Love Untold

Love Untold: Chapter 2

Love Untold: Chapter 2

Oh, hell! Chrissie panicked inside, eyes glued to the stranger on her couch.  What did I do last night?  

The man jumped back from the splash of lukewarm coffee that hit his bare chest...and then sighed patiently.  “I guess that means you’re still mad at me,” he said.  "And I should probably be thankful you put ice in your coffee.  Otherwise, that might have burned a little.”

Chrissie had no idea how he knew about her coffee or how he got into her house, or what the hell she should be mad about -- other than him being in her house -- but this had Dena written all over it.  Her sister wasn’t above hijacking her ring finger for a little practical joke, so depositing a half-naked man on her couch should be small potatoes to Dena Hill.  Chrissie  backed away from him, searching wildly for something -- anything! -- to use as a weapon.  Who knew the kinds of men Dena let sleep in her sister’s house?  Unfortunately, the only items at her disposal was a round orange and cream pillow or a vase full of daisies.  It was moments like this that she wished for a few more of those doo-dads she argued against.

“Who are you?” she said, skirting the back of the couch.  “What do you want?  Why are you in my house?!”

He eyed her oddly, watching her skittish retreat.  “Come on, Chrissie.  Don’t be that way.  I told you I was sorry.”

She tripped over the rug in her dining room, and quickly scooted a chair out to put it between them.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about...get out of my house!”

He hitched up his Scooby Doo pajama bottoms -- wait!...pajamas? -- and then casually curled his fingers around his hips.  “Chrissie...” he began.  She shook her head wildly.

“How do you know my name?  Who are you?!”

He frowned severely.  “You’re really going to play it this way?  You’re pissed; I get that; I deserve that, but really?  You bitched at me over the phone for something I couldn’t control.  You kicked me out of bed last night when I finally got home, and now you’re going to deny my very existence?  What’s next, Chris?  You going to throw the cream and sugar at me, too?  Maybe call the police?”

The police!  A wonderful idea!  Chrissie raced to the kitchen and picked up the portable receiver, dialling 911 with shaky fingers.  Oh,God, oh God, oh God!  Who is this guy?  And why was he talking to me like he knows me?  She glanced over her shoulder...and nearly dropped the phone.  He’d followed her.  Grabbing a hand towel, he stood there, half smiling, half frowning, shaking his head with disgruntled amusement as he wiped down his chest, and then poured himself a cup of coffee.  

“911, what’s your emergency?” a woman’s voice asked.  Chrissie jumped again, and called herself nine times a fool.  “Hello?  Is anyone there?”

“Yes!  Hello!” Chrissie answered in a shriek.  “There’s a man in my house, and he won’t leave, and I don’t know how he got there...well, actually, I have a very good idea how he got here, but I’ll deal with my sister later; right now, I want him out of my house, but he won’t leave!”

“Calm down, ma’am,” the dispatcher said in her own calm voice.  “Where is this man now?”

“In my kitchen,” Chrissie hissed, cupping her hand around her mouth -- why? she really didn't know -- and turned away from him, though that was probably a stupid thing to do.  “He’s right in front of me.  He won’t leave!  Make him leave!”

“Is he threatening you?”

Chrissie peeked at him again.  He saluted her with his coffee and took a sip.  “No,” Chrissie admitted, “but I told him to leave, and he won’t.”  How many times did she have to say that?

“What is your name, ma’am?”

“Chrissie Hill...I live at--”

“1423 Hillcrest Road,” the woman finished in a weird tone.  “Mrs. Willard, is this an actual emergency?”

Chrissie held the phone away from her and stared at it.  Then she said, “Of course, it is!  And who is Mrs. Willard?  My name in Chrissie Hill...”

“Yes, of course.  Mrs. Hill,” the woman corrected in the same weird tone.  Is she laughing at me?  

“No, not Mrs. Hill.  I’m not married.  And do something about this man!”

The man leaned a hip against the counter and grinned at her.  Chrissie blinked.  Wow...that’s a nice smile.  Then she gained control of herself, remembering that he wasn’t supposed to be in her home and focused on the dispatcher’s voice.  “Yes, of course,” the woman repeated.  “Miss Hill.  Now, this man in your house...does he...um, live there?”

