Wrong for You (Before You #3)(6)
“It’s fully furnished. You won’t need to buy anything but food.”
“Okay.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” He slipped his wallet out of his back pocket, pulled out several crisp one hundred dollar bills and held them out to her.
Wow. She wouldn’t have expected him to carry that much cash in his wallet. He was driving a brand new black truck, but a new car didn’t mean he had money. She had plenty of friends who spent their life juggling credit cards, mortgage payments, and car payments, but they didn’t have much left to do anything else. She took the cash out of his hand. “Don’t you want to see it first?”
“Nah, I trust you.”
“Okay. Let me give you the address and the lockbox code.”
“Do you have a pen?”
She handed him her bright purple pen and he twisted it between his thumb and his index finger inspecting it. “Cute,” he said popping off the cap. “Violet for Violet.”
She laughed. “Ahh…you caught that.”
Sitting down, he balanced the volunteer application on his thigh and the purple pen rested against his lips as he scanned the application. Okay. Even though she had every intention of keeping her distance from Alec, she had no intention of allowing him to keep that pen. She enjoyed the view of it rolling along his firm lips too much to let him keep it. It would be a good memory on the days that she was knee deep in the life of an underfunded charitable organization.
“Address?” he finally said, looking up at her through his dark, long lashes, bringing an unwanted and abrupt halt to her inappropriate thoughts.
“Right. 42 Mountain View Rd. It’s a small white bungalow not far from the University. The lockbox is on the south side of the house, hanging from the iron railing leading to the basement apartment. The combination is VVV.”
He frowned after he finished scribbling notes at the top of the application and even his frown was appealing in a dangerous, heart-stopping way. “You might want to come up with a safer combination.”
She shrugged. “I haven’t had any problems yet. I don’t have much to steal and this is a small town.”
For some reason, he didn’t like that answer and his frown morphed from mild disapproval to downright threatening. He cocked his head to the side, not saying anything for a few excruciating seconds. His silence was killing her. “Trust me, Little Violet, you have plenty to steal.” Without bothering to explain his comment, he folded the application twice and stuffed it into his back pocket along with her purple pen. “See you around lunchtime.”
With her eyes trained on his ever so tempting backside, he walked out the front door of the Foundation without a backward glance.
She shook her head, forcing her mind out of the gutter and back into reality. Drooling over the dark and mysterious Alec Reed needed to end immediately, but she had to admit today was looking much better than yesterday. Admiring him kept her mind off the Foundation’s endless problems, and now she had one volunteer to help around the center for the next month. But most importantly, she had a temporary tenant, which translated into additional income for her broke ass, and as long as he kept to himself and didn’t have any crazy parties, she’d be happy. Those three things would go a long way toward maintaining her sanity until she could retreat to her parents’ ranch for two weeks and re-evaluate her plans for the future.
Chapter Four
Alec opened the door to Violet’s basement apartment, pausing at the entrance to take in the space. Though clean and uncluttered, the space wasn’t up to the standards of his new life—the life of luxury and excess he had lived since Chasing Ruin exploded onto the music scene. He didn’t mind, though. It definitely beat the crap he lived in after he left Montana and his childhood home, where it was a daily occurrence for him to trip over empty liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia.
The apartment consisted of one large room that included a small kitchen with a single wall of cabinets, a small circular kitchen table, a double bed pushed in the corner, and an old tan sofa with a low coffee table.
He tossed his overnight bag on the bed and texted his manager the address of his temporary apartment. He needed more clothes if he actually intended to spend the entire month here. Two pairs of jeans and two t-shirts wouldn’t cut it, particularly when the apartment clearly didn’t include a washing machine, unless it was tucked into one of the closets or the bathroom.
His phone rang. Marcus. Well, about time. Nobody had heard from him since he stepped off the tour bus a month ago. He wasn’t worried. Disappearing was Marcus’ thing. He’d been doing it since he met him years ago. The one time he bothered to ask Marcus where he went, Marcus responded with stone cold silence. He hadn’t asked him since. He had secrets too and he understood the rules.
“Hey,” Alec said.
“Hey. Where are you? I’ve been calling you for two days.”
“On vacation.”
Marcus chuckled. “No really. Where are you?”
Alec blew out a long exaggerated breath. “In Montana taking care of some shit.”
“Your mom?”
“Haven’t seen her. I plan to keep it that way.” He didn’t expect Marcus to comment or pry. That was one of the things he liked about Marcus. Even though Marcus acted carefree, Alec knew he had as many dark and f*cked up secrets as him. As different as they looked on the outside, on the inside they were a mirror reflection of each other.