Before Time Runs Out: A Charles & Company Romance, Book 1 by Amy Matayo

Author:Amy Matayo [Matayo, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LongMill Press
Published: 2021-03-08T22:00:00+00:00

11

Bree

I wait until Theo falls asleep, which takes much longer than it should, and quietly climb out of bed. I started to earlier but stopped myself. I know I can be neurotic, but that doesn’t mean I want anyone to witness it. Judgment is best kept in the eye of the beholder, and I would rather not see it directed at me.

I straighten the unruly shoes, but now I am the mouse, and my shoes are the cookie, which means I am currently on a downward spiral of “what comes next?” I remember my top hat and jacket, and then carefully rearrange those. And, of course, once I get started, I can’t stop. So many things are out of order in this room, so I fix them one by one.

Pens must be capped or, in this case, quills must lie at a forty-five-degree angle and inkwells must be lidded and tightly closed. Jackets must drape across chairs but not touch the floor, stockings folded one into the other. Walking sticks must stand at attention to the left of the door. It’s a new rule I made up only a few moments ago but will now require. Just because we don’t use walking sticks in my America doesn’t mean they can just lie around haphazardly in the Industrial Revolution. Someone could trip and fall.

I eye my own clothes in the dark, suddenly worried I might accidentally time travel back home without my normal tee and cutoffs, assuming I travel at all. But if so, I don’t want to be dressed as a man when it happens because what what good would a nineteenth-century man’s suit do in modern times? If I’m going to finally own authentic attire from this time in history, I’d like to have a dress to go with my pretty shoes.

“What are you doing?”

I gasp when Theo’s voice rips me back to the present. I’m out of bed and exposed, so I reflexively pull my shirt down at the hem.

“I thought you were asleep,” I say, twisting around in an awkward hop-dance. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“I whispered. It’s not as though I screamed in your face.” He comes up on an elbow and winces, rubbing his shoulder with the other hand.

“You might as well have. People shouldn’t talk to people when they’re supposed to be sleeping. It isn’t nice.”

I can nearly see his perplexed scowl in the dark. “People shouldn’t be rearranging furniture when they’re supposed to be sleeping either. It wakes up the non-sleeping people.”

“That statement doesn’t even make sense.”

“None of our conversations ever do.” He breathes a tired laugh. “Now, back to my question, what are you doing?”

I’m not sure what’s more pathetic: my playing tug of war with Theo’s night shirt or my trying to explain this decade-long habit I can’t seem to break and don’t fully understand.

“I’m straightening up the room.”

“In the middle of the night? Can’t it wait until morning? In the light of day, I can help you.”

It isn’t that simple, even if I wish it was.

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