Secrets (A Standalone Novel) (A Suspense Romance) (5 page)

After having a fabulous night with a guy the last thing
I expected was that he would totally disappear. But that is exactly what
happened with Chris. After finding his note lying next to me after we had sex,
he was gone.

I went to his house the next morning and knocked on
his door. I kept my eye out for days afterward to see if he might be coming
home at a weird hour or something. But he was gone. No good bye. No
explanation, he was just gone.

My heart sank as I thought about the night we had
spent together and how wonderful it had been. His muscular hands on my body,
his lips on my skin; it had been perfect. I really didn’t know what had
happened and why he had totally disappeared. Nothing like this had ever
happened to me before and I wasn’t prepared to deal with it. Obviously I didn’t
know Chris well, and we had only been neighbors for a short period of time; but
I liked him. I found myself thinking about our night together often.

I remembered his strong arms wrapped around me as he
carried me down from the woods. I could still, very vividly, remember his smell
that night, a musky mix of sweat and shower gel. My mind could get lost
remembering how he had ripped my clothes off and carried me up to my bed. My
head was still healing from where I fell while taking the final picture for my
art show. My ankle also was still healing from that fall. Every time I looked
at either of the wounds my mind went back to that night.

I could still remember the feeling of his lips on
mine. The sweet taste of his tongue as it entered and searched with mine. It
was hard to think about anything else than that night I had with Chris. How was
a girl supposed to move on when a guy just totally disappeared on her? I didn’t
know anything about Chris. Not his last name or what he did for work and
certainly I didn’t know where he had gone. I felt like a teenager again, the
rejection of a boy not calling. It was all-consuming for me.

While developing some pictures one afternoon I decided
I had to go snoop around his house a little more. He hadn’t come or gone for at
least a week and I didn’t feel nervous at all that he would come home. I had
woken up at all hours of the night to look and see if he was coming home, but
he never did. As I walked over to his house, I looked into the front window.
There was the same furniture as before and nothing looked lived in at all. In
fact, the whole house looked pretty empty. Or at least as empty as it had
before Chris had come.

Suddenly, it hit me. What if he never came back?
 

The thought of never getting to see Chris again made
my stomach churn. I don’t know why I had become attached to him so quickly; it
wasn’t something I normally did. But then again, I didn’t normally sleep with
guys I had just met either. I was a one man kind of gal and this fling had me
feeling like I had made a big mistake.

I was starting to understand why my friends got so
crazy when men didn’t call them back. It was horrible to be second guessing how
smart I was or how beautiful…all over a guy who didn’t call after having sex. I
felt absolutely ridiculous.

As I made my way around Chris’s house, I kept peering
into the windows to see if there was anything unusual going on in there. For
all I knew he could be dead in there for the past week and I was getting mad at
him for not calling me. I didn’t really know if he had left the house and I
figured I should at least check to see if his Jeep was still around.

The garage seemed a good place to go check next. The
last time I had looked in there it was totally empty and Chris had just moved
into the house. I let my hand slowly twist the door handle to the garage and I
pushed the door all the way open without going inside. It was difficult to see
in there and I knew I was going to have to turn the light on. I thrust my hand
into the doorway and felt around on the wall until I ran into the light switch.

The garage looked empty, except there was one box on a
shelf in the corner.

I walked over to the box and took a deep breath. It
would look pretty bad if Chris happened to come home right as I was going
through the things in his garage. I ran over to the door and looked around one
last time. There were no cars and no one even near the house.

The box was loosely shut without any tape or anything
over it. I certainly wouldn’t have cut through the tape to look inside, or at
least that’s what I told myself as I started to open the box. I had never been
a super curious person. I let mysteries remain and often figured that if
something was important enough I would be told about it eventually. But that
was for silly small town secrets. This felt like a bigger secret that I needed
to get to the bottom of.

I don’t know what exactly I was expecting to see in
the box, but I felt disappointed when I opened it and just found clothes. I
pulled out a shirt and some pants, both black. In fact most of the clothing in
the box was black. The fact that all the clothing was black seemed odd since I
don’t think I had seen Chris where any black at all since he had moved in.

As I closed the box up there was a noise outside the
garage.

My heart sank and I froze. I stood still and waited to
see what the noise was from. My heart pounded in my chest and I could feel my
mouth getting dry as I tried to swallow. I closed my eyes and took in a deep
breath.

I listened intently as I walked toward the doorway and
peered outside.

Then out of nowhere a cat ran away from the side of
the garage. I breathed a sigh of relief and shut the garage door behind me. I
had to get back to my own garage and finish developing my pictures for my big
gallery show. It didn’t matter if Chris ever returned; I still had a life and I
needed to continue living.

