Page 12 of Right Next Door (Stone Family #3)

Ian

“ H elp! I need help!” Eloise bursts into Stone Ink like her ass is on fire and plows straight toward me. “My walk-in died. I need to move everything out and find a place to store it until I can get it fixed,” she nearly shouts in one big gust of air.

I grab her by the shoulders. “All right. All right. Take a breath. We’ll figure it out.”

I push her into my empty tattoo chair and jut my chin toward Jasper, who retrieves Eloise a cup of water and some candy, which she gratefully accepts with shaking hands. Once she seems calm, I ask, “Did you call somebody to repair it?”

“Yes, but they can’t come until tomorrow. Everything will spoil by then.”

It’s June, and the humidity has been killer lately. “All right. We’ll fit as much as we can into our fridge in the kitchen, and then I can take some upstairs to my place.” I wave at June for her attention then point upstairs. “Why don’t you go see what you can move around? Make some room.”

Eloise starts listing everything off on her fingers. “I have bowls of icing, butter, milk—oh god! My sourdough starter.”

“Not the sourdough starter,” Jay says from his position next to a girl getting inked on her side.

“Shut up,” I grumble at him, but he balks.

“I’m not joking. It’s serious business to lose the sourdough starter.”

Eloise flings her hand out, eyes wide, like my middle son gets it. Then she crumples. “Oh my god!”

“It’ll be fine. If I need to, I’ll call Taryn to see if she can take any at The Nest, but for now, why don’t you see if anyone has any room to spare in their kitchenettes on the next block? Jas and I will start moving things over here. Okay?”

With everyone’s instructions, we break up, Eloise to the left to find refrigerators we can borrow, and Jasper and me to the right to start carrying all the items the workers at Sweet Cheeks are packing up tightly.

We’re about fifteen minutes into the job when Nicole shows up, startling when she sees me. “Oh. Hi. I’m, uh, here to help.”

Ever since our…session the other night, the woman has ducked and dodged me at every turn, but now she and her bleeding heart have nowhere else to run. I hand her two bowls of some fruit compote. “The kitchenette next door is full, so these are going upstairs to my apartment.”

She nods. “I told Eloise I have a small fridge in the back of the store, but it wouldn’t be able to fit much more than a gallon or two of milk.”

“It’ll have to do.” I follow her out the back door of the bakery to the back entrance of Stone Ink.

A lot of the downtown buildings were erected during the turn of the twentieth century and designed for mixed-use, with businesses on the bottom and apartments on top.

Depending on the ownership, some of the buildings have been completely gutted and renovated, while others still have the apartments intact.

I live right on top of my business because I’d been able to buy the individual property, but I know there is an office on top of Sweet Cheeks, and Sue used to live in the apartment above Chapter and Verse.

Now it’s shared by a pair of recent college grads who I think are solely keeping Eloise in business.

The back door of Stone Ink opens up to a landing, which can take you into the shop or upstairs to my place.

I direct Nicole up, and it feels a little weird that the first time she enters my apartment is to pack the refrigerator with pie fillings.

I don’t miss the way her gaze coasts around, briefly pausing to study the framed photo on the wall of my mother or the furniture in the living room, but with a tap of my elbow to hers, she follows me and we put everything away, in time for Jasper to hand over a half-made cake.

Twenty minutes and another couple of trips later, we have the walk-in almost clear, helped by Taryn coming by to accept whatever was left over.

I double-check the shelves inside to make sure we have everything when Nicole steps in behind me, a tremulous smile on her face when she realizes what I’m doing. “We had the same idea.”

I pivot to face her, and after the last few days of being treated as if I have cooties, I’m torn between annoyance and desire.

Because as much as I want to hold on to the thin thread of frustration at the situation, it’s nowhere near the power of my craving for her.

I lean into her space, intent on apologizing, when all of a sudden, the door closes, shutting us inside.

Nicole whips around. “Hey, wait. We’re still in here!”

Someone outside responds, “Oops, sorry!” Yet the door doesn’t open. I hear something moving, some scratching, and then, “The handle is jammed. I can’t open it.”

Nicole turns to me with terror in her eyes, but I hold my hand up. “These are made with safety precautions. Don’t worry.” I call out to whoever is on the other side, “Where’s the release in here?”

“It’s on the left side. Look down.”

“Found it.” I push it, but nothing happens. I press it again. And again. And again. “What the fuck?”