“What?!  No!  Why would I call the police if he lived here?”

“Just checking, Miss Hill.  But to make sure I have all the details correctly...”  

Chrissie heard a small chuckle from the dispatcher, covered up with a cough.  “You found a strange man in your house this morning.  You don’t know who he is, and he won’t leave...correct?”

“Are you serious?!  Send a policeman over her right now to arrest him!”

“Just a moment, Miss Hill,” the woman said.  “Would it be possible to speak to this man?”

Chrissie looked at him again.  He was eyeballing her butt over the rim of his coffee cup, and when he saw her looking at him as he looked that way at her, he winked and smiled again.  Chrissie thrust the phone at him.  “She wants to talk to you.”

He choked a little on his coffee at that.  “This is new,” he said, gently setting his mug on the counter and reaching over to take the receiver from her.  His fingers brushed hers, and she jerked at the contact.  He raised an eyebrow.  “Yeah,” he said into the phone, his eyes never leaving Chrissie’s face.  “Oh, hey Sarah...yeah...yeah...”  Chuckle, chuckle.  “...no...okay, send him on...we’ll be expecting him.”  He clicked the phone off and placed it back on the cradle.

“Sarah’s sending a man over,” he told her.  

“Who’s Sarah?!”

“The dispatcher,” he explained, refilling his cup.  “You’ve met her...at Bailey’s wedding last month.”

Chrissie pressed a palm to her throbbing head.  This was surreal.  “Who the hell is Bailey?  And who the hell are you?”

“Still want to do it this way?” he asked.  When she didn’t answer, because she didn’t know how to answer that question, he said, “Okay...we’ll do it your way for now.”  He stretched a hand out.  “Hi, how are you?  I’m Race Willard.  I’m the guy you’re pissed off at right now for missing your birthday.”

“That still does not explain who you are!  Did Dena put you up to this?”  

Just then, Stinky sauntered into the kitchen and rubbed up against his leg.  The man bent down to pet the temperamental cat, and Chrissie automatically said, “Careful, he bites--”

Oh, wait...yeah, go ahead, Stinky, bite the mess out of him.  Maybe he’ll leave then.

The man arched his eyebrow again as he knelt next to Stinky, who was currently flopped down on his back with his legs stretched out and allowing this man to scratch his belly.  Chrissie glared at her unfaithful cat.  “Traitor,” she muttered at Stinky.  Stinky purred in return.

“No, Dena’s just as mad at me as you are,” he said, standing erect again.  Chrissie noticed how his abdominal muscles rippled with the motion, and his pajama bottoms drooped precariously on his hips again, showcasing a world-class lower torso.  She took a moment to really look at him.  

Thick, wavy hair the color of rich, melted chocolate.  Dark, dark blue eyes that sucked her into their depths.  A high forehead, strong jaw, wide mouth, thick eyebrows and a pair of ears that begged for her teeth to sink into them.  Chrissie didn’t know why she had this thing about a man’s ears, but she did.  The rest of him wasn’t too bad, either.  Not a tall man, but the wiry length of his limbs and the lean, trim core of his body made him look taller than he was.  In a good pair of heels, Chrissie would stand eye to eye with him.  

Not that she cared one iota how good looking he was, standing in her kitchen as though he’d done this a million times before.  She just wanted him gone.  “Please leave,” she said, on the verge of despondent tears.  She wiped her eyes hastily, hating that she was almost crying in front of him, because Chrissie Hill never lost control.  Chrissie Hill never cried in the face of failure.  Chrissie Hill never let her life get so out of hand that she needed tears to wash away a breakdown.

His face softened and he took a step forward.  “Aw, Chris...don’t cry...you know I can’t stand to see you cry.”  He walked closer and Chrissie, the idiot she felt she was steadily becoming, allowed him to get within arm’s reach of her.  Then she knocked some sense into her brain and scuttled out her side of the kitchen and into the laundry room.

