that she was up early the next morning.

The night had been awkward.

The two had discovered that all of the bedrooms except for one had been locked and of course Joshua didn't have the key.

He had claimed the large bedroom quickly leaving Ayoluwa stuck on the brown leather sectional in the living room with a decorative pillow and a thin blanket.

In other words...

She needed to get the out of here.

Ayoluwa sat at the breakfast table in the kitchen, located in the back of the house, her phone held aloft in her hand.

"Hello?" Shareef answered in a groggy tone, shirtless.

"Yeah, hi," Ayoluwa snapped, "What the fuck is your problem?"

"What you mean?"

Ayoluwa rolled her eyes, "You need to come get me."

"I'm not doing that."

Ayoluwa let out a groan of frustration, "You left me in a house with him, no food, no water-."

"Check the fridge." Shareef yawned.

Ayoluwa blinked then stood to open the stainless steel fridge.

Sure enough, the fridge was teeming with fruits, vegetables, packs of meats, juices, cases of water and in the freezer was a variety of ice creams and popsicles.

"What the fuck? How long have you been planning this?" Ayoluwa asked.

"A couple of weeks," Shareef yawned again, "Look, Ayo... It's early. I'm going back to sleep."

"Reef, you better not hang u-."

But it was too late and Shareef had hung up on her.

Ayoluwa closed her eyes tight and began to hum the melody to Put That On Everything by Brandy to quell the fire inside of her, purely fueled by anger.

"Okay. Okay. At least you're still in California, you can go home, somehow." Ayoluwa muttered, "And then when you get home, you can kill all of them."

Ayoluwa strode back into the living room, gripped her suitcase handle then walked out the front door.

Ayoluwa continued to walk until she reached the end of the road, just where the highway ended.

She fixed her hair, unsnapped a few buttons then put her thumb out in front of her.

A few cars honked but no one stopped.

A droplet of water fell onto Ayoluwa's button nose.

"What?" Ayoluwa tilted her head up towards the dark gray sky.

Lightning flashed in the sky, a stark contrast of yellow in the darkness.

"Out of all days to rain..." Ayoluwa rolled her eyes.

The drizzle was falling out of the sky at a fast rate until it was a full on storm.

"Shit!" Without a second thought, Ayoluwa abandoned all previous notions of hitchhiking back to Los Angeles and ran back down the wooded road.

The droplets were staining her clothes, skin and hair until she was completely drenched, despite her speed.

Thankfully the front door to the lake house was still unlocked and Ayoluwa slammed her back against it.

"What the... Did you go outside?" Joshua asked in an amused tone.

He had clearly just come from the kitchen, a plastic cup of red grapes in his hand.

"I was trying to hitchhike." Ayoluwa took off her shoes and socks.

"You didn't check the weather? There's been a rainstorm on the weather app since last week." Joshua laughed at her soaked appearance.

Ayoluwa scowled, "You need to let me shower. Your room has the bathroom."

"There's a bathroom on the first floor," Joshua popped a grape into his mouth.

"There's no shower in there. My clothes are freezing to my body. Please show a little humanity." Ayoluwa said through gritted teeth.

Joshua let out one more chuckle but swept his arm in front of the stairs, indicating that she should go first.

Ayoluwa stomped upstairs to the bedroom then stopped at what she saw.

In the bedroom were framed posters of music legends placed sporadically: Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Lauryn Hill, Aerosmith and Madonna.

A long stack of vintage vinyls was placed against a sleek black record player located on the dresser.

"Woah..." Ayoluwa whispered, "Who lived here before?" She wondered aloud.

The bathroom was huge, just like the other rooms in the house, with tile floors and a walk in shower.

Ayoluwa made sure the door was locked before she stripped and started the water.

Ayoluwa lightly wrung her locs out in the sink and pulled them up into a bun before stepping into the shower and closing the glass patterned door behind her.

The shower was hot against Ayoluwa's bare back, hitting her spine tattoo, the new tattoo on her upper ribcage, a girl's who head had been replaced by a cloud, and kneading out the tension and the stress she felt.

"Oh shit." Ayoluwa cursed then stepped out and unlocked the door to open it a crack.

"Josh! Josh! I forgot a towel. Help me out."

Joshua was on the bed on his phone and it took him a couple of seconds to lazily look up and over to her.

An arrogant smirk laced onto his face, "That sounds like a you problem, Palmer."

Then he returned his attention to his phone like Ayoluwa had never spoken at all.

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