, patting him like a child. “What happened?”

He clutches a hand to his chest. Honestly, he does. “It lunged at me.”

“Did it lunge at you, or was it just jumping to a different spot?”

“ At me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because. One second, he was c-chilling there, looking at me with his tiny beady eyes, and the next, he was jumping at my fucking face like MacGyver.”

Who the hell is MacGyver ?

I don’t ask.

He is so worked up.

I try not to laugh. “Did he get you?”

Brodie cocks an eyebrow as if he’s insulted I’d even have to ask. “No, but he could have. ”

“But he didn’t .”

“But he could have.”

“Well.” I pause. “Where did he go when he landed?”

“I didn’t look.” He huffs some more. “I was too busy screaming.”

Yeah, I heard.

The whole neighborhood probably heard . “So he didn’t touch you, he didn’t eat you, and you didn’t see where he went after he lunged.”

Not helpful.

Not at all.

“Correct.”

When Brodie stands to his full height, I finally notice how much larger he is than I am.

How tall.

How broad.

How good he smells.

Even though the situation is serious, I can’t help noticing all these things about him because I’m a warm-blooded female, and that’s what I do.

“What do we do now?” I can feel myself worrying my bottom lip. “My landlord isn’t scheduled to be here with the pest control guy until tomorrow, and I can’t get ahold of anyone.”

He considers this for a few seconds. “We’ll open the window and hope he hops out at some point tonight.”

Brodie shoulders his way past me, elbow brushing against my right boob as he heads toward the front door.

I follow, trudging behind until we’re both standing outside my bedroom window, side-by-side, staring up at it. It’s not as low to the ground as it seems from the inside, and I scratch my head, debating our options.

Ladder.

Stool.

“You’re gonna have to climb up on my shoulders. There’s no other way we can reach it,” he announces, the exact opposite of what I would have suggested as a solution.

I’ve seen cheerleaders’ stunt teams, but I’m not bendy or flexible and cannot imagine myself climbing on this guy, let alone being able to balance and not fall off.

“That’s never going to work…”

“You’re tiny. It’ll be easy.”

My girly insides get a little mushy when he calls me tiny because I’m not tiny in the least. He’s just massive.

“Well,” he says impatiently. “Do you have a ladder?”

“No.” I pause. “Do you?”

He shakes his head. “Just get up on my shoulders and push on it if you can. The window is unlocked, thank god.”

He gives instructions as if it were going to be easy to hop onto his shoulders and jack a window open—as if I do it every day.

“But I’m…” Naked.

Not wearing underwear.

No bra. Just this robe. Because I thought it would be a good idea to lounge around after my shower and not put clothes on . Because I did not think anyone would see me, let alone need to boost me up on their shoulders.

N – A – K – E – D.

My unfinished sentence lingers, and I know that he knows I’m not wearing anything beneath this pink wrap.

“I won’t look.”

Honestly? I wouldn’t mind if you did .

Brodie isn’t classically good-looking, but he’s big, and he has that ridiculous deep voice that has the potential to make a girl cream her shorts with very little effort. I imagine he’d make a great radio DJ if the hockey gig doesn’t work out for him.

He is lumbersexual personified, complete with the beard.

“…Just get up on my shoulders, Lizzy. I promise I won’t peek,” he says, and I snap my attention back to his mouth.

…won’t peek , his mouth is saying .

Won’t peek , won’t peek , won’t peek .

“Trust me.”

Very tentatively, I step forward.

Brodie squats down as low as he can go to make it easier to climb on. But I’m not coordinated and have no desire to straddle his shoulders, so I start whining about how difficult this is, how I’m not a gymnast, how I’m not bendy, how he’s too tall, blah blah blah . Complain, complain, complain.

“Fine,” he relents. “How ’bout I lift you by the waist. You okay with that?”

Am I okay with that?

“We gotta get this window open so that tiny asshole sees his way out of your room.” He hesitates. “Unless you want to leave him inside until your landlord gets there.”

He makes a strong argument.

I give my head a little nod. “Okay. This just feels awkward because we just met, and now you want me to climb on top of you while I’m naked.” I drop the reminder again because like I said, I’m a warm-blooded female, and now I’m playing a new game—get a reaction out of Mr. Serious and Professional.

“I hadn’t even noticed.”

Hadn’t noticed?

I actually believe him.

“Be careful when you lift me, ’kay? I have sensitive skin.” The wind kicks up, and I feel a draft hit my tush, reminding me exactly how naked I am, fully aware that I could easily march back inside and borrow pants from one of my roommates so I’m not outside half naked.

I tell him I’m naked as a joke, but the expression on his face falls, and suddenly, Brodie looks miserable.

“Let’s get this over with, yeah?” His voice is gruff. Stern.

I step in front of him, bracing to have his hands on my hips, my body, my?—

“Ready?”

“I was born ready,” I deadpan ’cause I’m totally not ready.

“On three.”

One.

Two.

“Three.” Brodie lifts me, and when he does, I swear my robe hikes up, exposing my bare bum, the breeze hitting my bare flesh in a way that has me glancing down. I angle to get a glimpse of my own ass but get a glimpse of his face instead.

He’s horrified.

“Oh my god, is my ass in your face?” It’s the one and only thing I care about right now. The squirrel inside my room is suddenly forgotten as I teeter high above the ground, ass end not far from Brodie’s face.

He neither confirms nor denies it. “Just push the window open, please,” he grumbles. “We have a job to do.”

Right.

A job to do.

Window to open and all that jazz because: squirrels.

If I’m too heavy for him to lift or he’s having a difficult time keeping me steady, he doesn’t show it. His arms don’t tremble, and he doesn’t waver.

My god , he’s so strong.

It’s sexy as all hell, and he’s right in my backyard...

Then again, with his hands on my waist and the breeze on my skin, it’s kind of getting me tingling in places I don’t want to think about, considering there’s a fucking squirrel terrorizing my room.

Leave it to me to be thinking about sex at a time like this.