Crap!  Trapped.  She spun in a circle, saw a broom leaning in the corner and grabbed it.  Whirling back to him, she pointed it at him.  “Not another step,” she warned.  Jabbing at the air between them, she managed to back him all the way into the living room again.  He raised his palms up in defense, but he smiled at her as though she was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

“Get out,” she said again.  “Get out of my house.”

He looked down at himself.  “Like this?  You want me to go out in my jammies, Chris?  You’ve never been much on humiliating people, you know?”

“You don’t know anything about me!” she yelled back, but he had a point.  She’d never force someone to walk outside half naked.  Especially with nosey Martha Biggs down the street, just looking for a way to sneer at her for Joe’s relocation across the ocean.  Like that was any of Chrissie’s fault.  Joe probably got tired of his mother breathing down his neck every second of the day.

She glanced down at her own appearance.  The clothes she wore last night -- a pair of white jeans and a deep blue peasant blouse -- were rumbled almost beyond the help of a good ironing, and a small stain that looked remarkably like red wine -- she’d been drinking white wine before the damned tequila showed up -- graced the left thigh of her pants leg.  She truly did look like hell, and he looked great, and that just irritated her enough to want him gone all that much more.  

Chrissie took in his bare chest again, suppressed a tiny sigh of pleasure, and said, “Where are your clothes?”

He rolled his eyes at her.  “In the laundry hamper...just where you prefer.”

She was about to screech at him to go get them and depart her house again when the doorbell chimed.  The man, being as he was closest to the front door, answered it.  Chrissie almost fainted in relief when she saw the uniformed policeman standing there.  But then the policeman grinned at her holding the broom like a sword at the man that wouldn’t leave, and he said, “Hey, Race.  I see Chrissie’s pissed at you again,” and Chrissie let out a scream that rattled the windows.

“I think that just about answers that assumption,” her intruder said.  

The policeman -- Officer Walker, according to his badge -- leaned over and loudly whispered, “I told you to get an earlier flight out of Philly.”

The man wearing the Scooby Doo pajama bottoms said, “It couldn’t be helped.  All flights were rerouted to Chicago.”

Officer Walker hitched a shoulder and leaned casually in the doorway.  “You shouldn’t have gone to begin with.  Now look what happened.  I’m supposed to be getting off duty in a few minutes.  Instead, I’m here settling your domestic problems.”

Chrissie watched the friendly exchange with growing horror.  These two obviously knew each other, and if she couldn’t get one man to do as she ordered, how in the world would she get the other to listen to reason?  He’s a policeman, a little part of her mind told her.  He has to uphold the law...and the law says that men just couldn’t sleep on a woman’s couch without permission.

It should also be a crime to look that great in those ridiculous cartoon bottoms, but she didn’t dwell on that thought for very long.  “Excuse me,” she said in a scornful tone.  “Officer Walker?  I really hate to interrupt your friendly chat here, but would you please arrest this man?  He’s breaking and entering...or whatever you call a man who sleeps on my couch.”

Both sets of male eyes turned to her, and she took a step back.  “Now, Chrissie,” the policeman began, but she yelled, “Don’t call me that!  I don’t know who either of you are!”

The men exchanged a quick, amused look, and Officer Walker straightened from his post on her doorjamb.  “Okay...Then we’ll just do it your way, Mrs. Willard.”

Chrissie grunted with exasperation again.  “My name is Chrissie Hill...not Willard!  And I am not a Mrs.!”

Officer Walker glanced at the man beside him.  “She do this a lot?”

“Only when she’s really mad at me,” the man said with a small smile.  Then he whispered, “I think it’s kind of cute.”

Cute!  Chrissie felt like running them both through with the broom handle, but she couldn’t assault an officer of the law, no matter how infuriating he was.

Officer Walker shook his head.  “The next time I tell you not to go on a race during your wife’s birthday, I think you’ll listen to me, huh?”

Chrissie stopped -- completely frozen -- and stared at them both.  Wife?  Whose wife?  I’m a wife?  She directed her frozen stare at the bare-chested man.  Didn’t he say his name was Race Willard?

Oh, God!  What did Dena do?

*****

(This story is a finalist for the Non-Teen category of the 2011 Watty's.  Vote and support if you love it.)