Anna screamed, startled and whirled toward the deep voice behind her. “Holy…” she breathed, her hand at her chest. “You scared me.”
A man was standing on the step leading into the small laundry room. He was backlit by the bright sunshine and in the relative darkness of the room she couldn’t see him clearly. But she saw he was big. Tall and wide. Not fat.
“Sorry,” the man said and though Anna couldn’t see his face, she guessed he was smiling. He sounded like he was smiling. He was a big, wide, smiling man. Anna felt her day improve a little more.
“No problem,” she said as her heart rate went back to normal. “I…well, I thought I was alone.”
“Obviously,” the guy said.
Obviously? Anna thought, her brows snapping together before she reminded herself that he could see her. What the hell does that mean?
“The dancing gave it away,” he said and Anna ridiculously felt herself blush. He should have ignored that. Pretended he didn’t see her dancing around to some teenager’s music. Polite people pretended they didn’t see people do embarrassing things. “The singing, too,” he added with a chuckle.
Wow. He’s laughing at me. A few choice words about spying and the difference between polite and rude rose to her tongue. Then, tall wide man stepped out of the doorway into the laundry room and Anna’s brain shut down.
Oh. My. God. Anna thought. He was easily the most handsome man Anna had ever seen in real life—short blond hair, green eyes that even in the darkness of the laundry room seemed to glow. He looked down at his laundry then up at her and his eyes seemed to touch her and she felt the strange chill of awareness creep up her back and across her chest. He was still smiling and she could see it all there in his green, green eyes.
Her heart, usually so strong and steady, went ka-thunk.
All the rest of him—the bones, the skin, the stubble across his chin and cheeks, even the veins on his arms that every woman on the planet absolutely adored—combined to create some kind of Prince Charming. This man was what her mind would conjure up when she was a little girl and her mother read fairy tales to her and her sister. When the hero came cruising up on a white horse he looked like this guy.
She had forgotten all about that, but as she looked at him it all came back to her and she smiled.
His eyebrows lifted and the look in his eyes changed from merry to uncomfortable. “Hi.”
Oh, God, stop staring, Anna told herself. “Hi.” She smiled stiffly and turned away, feeling dumb.
Great, she thought as she grabbed her jar of change. Prince Charming. Wonderful. Fairy tales, what is wrong with me? The man laughed at me.
“Are you using all of the machines?” he asked as Anna shoved quarters in the washers. Anna shut the lid on the last one, put in a small fortune in coins and glanced around the room at all the washing machines quietly chugging away.
“Looks like it.” She walked over to her suitcase and threw the detergent and the jar of coins into it.
“You didn’t leave one open?” he asked and Anna looked up sharply at his tone. That tone was not a Prince Charming kind of tone and the look in his eyes was not nearly as merry as it had been a moment ago.
“I’ve already started all of them,” she told him. “You could come back in—” she looked at the digital read out on the first machine she had started “—fifteen minutes.”
“Since I’ve never seen you here before I am going to guess that you didn’t see the sign.”
He gestured with his thumb to a sign on the wall that she hadn’t seen.
“Of course I’ve seen the sign,” she huffed.
“Well, then you know.” He obviously didn’t believe her. Smart-ass, Anna thought. “You should leave one machine open.”
“Who the hell are you?” Anna asked. “The laundry room police?”
“No, I’m a guy with no clean clothes,” he snapped back.
“Look, I didn’t think anybody else would be doing their laundry at—” she looked at the clock which was right by the sign she hadn’t read “—8:00 a.m.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize I needed to run my laundry schedule past you.”
Anna and Prince Charming had a little silent showdown. She guessed he expected her to apologize and haul a bunch of wet clothes out of a machine so he could wash some of his big, tall clothes. And perhaps she might have done that, if the man—a complete stranger—hadn’t laughed at her. Really, you don’t laugh at strangers. It doesn’t make you any friends.
His eyes were boring into hers and, tired of him, she raised her eyebrows, well aware that there were few better standoff enders than a properly raised eyebrow.
“Fine,” he said, moving to the door. “But you could be a little more considerate.”
“Jerk,” she muttered under her breath.
“Bitch,” he muttered back and she had heard it enough times that it barely even hurt.
IT TOOK ANNA four hours to do all of her laundry. Well, an hour of laundry and then three hours of folding and trying to figure out where to put all her clothes. She was able to avoid seeing Prince Charming again, which she was pretty happy about. Having cooled down, she realized she had acted childishly and didn’t look forward to having to see him.
Anna was comfortably wearing clean underwear, freshly laundered jeans and a U.S.C. sweatshirt she thought she had thrown out. At the grocery store—the second item on her agenda today—she toyed with the idea of actually buying food to cook. Then she remembered who she was and bought some staples and a lot of microwave dinners.
She was unloading groceries back at her place when the phone rang.
She cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear while she opened the refrigerator door.
“Hello,” she said, picking up the three bags of oranges she bought and dumping them onto one of the shelves.
“Anna?”
Anna stilled, the hair on the back of her neck pricked. She shut the refrigerator door and leaned against it.
“Hello, Camilla,” she said smoothly.
“How is your first day of unemployment?” her boss asked brightly.
“Fabulous,” Anna answered snidely. “I should have quit years ago.”
Camilla only laughed at Anna’s little dig.
“What do you want, Camilla?” Anna grabbed up the bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups she had bought and fired them into a cupboard.
“I’m just making sure that you are going to be at the barbecue on Monday.”
“I can’t,” Anna said quickly. “I’m busy.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You don’t know that,” Anna snapped.
“Of course I do. Your sabbatical just started yesterday.”
Anna put a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread in the fridge.
“I already told Meg you were going to be there. Marie will be there.”
“That’s a seriously low blow, Camilla.” Anna blindly shoved a quart of milk into the cupboard.
“Well, sometimes low blows are the only ones that get things done,” Camilla chuckled. “It’s a barbecue with people who love you. It’s not the Spanish Inquisition.”
“Fine,” Anna breathed. “I’ll be there.”
“Oh, Anna, I am giving