Page 52 of The Right Garza

I stumble out of bed and pad to the en suite bathroom. More grays and blacks.

Finding new toothbrushes in the cabinet, I rip one open and clean my teeth, spying on the other items in the cabinets as I do. Nothing interesting. The usual toiletries. Bummer. A lack of unpronounceable medication proves his asshole behavior isnota side-effect of some underlying medical condition. He’s just a natural asshat.

After I’ve freshened up, I make the bed and head out of the room. Trent is nowhere to be found, so I take advantage of his absence and explore his house. It’s three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, with an office, and a basement that’s a man-cave slash gym. All clean lines and ultra-modern. Not what I would have guessed his style to be, but what do I know about him anymore?

When my stomach begins to grumble, I end the tour in the kitchen.

I’ve no clue where Trent’s disappeared to. It’s possible he works on Sundays as well. He might have told me and I might not have listened. Who knows?

Feeling too lazy to prepare anything, I opt for cereal. There’s none of the good stuff in his pantry, though. All kinds of shredded wheat and fiber-loaded crap.Blech.

Still, I pour myself a bowl of the one with the most sugar content and pad over to the cloud couch. Finding the remote, I power on the TV and go straight to Lifetime, because as predictable and cliche as their movies are, they’re still crazy addictive.

I’ve emptied the bowl of cereal and am contemplating going for seconds when I hear the front door open and close, followed by footfalls.

A few seconds later, Trent strides into the room in workout gear with a water bottle tipped to his mouth.

“Hey.” I sit up from my slouch. “Where have you been?”

He stops, regards me for several seconds, as if he’d somehow forgotten I was here, then shrugs. “Oh, just out doing manly man stuff. You know, gotta keep things tight.”

“Huh?” I fight back a laugh. “‘Manly man stuff’?”

“Yeah.” He sets the water bottle down on the side table. “Lifting tires and chopping wood and shit.”

“Chopping wood—w-what are you talking about?”

“Don’t worry about it, baby. That’s why it’s manly man stuff.” He dives onto the couch and slides up next to me, then sweeps a loose tendril from my face. “You missed big daddy, huh? Missed these guns?”

This time I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. “Baby? Big daddy? What is wrong with you this morning? You’re being weird.”

A delightful grin splits his face. “I’m just high off you, sweet thing.”

At that, I narrow my gaze, then lunge at him. I grab his arm and twist it to check the underside and, as I figured, there’s an ace of clubs tattoo, not spades. “True.”

“Dammit,” he grumbles. “What gave me away?”

“You mean aside from the nonsense you just spewed?” I ask, dropping his arm. “It was the grin. Trent doesn’t ‘grin’ unless he has a reason to. You, on the other hand, dish them out like free condoms.”

He makes a face. “That’s a really weird analogy.”

I frown, then agree. “Yeah, true.”

He folds his arms behind his head. “So, how’s it going, wild thing?”

“Eh, same old-same old,” I say. “Except I’m not wild anymore. I’m so tamed I need a cane.”

“And how’s the guesthouse renovation coming along?”

“Great. But man, it’s alotof work. Trent’s making sure I work off every penny of that debt,” I tell him. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about renaming it. Use ‘Bed and Breakfast’ instead of ‘guesthouse’.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Barefoot Runaway B&B…?”

His gaze drifts to ceiling as he thinks about it. “Hokey, but charming.Ilike it,” he says. “But your grumpy boyfriend would have to sign off.”

That makes me snort. “Boyfriend? Where’d you get that from?”