Tiny Glitches: A Magical Contemporary Romance by Chastain Rebecca

Author:Chastain, Rebecca [Chastain, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-12T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I woke to the silence of the house. With the curtains backlit by a streetlight and the clock beside the bed dead, it was impossible to determine the time. My eyes felt gritty, so I guessed it was early. Like three o’clock early.

Hudson sprawled on his back, the covers pushed to his waist. One hand rested on his stomach, the other on my thigh. I listened to the muted sounds of sporadic traffic and stared at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to return. It’d been a long time since I’d slept in an unfamiliar house. Memory of my trashed home started my pulse pounding and chased away any chance of me falling back to sleep. Easing out of the bed, I grabbed my bag and closed the bedroom door behind me. I dressed in the front room in jeans and a tank top and a loose, cowl-neck sweater.

I selected a leftover slice of pizza and meandered through the house as I ate. The pizza had been cold last night, too, when we’d finally gotten around to eating.

I peeked out the window beside the front door. The sky above the rooflines held a mix of blue with the yellow city glow. It must have been closer to five than three. Cars lined the street, and if Hudson’s friend, Matvei, sat in one, I didn’t see him.

I turned my back on the window, the world, and the stresses of the day awaiting me. Padding barefoot back to the kitchen, I grabbed a second slice of pizza, then roamed down the hall. Of the house’s two bedrooms, I’d seen the master, complete with its sad little master bathroom and tiny walk-in closet. A half bath was squeezed between the bedrooms. Its oppressive navy tiles and stark white walls enhanced its squished-closet feel.

I cracked the door to the second bedroom, then pushed it wide, stunned. Nothing about the room matched the rest of the house. For starters, it was full. Bookcases lined one wall, overflowing with thick tomes, binders, and flotsam. A narrow table ran along another wall, buried beneath a slew of mysterious electronic paraphernalia. Where the rest of the house was neat in an almost sterile, unlived-in way, this bedroom embodied chaos. Beneath the table were two extension strips plugged into different outlets, and I counted fourteen cords leading up to doodads on the table. A desk pressed beneath the window, supporting three monitors and a filing cabinet’s thrown-up last meal. A sleek chair sat behind the desk. Smaller tables held a printer and an explosion of office supplies and open-faced binders. A clear pathway led from the chair across the hardwood to the burdened table, but piles of bags and books and more electronics clogged the rest of the floor.

Gripping the door frame, I reminded myself that I had no right to make any changes to Hudson’s home. If he wanted a cluttered health-hazard office, that was his prerogative. With a herculean effort, I shut the door and walked away.

I pulled out my work folder and opened it on the coffee table, but I couldn’t focus on it.

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