I had to stop worrying about this guy that I hardly
knew. My show was right around the corner and I absolutely had to make some
decisions on the pictures that I would be using. I had changed my mind at least
a dozen times in the last few weeks, but it was finally time to make the decisions
so they could prepare the gallery for my pictures.

As the days continued to pass I had to just give up on
Chris. He was a nice guy and I did have feelings for him, but any guy who would
disappear like this wasn’t right for me. I needed more than this.

I felt like an independent woman and waiting on a guy
to show back up just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I was starting to feel
desperate. I made the decision to stop thinking about Chris. Of course, that
quickly turned into trying to stop thinking about him, then thinking about him
a little and then all the way back to thinking about him all the time again.

I settled in with my preparations for my photography
exhibit. Every time I thought I had my list of pictures complete, I kept changing
my mind and looking through more and more pictures. This was my first big show
and I didn’t want anything to mess it up. Not even a broken heart over a one
night stand could distract me from my objective.

Then, at about midnight a week later; I was developing
pictures in my garage again and I heard someone pull up outside. I ran to my
garage window and looked to see who it was. Sure enough it was Chris.

He pulled his Jeep into the driveway and then got out
and went into his house. He was dressed in black. I could hardly see him in the
dark but he looked different. There was no smile and nothing about his demeanor
seemed pleasant at all. He looked scary.

Even though I was mad as hell at him for disappearing
and not calling me, my heart still raced as I watched him. He had some power
over my body that I just couldn’t put my finger on.

After about thirty minutes, I went quietly back into
my house. Surely now that he was home he would reach out to me again. Perhaps
he would stop by in the morning and tell me some elaborate reason why he
couldn’t call me?

Wait! What was I doing? I was already trying to give
him excuses for why he wasn’t able to call me. How pitiful was I? I shook my
head and tried to think about something else. When did I become this girl that
cared so much about what a guy thought?

I was doing so well at building myself up to be more
independent. But then I found myself sitting in the dark of my kitchen waiting
to see if Chris would come over. Even though it was the middle of the night, my
brain actually thought he might come running over to say hello and apologize. I
sat for about twenty minutes before finally deciding sleep was more important
than staring out my window in the middle of the night.

When morning came, the first thing I thought of when I
opened my eyes was what Chris was doing. I hurried and got dressed and went
outside to do yard work that I absolutely didn’t need to do. I’ll be honest; I
don’t know what came over me. I don’t know what internal urge drove me to want
Chris to come over; but I did. I desperately wanted him to come and find me and
tell me a fabulous reason why he had been unable to talk to me. After about an
hour working in my yard, I heard Chris leave his house and make his way over
toward me.

“Have you been behaving yourself?” he said as he
slapped my ass.

I slowly turned around and there he was in all of his
handsome glory. His hard muscles tugged on the blue shirt he was wearing and
his gray shorts hugged him in all the right places. I tried not to take in every
piece of him, but I couldn’t stop myself. He smiled at me with that mischievous
grin and my body reacted with excitement to every last nerve ending.

“Yep, you know it!”

I turned back to work on the weed pulling in my yard.
I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me ogle him.

“Well I’m going for a run, enjoy your day.”

With that, he was gone. Off and running down the
street like the last two weeks had not even happened. But there was awkwardness
between us. He had to have felt that, there was no way around it. I threw my
gardening tools down and stormed back into my house. How dare he just pretend
like nothing was off? What an arrogant ass! He seriously just slapped my ass
like nothing was wrong. It was amazing to me that he could even have a
conversation with me and not mention that he had been gone for almost two
weeks. It didn’t matter how hot he was. Any guy who wouldn’t try to at least
make up some sort of excuse was too full of himself for me to worry about him.

I went back into my house and tried to get rid of some
of my anger. But the more I cleaned and organized the house, the angrier I got.
In this day and age, how could any guy still be such a jerk? I just had to call
Rebecca.

“Hey girl what are you up to?” Rebecca said when she
answered.

“Guy trouble. I need you ASAP.”

It didn’t matter what day of the week it was or even
what time of day. The fact that I had a guy and there was trouble was so
exciting to Rebecca that she was over to my house in less than ten minutes. She
was practically in a full blown sprint when I watched her get out of her car
and make her way up to my door. We were long past knocking in our friendship
and she thrust the door open with a force of excitement.

“Who is he? How long have you known him? Have you had
sex?” Rebecca said breathlessly as she fell onto the couch.

“His name is Chris, it’s that neighbor who moved into
the house next door, known him about three weeks, although he’s been gone for
the last two…and yes we did…right where you are sitting.”

“Katelyn!
Eww
!” Rebecca said
as she jumped up off the couch and moved over to a chair.

“So let me get this straight. You fell down a
mountain, he rescued you, you had sex, he disappeared, and now he’s back.”

“Yep.”

“So what’s the issue?”

