Free Beyond Repair by Charlotte Stein Page A

minutes—and all while he looked too stunned to say or do anything. He
raised a tentative hand in her direction, but that was all.
    And she was grateful for that.
    Running away from a kiss was humiliating enough on its own,
without adding a naked man charging after you into the mix.

Chapter Five
     
    She decided the best course of action was probably
breakfast. Breakfast was normal, breakfast was wholesome, breakfast said, “I
did not just destroy my bathroom because you almost kissed me.” Or at least,
breakfast said that for ordinary people. It was a bit more of a struggle for
her, considering that the insides of her fridge looked like an abandoned
Chinese takeaway.
    The only thing resembling normal food in there was a block
of cheese she’d somehow gnawed into a ball, three potatoes that had sprouted
arms and legs and tried to take over the salad crisper, and an aubergine. She
hadn’t the faintest clue where the aubergine had come from, but its origins
weren’t really the problem. The fact that it wasn’t an egg or a slice of bacon
was.
    She didn’t even have cereal. Her cupboards were full of
things a three-year-old would buy, if they were given brief control of the
grocery shopping. There were bags of marshmallows and jars of peanut butter
mixed with something unholy—like mint-flavored peanut-butter spread. Why had
she thought peanut-butter-mint spread would be a good idea?
    More to the point—why had the manufacturer thought
peanut-butter-mint spread would be a good idea? Surely the average American
shopper wasn’t interested in something quite so bonkers. No, no…only someone
who wasn’t American would buy such ghastly items. Only someone who went
nuts online shopping at Walmart—drunk on the idea of a thousand things that
shouldn’t exist—would want marshmallows filled with mature cheddar.
    She’d unwittingly flagged herself as an insane
three-year-old foreigner.
    And any second now he was going to come down and figure that
fact out. He was probably already on his way right now. It had been over ten
minutes since she panicked in the bathroom. Surely he would want an explanation
soon? She was surprised he didn’t want an answer right fucking now—though of
course he could have fled out of the nearest window.
    She wouldn’t have blamed him.
    Hell, she might have thanked him. At least that way, she
wouldn’t have to tape her fridge and cupboards shut and pretend they were full
of spiders. I have a real insect problem, so I guess we’re going to have to
go out for food , she pictured herself saying. Only you know I’m also
physically incapable of walking out my front door, so maybe just imagine
spiders have completely taken over planet Earth instead.
    Yeah, that was never going to work.
    For one thing, he knew what an actual spider invasion looked
like. He’d battled them in that B movie he’d made before he hit before the
big-time. And for another, spider invasions were not a real thing. He would
know that they were not a real thing. She could have been a lying ninja, and he
would have understood.
    But she was not a lying ninja.
    She was barely a lying beginner. The first thing she did
when he suddenly appeared in the doorway to her kitchen was jump so violently
she accidentally sprayed the kitchen with mini marshmallows, swiftly followed
by some blurted words.
    “I don’t have anything normal to eat.”
    She’d blown her own cover. The amateur lying Olympics were
not going to be calling any time soon. Luckily, however, it didn’t matter. It
didn’t matter for two very important reasons—the first being his response, as
sweet as anything she’d ever heard.
    “I gotta be honest, I’d have been disappointed if you did.”
    And the second being the thing he was wearing .
    She hadn’t taken into account that he didn’t have any clean
clothes to put on. She’d somehow imagined him coming down in a fabulous outfit
live from the red carpet, as though his skin spontaneously grew tuxedos. At