Lost Without You/A Jordan Knight FanFic✔️

04

THEN

I didn't know Alice's last name, so I couldn't look her up. Lucky for me, Redington was a small town with only one realtor named Alice. Alice Maxwell the sign said when I parked my truck on the street to attend the open house at a home I couldn't afford. My living situation was complicated—some might have even said flat out lazy.

Straightening my tucked-in button-down and running my hands through my dark hair, I clomped my "nicer" work boots across the street to the two-story house with a paneled wood door stained deep brown. As I contemplated knocking or just walking into the house—after all, it was my first open house—the door opened and a young couple holding a brochure passed me.

Alice's wide smile vanished when her focus shifted to me. I half expected her to slam the door in my face.

"Sorry, you can't afford this house," she said with big attitude and narrowed eyes.

"That's a little presumptuous of you." I smirked, taking in her fitted black dress pants, floral sleeveless blouse, and high heels. Her wayward hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back. When she moved one hand to her hip, her gold bracelets clinked against her watch. I devoured all five feet, six inches of her attitude and silently begged for more.

"I'd hardly call it presumptuous given the fact that you live at home ... with your parents."

It should have been a little embarrassing—being called out like that. But I saw the bigger picture. She looked me up. After she stormed off and gave me the bird, she looked me up.

"By choice. Not necessity," I said with the biggest grin on my face. My three roommates were my parents and my younger brother—not exactly things to share on a first date to impress a woman when you're twenty-two with a full-time job.

Alice didn't give me an inch. She held her scowl firmly in place. Earning every ounce of her affection gave me a lot of gratification. I would have been disappointed had she conceded her interest in me too quickly.

Her head tipped to the side like my—well, my parents'—dog. In hindsight, all the uneasy feelings she gave me in that moment were the start of something I would later recognize as love.

Fluid.

Ever changing.

A shifting pendulum of intensity.

"Is that why you tried to steal me? By choice, not necessity?"

Steal her ...

I grinned. "No. I'm certain that was out of necessity."

Alice didn't want to grin, which made the hint of a smile ghosting along her face that much more spectacular. "You're such a player. And a cheater. A thief. You were ..." Her pink glossed lips rubbed together as she contemplated her next words.

I stepped inside, taking a glance around the two-story foyer. "I was enamored. Hanging on your every word. Dumbfounded by that smile." My attention refocused on her face, which was far more appealing than the over-priced house she was trying to sell. "And you left me wounded on the sidewalk. Shot down with your middle finger." I toed off my boots and made my way to the living room, through the library, and around to the kitchen overlooking a manicured backyard with a fenced-in garden at the far corner.

"You're a liar and a thief," she said, her heels clicking behind me.

I turned and she came to an abrupt halt, chin tipped up to me. After studying her for a few seconds, I shrugged. "I've never stolen anything in my life, but I'd steal you if I could, and that's the truth. So now I'm just a thief, not a liar."