“He left for two weeks without even a call. You don’t
think that’s a bit weird?”

“I think the whole situation is weird. But I think you
need to step back and stop worrying so much about it. Really what’s the worst
thing that could happen here?”

I thought about it. There wasn’t really a bad result.
I mean the worst that would happen would be that we didn’t have sex again. But
I surely would still try to be friends with Chris. We were neighbors and all.

“I don’t mind being friends with him. My issue is that
he is acting like it is perfectly normal for someone to sleep with a girl and
then disappear for two weeks. It’s not like he told me ahead of time that he
would be gone. And why couldn’t he have at least called and just told me he was
on a business trip or something. That’s what is bothering me the most, He
didn’t even call.”

Rebecca sat and pondered my dilemma for a moment.

“Rob. That’s what we will do. Rob.”

I sat there and looked at her with an obvious
inquisitive look. I had no idea what she was talking about, but this wasn’t so
unusual. Many of our conversations ended with me staring at her and trying to
figure out just what she was trying to say.

“You know. Rob…the guy from my work that I told you
would be perfect for you.”

Rebecca was constantly telling me she met someone who
would be perfect for me. It wasn’t unusual that I couldn’t remember this
particular man. She had such a big heart and was just trying to help me find
the happiness like I use to have. She and Robert were so great together, and it
did give me hope that someday I would find a man that was my equal. Someday I
would be able to follow my dreams and have someone right by my side urging me
on.

“What exactly do you propose I do with this Rob?” I
laughed.

“Do him.”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“I’m not going to have sex with some stranger.”

But the second that sentence left my mouth I realized
that was exactly what I had done with Chris. I didn’t really know him. Yeah we
had talked a little bit, but he wasn’t anyone I could say I knew. I really knew
nothing about him. Well, except that he had the body of a Greek god. And
speaking of that body…it looked like someone finished their morning run…

Rebecca slowly stood and went to the window. Her mouth
was slightly opened as she watched Chris stretching on his lawn. I watched as
Rebecca devoured Chris with her eyes. It was clear she was having the same
physical response to the man as I was. I doubt there was a woman alive that
wouldn’t find Chris attractive. He was movie star pretty and delightful to
watch.

“You see what I’m talking about?” I said as I sat back
down on the couch.

“Oh yeah, I can see how you gave into that. I’m
married and my body is telling me to give this guy a try.”

Rebecca continued to look out the window and watch
Chris. She licked her lips several times subconsciously as she watched him out
the window. It made me laugh to see her get so excited. She had spent most of
her life without too much excitement; she kind of needed a little something
interesting to add to her dreams.

“So remind me who this Rob guy was again?” I said as I
cringed at the thought of going on a blind date.

“Remember, I work with him. He’s about your age and
super nice. You should totally just go out on a date with him. You never know.”
Rebecca said as a smile came across her face.

I never did know who Rebecca was going to think was
the perfect guy for me. She didn’t seem to have any criteria for choosing these
men. Often, simply the fact that they were single was the only thing she looked
for.

“Alright. Give him my number. I’ll go out with him. I
need to get my mind off Chris.”

Rebecca’s face instantly turned to delight as she
looked just like a kid in a candy story. I could tell she really wanted to fix
me up with this guy. She ran to her purse and pulled out her phone.

“I’m going to text him your number right now. You are
going to love him.”

I raised one eyebrow at her and laughed. She said the
same thing about every single guy she tried to match me up with. She always
thought I would love them.

“Love. That’s a bit much,” I said.

“Oh, you know what I mean. You will have a great date
with him. He’s super nice.”

“You know that’s the second time you’ve said he’s
super nice. Does that mean he’s really ugly and you’re trying to distract me
from that?”

“No. He’s cute. He is the total package. Just wait. It
will be great.”

I took a deep breath and tried to forget about all the
previous, perfect, guys that Rebecca had tried to fix me up with. She and her
husband certainly meant well, but their idea of perfect and my idea of perfect
just weren’t the same thing.

I hugged Rebecca goodbye and promised to keep her in
the loop of anything and everything that involved my dating life. There was no
turning back now; she was going to want to know all the details of everything
about my date.

Only a few minutes after Rebecca left my house, I
received a text message from this Rob guy. He sent a picture and a sweet hello
message. He was cute with blonde hair and blue eyes. His tan skin made him look
like a surfer, although Rebecca said he worked with her at the insurance
agency. He seemed too young to be in the insurance field. Although Rebecca was
also in that field, she had an old soul and insurance seemed to fit how much
she worried about everything all the time.

We made plans to have dinner the following night. He
asked to come pick me up for our date and although I initial refused, I finally
had to cave into him when he sent me a picture of Fred Flintstones car and said
I deserved a ride in that. It made me laugh and I needed a good laugh right
about then.