Just One Year(6)

RE: Unsolicited Advice



What are you talking about?



Again, his reply was immediate.



From: Caleb Yates

To: Teagan Carroll

RE: Unsolicited Advice



There was never any point to this email exchange because…DRUMROLL...I’m right upstairs.

RIGHT upstairs, Teagan.

Why would you send me an email instead of coming to talk to me?

(Seriously!)



I slammed my laptop shut. I was done. Done.

Yet over the next several minutes, as I continued to put my clothes away, I did nothing but obsess. Why was I letting him get to me? I didn’t want to react this way. He’d blown the whole thing out of proportion. The email was an attempt to get my point across without having to see him, but maybe I’d have to get in his face after all.

I stormed up the stairs and headed straight to my old room—his room. But when I got to the top of the stairwell, I swallowed the words I’d been prepared to unleash. The unexpected sight of Caleb doing pull-ups met my eyes. He used a bar affixed to the top of the door to lift himself up. He wore a T-shirt that rode up each time he rose. His hard abs were now staring me in the face, ripples of carved muscle. He had black wrist wraps on. He’d turned my old room into a home gym.

He was a bastard—but there was no denying he was beautiful.

I cleared my throat. “Did my father give you permission to put that thing in the doorway?”

The house shook as he landed on his feet. “Well, hello, Teagan. Amazing how easy it is to walk up the stairs, isn’t it?” He grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “And yes, in fact, your father did give me permission to put the bar up.”

I came out with it. “You think you know it all, don’t you? Who are you?”

He glared at me. “Who am I? Well, nice of you to ask, Teagan.” He threw his towel down on the desk. “You’ve had no interest in getting to know me from the moment I walked in the door. But since you finally did inquire… Hi, I’m Caleb Yates. Happy to be here. I have no clue what I’m doing with my life and have a somewhat crappy family situation back in England. So, I came to a strange country for the first time to get away for a bit. I miss my mum, but the good news is, I’ve just moved into a house where everyone is cordial—except for the cranky girl in the basement.”

Wow.

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

He came closer, and the smell of his cologne mixed with sweat was…interesting. Couldn’t say it was a bad thing, that’s for sure.

“You didn’t have to write me a snooty email, Teagan. You can come talk to me if I do something to piss you off. If you write me emails like that when I’m right upstairs, that’s the kind of response you’re going to get, each and every time.”

He had a point. The email was a bit cowardly of me. Yet I’d still managed to convince myself it was a good idea. He was right. Anything I needed to say to him, I should be able to say to his face. Quite honestly, the benefit of that was also his face—getting to look at it, I mean. It turned out, looking at him was a lot more fun than avoiding eye contact had been. Thank goodness he can’t read my mind right now.

Seeing that he actually seemed angry as opposed to amused caused me to change my tune—that and perhaps his scent going straight to my head as it followed my mind right into the gutter.

He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

I looked down at my empty hands. “Give you what?”

“The stick in your arse. Take it out and give it to me.”

I crinkled my forehead. “What?”

He wiggled his fingers. “Come on. Hand it over.”

Genuinely curious as to where he was going with this, I motioned with my hand, pretending to remove the imaginary stick from my derriere and throwing it over to him.

He pretended to catch it, then let it weigh him down. “It’s bigger than I thought.” Looking around he said, “I’m gonna find a space for it. Hang on.”

I laughed, against my better judgment. He shoved the imaginary stick under his bed and wiped fake dust off his hands.

“Now that that’s out of the way, why don’t we start fresh?”

Do I really have a choice? This guy was going to be living with us for a year. It would be easier to get along than continue on the rocky path we’d started down—the rocky path I’d carved. As annoying as Caleb was, he’d managed to charm me just enough. I decided to try to let my anger go.

“Okay, Caleb.”

He was all too amused by my change in attitude. “Wow. Didn’t think it was going to be that easy.”

“Well, it just hit me that you’re not going anywhere.”

“Ah. So I’m like an incurable disease.”

“Or an allergy.” I laughed.

“Quick. Someone tell that chap Bo Cheng to stay far away from me.”

“Good ol’ Bo Cheng. He doesn’t realize he dodged a bullet with the cranky girl in the basement,” I cracked.

Am I actually playing along here? What kind of a spell had this guy placed on me?

“Why are you down in the basement?” he asked. “This is such a beautiful house. And seeing as though I’m now in your old bedroom and can personally attest to how nice it is, I can’t imagine why you’d give up this space for that little room down there.”