Page 121 of Reset

Pushing back his chair, he faced his team one last time as a member of Benson Security. “I need to track down Sarah. Let me know when the party is. We’ve got a lot to celebrate. Now, who’s going to create a diversion so I can slip out the back without the press on my tail?”

Everyone except Callum and Rachel put up their hands.

Sarah waved to her neighbor, Mrs. Pinner, as she walked up the path to the door of her South London terrace house.

“Any nibbles yet?” she asked, nodding to the for-sale sign in the front garden.

The old woman sighed as she fluffed her lilac hair. “Nobody appreciates a well-decorated house these days.”

Considering Mrs. Pinner’s idea of interior design lent itself to chintz and lace, Sarah wasn’t that surprised.

“It’ll happen.” Sarah had even looked up the statistics to back up her claim, in case Mrs. Pinner ever asked.

“It’d better happen soon. I’m not getting any younger, and I want to move to Spain before I die.”

With a smile, Sarah unlocked her front door, swung it open, and smelled bacon.

What?

She’d taken two steps into her house when Ryan appeared in the kitchen doorway, frying pan in his hand and a loopy smile on his face.

Sarah double-checked that she’d opened her house door and not the entrance to another dimension. Definitely her house.

“Ryan, what are you doing here?” she managed to get out as her eyes drank him in.

“Well, I’d planned to sit on your front step until you got home, but then this guy walked past with a T-shirt that had a print of a can of Spam on the front of it. Then I thought, Spam-ham-pork-bacon. Next thing I knew, I was buying bacon from the guy at the corner shop, and now I’m making sandwiches. You want one?”

Nope, none of that made any sense at all. “Couldn’t you make a bacon sandwich in your own house?”

“Yeah. But you aren’t there.” He glanced at the pan. “I need to get this on the heat.” And disappeared into her kitchen.

Shutting the door, Sarah wondered if she was experiencing some form of psychosis. A break from reality, perhaps, brought on by thinking about Ryan every minute of every day.

“Stats, get in here,” he yelled.

Feeling disoriented, she made her way into the kitchen, where Ryan was frying bacon at her stove. He wore a white T-shirt that stretched over his shoulders and stomach, reminding her of Steve Rogers when he’d just been turned into Captain America. Under it were soft, worn blue jeans that cupped his backside like butter on a hot potato.

“Where’s the tomato ketchup?” Ryan asked as he started opening and shutting cupboards.

“I don’t have any.”

He screeched to a halt and stared at her. “That is so wrong. How can you not have tomato ketchup? It’s a staple.”

Sarah pressed her fingers to her temples as she tried to focus. “Ryan, why are you here?”

“I explained,” he said as he shoved the bacon on some fluffy white bread that she also hadn’t bought.

“Not about the Spam T-shirt. I mean, why are you here?”

“Oh.” His smile was pure temptation. “Well, I came to tell you that I’ve quit my job and to ask you to move in with me. But then I realized your house is way nicer than mine, so now I’m asking if I can move in here.”

She sat down at the small round table with a thump.

“W-what?”

“I know, I’m surprised too. I was going to wait with the whole living together conversation because I was so damn mad at you for the Dear John letter, but then I got hungry and now I don’t care so much about the letter.” He smiled again. “I might have already eaten a few things to take the edge off.”

“Wait, go back. You quit your job?”