I slapped my hands on my thighs and stood up. Maybe he had something in his cabinets. I opened the first one over the sink and found pretzels and a six-pack of beer. I grabbed the pretzels and didn’t feel guilty because they were already open. I tossed the chip clip on the counter and munched on a few as I searched the skinny cabinet and found rice and instant potatoes.
The fridge was better stocked. I dug around in the freezer and found some ground hamburger. Okay, not totally useless. He had a few more staples that I could probably make into something.
“Thank you, TikTok.” I opened the app and found my favorite food content creator. “Come fix you a plate,” I said with a grin. “Thank you, I will.”
TEN
When I surfaced again, it was with the scent of something salty and buttery sneaking into my bedroom. I groaned as I rolled over and squinted at my watch. Normally, the meds kicked my migraine enough that within twenty minutes that I could function, but this time, I’d been down for two hours.
I wasn’t even sure how I’d gotten home.
There was a fuzzy memory of...Dahlia?
Crap. How did that woman keep turning up in my life?
I sat up and scrubbed my face with my hands. Migraine hangovers were a bitch, but I was surprisingly clear-headed for once. Enough that a few more scraps of memory filtered in. Someone helping me across the street. Dahlia was a little thing. How the hell did she manage that? Arguing with me… Her being stubborn—shocker. Next thing I remembered was the trailer.
Then cool sheets and blackness.
I slid down the mattress to the foot of my bed. There wasn’t much room in the back of my trailer for much more than my king-sized bed. I was too damn tall for anything else, which meant I’d had to opt for a larger trailer. The sales guy had warned me my old truck wouldn’t last long—this rig was a big bitch.
He was right, but my old truck had lasted through the cross-country trek before it had shit the bed. Another piece of my past that had crashed and burned.
I opened the slim cabinet and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and T-shirt. I kicked my discarded boots to the side and opened the curtain. There was a covered pan with something that seemed like gravy and meat that made my mouth water.
Dahlia was sitting cross-legged in the corner of my couch. Her hair had dried into wild waves around her heart-shaped face. She looked up from her phone. “He lives.”
I grunted and opened the fridge. “I’m pretty sure I told you to go.”
“No way I was leaving you alone. You’re lucky I got you into this tin can.” She stood and tossed her phone onto the shelf behind the couch. “And I was hungry. Figured you might be too.”
“I didn’t ask you to cook.”
“I didn’t ask you to careen drunkenly into the road full of cars in the pouring rain. Maybe I should have let you get hit.”
“Maybe you should have.” I cracked a can of Liquid Death and guzzled it down.
She frowned as she moved closer. “You don’t mean that.”
I sighed. “No. It was just a bad migraine. It’s not a big deal.”
“Do you get those a lot?”
“None of your business.” I crushed the can and shoved it into the cabinet under the sink.
“Fine. You know what, I’ll just call Avery to pick me up.”
“Who the hell is Avery?”
I wanted to snatch the question away as soon as I asked. Was that her boyfriend? Was that Little Dick? Sounded like a Little Dick name.
She folded her arms over her chest. “She’s my partner.”
I peered down at her. “Partner?”
Maybe I didn’t need to worry about little dick or any dick for that matter. Maybe she wasn’t into dicks at all. Not that I should worry about anyone’s dick around her, let alone mine.
Fuck.
Her lips twitched. “Avery is one of my best friends and is our landscaping expert at Designing Women.”
“Oh.”
“Why should that matter?”
“It doesn’t,” I grumbled and turned back to the stove. “What’s this?”
“I only had so much to work with—but it’s Salisbury Steak.”
“I had that?”
“Well, kinda. You had hamburger but it seems all right.” She leaned closer to peer around my arm. “I followed the instructions, and it smells good enough that I’ll eat all of it if you’re not interested.”
“I didn’t say that. I just didn’t ask you to make anything.”
“Are you always this shitty?”
