Wicked in Love

Chapter 3 - that my heart

Fun Fact: Currently I live in Manitoba, Canada. How about you?

Esther Falls City in Manitoba is where the Chasing Red universe takes place. I made up the city and got the name Esther from the Bible :)

Good to know: If you can't read the chapter, log out of Wattpad then log back in. It should fix the problem. If you still can't read it, remove WIL from your library then add it again.

Cameron

Saturday. Sun's out. Clear blue skies. Birds flew and rode the wind, crapping and pissing in the air, probably busting a nut laughing when it landed on some poor soul. With the weather forecast a high of nineteen degrees Celsius, it was a nice spring day.

I felt like hell.

Working myself to exhaustion usually worked to shut my brain off and get some sleep. If that didn't, alcohol would do the trick. Last night both had failed. I ended up tossing and turning in bed—my own bed that had no business smelling like the alluring Spitfire in my dreams. And yet somehow it did.

Hell of a mind trick.

It was a little past noon when I stumbled in the kitchen, drank a well of water so I could put out the fire in my throat and hopefully piss the poison out of my system.

Groaning from the headache drilling into my skull, I grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled it off, threw it in a bin. Sweatpants came off next, the hair tie I always use. Then I stepped into the shower, programmed it, and let the hot water soothe. Cursed when I remembered I hadn't been here in a long while, and there was no soap and shampoo.

"Shit."

I vaguely remembered leaving a bottle of dish soap under the sink. Naked and dripping wet, I dashed to the kitchen, grunted with satisfaction when I saw the bottle, ran back to the bathroom.

So, I showered using lemon dish soap. It did the job.

The scruff on my face would make anyone run away screaming if they met me in a dark alley. I shrugged it off. In no mood to shave. My hair was getting long and needed to be chopped off. I shrug that off too.

The headache subsided considerably, and I felt a little more human by the time I finished brushing my teeth. I always store an extra tube of toothpaste and toothbrush along with spare clothes in my pack just in case I had to leave town for work without notice. I can't sleep without brushing my teeth.

I put on jeans, a white crew neck shirt, and a hoodie. Out of habit, I grabbed my wallet, tucked it in my back pocket, keys, cellphone. My hair was still wet, so I strung the tattered blue hair tie around my wrist, put on my boots, and walked out the door.

The sun blasted my eyeballs.

"Shit."

I went back inside, grabbed my shades, slid them on. Then I got in my truck and hit the road, heading toward the reason why I came back to Esther Falls City in Manitoba.

*

The white brick colonial house was built in the 1900s and sat on a small hill. Rick bought it as soon as it entered the market years ago. He renovated it, built his workshop in the back, a huge gazebo and a massive firepit for gatherings, a pond, and surrounded the property with trees that turned different shades of red and orange in the fall.

He liked that it had history and that there could be ghosts living in it. I hadn't seen any, but maybe he'd scared them off.

I drove down the winding driveway, parked my truck beside his, jumped out. I heard the crunch of leaves and twigs under my boot as I crossed the yard to the front door. And the sound of the radio pouring out from the open windows of the ground floor. Michael Learns to Rock was singing about being twenty-five minutes too late. Rick was definitely home.