“
I headed straight for the half-bathroom I remembered seeing on my other visits over. I peed and started washing my hands, and it was when I reached for a towel that I happened to look down and saw something small and brown run across the floorboard. I froze.
Leaning over just a little, I peeked around the toilet and saw it again.
Two little eyes.
One bare tail.
About two inches long.
It darted off, disappearing around the trash can.
I wasn’t proud of myself… but I screamed. Not loud, but it was still a scream.
And then I got the hell out of there.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d ever moved so fast going down the hall, thankful I’d seen him after I’d pulled my pants on and zipped them up, going as far away from the bathroom as possible.
Which ended up being the kitchen.
Rhodes was standing by the island, tearing paper towels off when he noticed me coming. A frown came over his face. “What’s—”
“There’s a mouse in the bathroom!” I squeaked and went past him, pretty much leaping onto the stool beside the counter, then jumping from there to the back of the couch with a frantic look toward the floor to make sure I hadn’t been followed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Amos stood up so fast the chair he was in fell backward, and the next thing I knew, he’d leaped onto the couch and ended up beside me, his butt propped up on the back of it, legs dangling inches off the floor in the air. Johnny and Jackie either didn’t care or were so stunned by Amos and me, that they hadn’t moved a single inch from the table.
“A rat?” Rhodes asked from the exact same spot he’d been in.
I shook my head at him, exhaling hard to try and bring my heart rate down. “No, a mouse.”
His eyebrows crept up about a half-inch, but I noticed it. “You’re screaming because of a mouse?” Did he have to ask so slowly?
I swallowed. “Yes!”
He blinked. Beside me, Amos suddenly snorted deep in his throat like he hadn’t knocked his chair over. Then I noticed that Rhodes’s chest was shaking.
“What?” I asked, eyeing the floor again.
His chest was shaking even more, and he barely managed to wheeze out, both eyes squeezing closed, “I… I didn’t know you were into parkour.”
Amos snorted again, lowering his legs and planting his feet.
“You backflipped onto the table…,” Rhodes choked out.
He was wheezing. The son of a bitch was wheezing.
“No, I did not!” I argued, starting to feel just a little bit… foolish. I hadn’t. I didn’t know how to backflip.
“You jumped from the island to the couch,” Rhodes kept going, raising a fist to hold it right in front of his nose.
He could barely talk.
“Your face… Ora, it was so white,” Am started, bottom lip starting to tremble.
I pressed my lips together and stared at my favorite traitor. “My soul left my body for a second, Am. And you didn’t exactly walk over here either, okay.”
Rhodes, who decided that this was what he was going to find hilarious, barely choked out, “You looked like you saw a ghost.”
Amos burst out laughing.
Then Rhodes burst out laughing.
One quick glance confirmed that Johnny was chuckling too, Jackie was the only one giving me a smile. I was glad someone had a heart.
They were cracking up, totally and completely cracking up.
“You know, I hope it crawls into one of your mouths for being so mean to me,” I muttered, joking. Mostly.
Rhodes grinned so wide, he came over and slapped his son on the back while they both kept laughing.
At me.
But together.
And maybe I wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight now, worried there might be a mouse next door, but it would be worth it.
”
”