I chuckled. “I can’t. She doesn’t know what the words mean. She is only repeating things she has memorised, that’s all.”
“That’s all? You taught a parrot to tell me to fuck off!”
I burst out laughing, “Yeah, I know.”
Neala scowled at me. “You’re unreal; do you know that? I thought you couldn’t surprise me anymore with your stupid pranks, but yet again you’ve proved me wrong.”
Yeah, the way she was looking from my eyes to my stomach showed how much she couldn’t stand me.
“Then leave. The door is right there. I don’t want you here anyway.”
Neala snorted. “I don’t wanna be here either, sweetheart. As soon as I find the doll I’ll be on my merry way and you can get back to semi-naked Saturdays with your parrot.”
Oh, feisty.
“I can get fully naked right now if you want a more full-on naked Saturday?”
“Spare me,” Neala said with her hand held up. “I don’t want the sight of your bare body to make me sicker than I already am.”
My body made her sick?
“Oh, is that what that look on your face is?” I mused.
Neala straightened. “What look?”
“You keep staring at me stomach, me trousers, and me chest. I must be very repulsive for you to keep looking at me the way you do,” I said sarcastically.
Neala swallowed. “I wasn’t looking—”
“It’s not nice to lie, Neala Girl. You of all people should know that.”
The jab about lying brought me right back to when we were kids. Anytime I pulled a prank on Neala and got caught, I would make up a lie and blame it on her, and ever since those times she had hated liars and lying in general. I always enjoyed pointing out when she was lying, or trying to lie.
The look on her face was priceless.
Neala closed her mouth, blew a large amount of air out through her nostrils, and shook with anger as she glared at me. “I’m not lying, and stop calling me that!”
Never.
I grinned. “Weren’t you leaving?”
Neala snarled, “I will after I find the doll.”
I winked. “Good hunting.”
It was just after two in the afternoon when Neala started what would turn out to be a two-hour hunt in the house in search of the Fire Princess doll. We had woken up very late, but I usually slept to the afternoon after I had had a few drinks.
After an hour or so of listening to her complain and curse me, I went into the kitchen and made some breakfast. I asked Neala if she wanted me to make her some food, but she just told me to fuck off, so I did just that and had my own meal. She eventually came into the kitchen when she was hungry, though; she stopped long enough to have some cereal, but it was only a mini break she was taking, she said, and then she would get back to her search – her words, not mine.
After breakfast I was stuffed and felt drowsy. A large meal always made me sleepy, but I was mainly tired from not getting much sleep during the night, so when I went back into my living room and settled down on my couch I closed my eyes and dozed off within seconds.
I opened them when I heard a loud bang, then Einstein’s squawks. I sat upright and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept, so I glanced to the clock on my living room wall and shook my head. It was after half six in the evening.
Was sleeping for three hours considered a nap, or a coma?
I wanted to go back asleep, but Neala’s cursing in annoyance and shouting at Einstein kept me up. I didn’t stand up from the couch, though; I was comfortable, and when the house fell into silence again I closed my eyes. Moments later, I snapped them open once more when I heard Neala gasp, then squeal in delight.
She had the doll.
I don’t know how I knew she had it; I just did.
How the fuck had she found it? I didn’t have it out in the open like she did at her house – it was tucked away in my goddamn attic, for crying out loud.
Wait.
“Are you up in the bleeding attic?” I shouted.
Silence.
Neala was dangerous when she made noise, but she was lethal when she was silent.
I stood up from my couch and slowly walked over toward the sitting room. When I reached the doorway, I was about to call out Neala’s name when she suddenly sprinted by me with a pink box tucked under her arm. She was running for my front door. Her escape was in motion, but I wouldn’t let her get away.
Not on my watch.
I ran after Neala and collided into the back of her just as she opened the front door. I grunted as she fell back and took us both to the ground. She wasn’t a big girl, but she wasn’t as light as a feather either, so when her weight slammed down onto my stomach, I dry-heaved with the force of it.
I moved Neala off me and groaned in pain. I hissed as I felt an ice-cold ache stab my bare feet. I pushed myself back away from my front door and looked up to see what cold and painful thing was touching me. What I saw caused me to widen my eyes and stare in horror.
“Jesus, Darcy! You didn’t have to jump on me— Omigod!”
Yeah. Omigod.
“Darcy, what is that?” Neala whispered.
I stared at the six-foot-tall wall of thick snow in front of me and licked my lips.
I blinked, then swallowed. “It looks like snow, Neala Girl.”
Neala gasped. “Does . . . does this mean what I think it means?”
I groaned as a slight pulsing pain formed in the base of my head.
“Yeah, Sherlock, it does.” I sighed and looked at my unwelcome houseguest. “We’re snowed in.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
No.
No. Bloody. Way.
I was not snowed in with Darcy inside his house.
I was not trapped here alone with him.
Just . . . no!
I scrambled back away from Darcy and the wall of snow and pushed myself to my feet. I turned and ran down the hall and into the sitting room. Rushing to the window, I opened up the blinds and gasped.
The snow was built up and completely covered the glass. If the living room lights hadn’t been on the room would be shrouded in darkness. I’d noticed it was unusually dark even with the lights on inside, but it never occurred to me that it was because snow was blocking out the sunlight.
“What are you doing?” I heard Darcy ask from behind me.
Trying to find a way out of here.
“The window is blocked too,” I said, and turned to face him.
I looked to his hands and growled.
He had the doll box.
“Give that to me,” I said.
Darcy rolled his eyes, leaned over, and put the doll box on a table next to a lamp. I was momentarily confuse
d; he had sort of complied with me, but why? I found my answer when I looked at his face and found his eyes almost popping out of his head.
He was about to lose it.
“We can’t be trapped in here. No way . . . Check all the windows and doors. There has to be a way out of here!”
I blinked as he took off running down the hall in the direction of the kitchen, then jumped when I heard him spew out a number of foul curse words. I guessed the kitchen door and windows were blocked with snow, too.
I picked up the doll box and hid it behind the couch; then I walked out of the living room and headed down to the dining room. I frowned when I realized I didn’t even have to go to the window to know it was blocked by snow as well. The blinds were open, and the snow was pressed against the glass plain as day.
I stared at the glass as my stomach churned.
This could not be happening.
“Please, Jesus, don’t do this to me!” Darcy shouted from the kitchen. “Trap me with anyone else but her, please!”
I rolled my eyes.
He was such a dickhead.
I walked out of the dining room and down the hall back into the living room at the same time as Darcy.
“What have I done to deserve this?” he asked me as I sat down on his couch.
I blinked. “You were born.”
“I didn’t ask to be born,” he hissed. “I had no say in the matter!”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed.
“You’re laughing?” Darcy snapped. “You think us being snowed in together is funny?”
I continued to laugh as I shook my head and said, “No, but if I don’t laugh, I’ll scream or cry . . . Is that what you want?”
Einstein shouted from the kitchen, “Fuck off, Neala!”
I glared at Darcy.
He winced. “No, I don’t want you to scream or cry. Panicking is the last thing we need to do.”
I nodded. “Exactly. So sit down and shut up. We’ll think better in silence.”
Surprisingly, Darcy did as he was told and sat down on the other end of the couch.
I looked at him, and quickly looked away. “Darcy, put some clothes on . . . You’ll get sick.”
It sounded like I cared about his well-being, but I didn’t. I just didn’t want to stare at his body any longer, because he was surprisingly very well built and I was definitely noticing.