Nicole wheezes, fingers tunneling into her hair. “Oh my god. This is how I die.”

“You’re not going to die. It’s just stuck.” I prop my hands on my hips as I raise my voice to speak to the person outside. “Hey, where’s Eloise?”

“I’ll get her. Hang on.”

A few seconds later, what I assume is a hand slaps on the fridge. “Ian? Nicole?”

“Eloise!” Nicole thumps the side of her hand on the door. “You have to get us out of here! I’m claustrophobic!”

I roll my eyes up to the ceiling, muttering a curse before I move close to the door. “Eloise, did you know the release was broken inside here?”

The hesitation before she answers already tells me all I need to know. “Maybe.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Eloise!”

“Don’t yell at me,” she says as Nicole slants her attention to me.

“Don’t yell at her.”

“I’m not yelling,” I grit out. “We’re stuck in a refrigerator, and you just said you’re claustrophobic.”

“Yes, but aren’t you supposed to be the coolheaded one?”

“I see you have an attitude when enclosed in tight spaces.”

She fans her face, turning in a circle. “Don’t remind me. Oh god. Oh god…”

“Eloise,” I try again after a deep breath, “is my sister still here? Tell her to have Dante come over. Maybe he’s got some way he can get us out. We can’t be the first people to be stuck in a fucking refrigerator.”

“Yeah, hold on!” Eloise bangs on the outside of the door a few times. “We’ll have you out in no time! Promise!”

But in the meantime, I’m stuck in a 6x6 box with a girl who is starting to sweat, either from her fear of being locked in here or me. Either way, if she passes out, it’s all my fault.

I turn a crate over and tug on her arm for her to sit. I inhale and exhale loudly, directing her to do the same. “You need to breathe.”

She does for a minute before placing her elbows on her bent knees and squeezing her eyes shut. “When I was eight, my brothers locked me in a steamer trunk. Told me they were going to show me a magic trick. But they just shoved me in and locked it. Made me disappear for hours.”

“Jesus fuck. What kind of demons are you related to?”

That earns a shaky laugh. “The worst kind.”

I watch her as she rolls her neck side to side, breathing slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth, her fingers curling into fists as her lips move, forming silent words that I think are “You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

I slide down to the floor, back against the metal door, hands folded in my lap, legs crossed out in front of me, making sure I appear as relaxed as possible to keep her calm, even as I have the urge to shout and kick at the door.

I’m genuinely worried about her having a panic attack, so I attempt to take her mind off our current situation. “How’s the tattoo doing? Healing okay?”

She flutters her eyes open, those big blue irises red-rimmed. “Yeah.” She runs her fingertips over it. “It’s good. Thank you.” She bites into her bottom lip as if steeling herself. “I love it.”

“And about what happened after… I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, and I clearly crossed a line?—”

“No, you didn’t. I wanted you to. I asked for it. Please don’t apologize.” She blinks a few times as if she might cry then focuses her gaze on the floor. “If you apologize, it’ll mean you did something wrong, and you didn’t.”

With her brows angled down and shoulders rounded over, she seems at war with herself, clearly upset, and I have to take some responsibility for it.

“Even if I didn’t do anything wrong, I still shouldn’t have touched you.

You have a lot going on, and I have not made it any easier on you, so for that, I’m sorry. ”

She shakes her head, her voice barely above a whisper. “You haven’t made it easier, but only because you showed me what I’ve been missing.”

“What you’ve been missing…in your marriage?”

She nods, and hell if that doesn’t make me want to puff up my chest. Also want to sock that nerdy fucking mop of a man in the mouth.

After a minute, she collects herself and swipes her hand over her forehead, then meets my gaze straight on.

Brave . This girl is brave. “I’ve been avoiding you because you made me feel things I never have, and it freaked me out.

Because…” She licks her lips, coughs out a sad little laugh.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know I want more of that . ”

I swallow the lump in my throat and replay those words in my head, making sure I understood them right. She wants more. “With me?”

She lifts a shoulder. “If you want to.”

I wipe my hand over my mouth and beard, biting back a sardonic chuckle. If I want to? That’s all I’ve thought about for the last three days. “Yeah, Nic, I want to.”

Her eyebrows arch like she can’t believe that, and when I hear people gathering outside, I move closer to her. “Don’t give me that bullshit about a guy like me and a girl like you.”

“It is kind of hard to believe, though,” she says a second before I hear Dante on the other side of the door.