Page 131 of Truck Me
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A foreign sound rouses me from my sleep. My eyes slowly open to a dark room. The sun isn’t up yet, but there’s a soft glow coming from the side table lamp downstairs.
I reach out beside me, to find Charlotte’s side of the bed empty.
I groan as disappointment washes over me. I hate it when she gets up before me. I want to hold her close—skin-to-skin—before we start our day together. Or as she likes to call it, my morning snuggle time. I don’t care what she calls it, as long as I get it.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The same tapping noise echoes off the rafters. It sounds like wood knocking against metal.
Kicking the covers back, I reach for my phone on the side table. It’s not even six in the morning. Growling, I grab one of the pillows and cover my face with it.
“I can hear you,” Charlotte calls out in a cheerful, singsong voice that makes me growl even louder. She chuckles. “Morning, grumpy bear.”
“Why aren’t you still in bed?” I call out, my voice still rough from sleep.
“Couldn’t sleep. Decided to get up and work on my list.”
“Is that what the incessant tapping noise is? Your pen on the table?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I may not be able to see her, but I can hear the wince in her voice.
“Come back to bed, and I’ll consider forgiving you.”
She chuckles. “But I’m making a list.”
“And what list would that be?”
That woman has a list for everything. She couldn’t even move in with me without making a list of all the things she needed to pack and how they needed to be packed. It made no sense to me. Pack up your shit and bring it over.
But no. It was apparently much more complicated than that.
Most of her stuff is still in boxes stacked in a corner of my garage. The house doesn’t exactly have a lot of storage room. Despite that, the closet and bathroom had plenty of space for her clothes and personal items. I didn’t have much in either, so I didn’t even have to make room for her stuff.
The kitchen, however, is a different story. It’s only been a couple of weeks since she moved in, and she complains about the lack of counter space in the kitchen almost daily.
“Just some things I want to get for the bedroom.”
I smile. I may bitch about it, but secretly I love that she’s investing her time into our home and making lists to improve it. It tells me she plans on staying. “Like what?”
“Are we going to have this entire conversation with you yelling at me from up there?”
“Does that bother you?”
“Yes.” She chuckles. “Just get up and join me. I made coffee.”
“Or,” I pause for effect, “you could come back to bed and snuggle with me.”
For a moment, the house is filled with silence as I wait for her response. Then I hear her bare feet pad across the hardwood floor. Seconds later, she appears at the top of the stairs wearing one of my t-shirts. I love seeing her in my clothes. Especially my flannel shirts. They’re so big on her, they hit her mid-thigh and hang off her shoulders.
I pat the side of the bed and she crawls in next to me, resting her head on my shoulder. Wrapping my arms around her, I hold her tight against me.
“That’s better.” I sigh. “Why did you wake so early?”
“Not sure.” She runs her hand up my chest and tangles her fingers in my chest hairs. Something she does often when she’s thinking.
“Something’s on your mind. Talk to me.”