Ally Hughes Has Sex Sometimes Read Online Free

“Me too,” she said.

JAKE WRAPPED HIS ARMS around the AC unit and lifted it high as if it weighed nothing. No hesitation. No effort.
    Ally watched him. “Wow,” she said. She could barely budge it with her foot when she’d dusted it off for Harry.
    Jake was fit, she thought as she watched, but not in an artificial way, as if he had pumped himself up at a gym. He was fit as if he did real work, construction or something outdoors. As if he fought fires. As if he saved lives.
    â€œWhere to?”
    â€œThis way,” she said. He followed her through the garage and inside.
    As Ally stepped in, she was relieved. The kitchen, the house, the whole house, was orderly. Muriel had cleaned early that morning, and well. Everything was ordered, put away, immaculate, from baseboards to ceiling, and Ally was grateful. Muriel had tucked away every marker, puzzle, sticker, paintbrush, doll.
    â€œCan you use the thing?” She strolled across the kitchen and felt light-headed, leading him out to the hall, to the stairs. The house had heated up during the day.
    â€œWhat thing?”
    â€œThat goes underneath. My landlord said to use the thing.”
    â€œThe universal support bracket?”
    â€œThat,” she said and started upstairs to the second floor.
    â€œYou have one?” he asked, following her.
    â€œI do. Two.”
    Ally led him to Lizzie’s room. “That one,” she said, pointing to the window farthest from the bed. “I don’t want it blowing on her when she sleeps.”
    â€œYou got it,” Jake said. He squatted to set the unit down. “Can I move these books?”
    â€œNo, no. Please. Use the desk.”
    Lizzie had organized her Nancy Drew collection, fifty-six books, across the floor, starting with
The Secret of the Old Clock.
    â€œYour daughter likes to read.”
    â€œThe criminal mind. Spies. Secrets. She’s obsessed.”
    Jake smiled and gazed at the books.
    â€œLet me show you where the second one goes.” Ally left and walked down the hall toward her bedroom. Jake followed but kept his own stride, slower and more relaxed than Ally’s.
    The fact that she was alone with a stranger—a man, no less—hadn’t struck her until she entered the room where she slept, where she undressed, and Jake stepped in, close, behind her.
    Muriel had left a pile of underwear, freshly washed, on the bed. Ally swooped in, gathered it up, and pointed to the corner. “That window, please. The one over there.” She moved to her bureau, opened a drawer, and shoved the underwear deep inside.
    â€œNice room,” Jake said, looking around. He slid his hands into his pockets. “Big bed.”
    Ally turned and looked at the bed. It was a king. “My daughter sleeps with me most nights. She’s in New York. Have you ever been?”
    â€œNo.” No, he hadn’t.
    Ally nodded, turned, and strode out and back down the hall. She headed downstairs and Jake followed. “Can I have a beer?” he asked politely. “If you have one.”
    Ally turned. On one hand, of course, what else would a college kid want to drink on a Friday while he worked? On the other hand, a beer? “Are you twenty-one?”
    â€œYes, I am, but the law is for purchase. Not for consumption.” He tilted his head as if explaining the rule to a child.
    â€œOh,” Ally said. She hadn’t known that. “Sure, then,” she said, stepping into the kitchen. She moved toward the fridge. “I only have Stella.”
    â€œOf course you do,” Jake said, walking out past her into the garage.
    â€”
    By nine that night, Jake had installed the two ACs. He embedded a dead bolt in the back door and secured six of the first-floor windows. He washed a basement wall with bleach, raised Lizzie’s bike seat, built her bunk bed, and placed the bottom bunk on risers so that a trundle could slide underneath.
    He did all this with a