“Okay, a decent-sized schnauzer, then.”
I got another glare, but this time it sort of made me smile. As the corners of my mouth turned up, I couldn’t help but take it further.
“A pair of poodles?” I asked. “They could sit under the umbrella and read to each other from the book.”
“Not really.” She seemed to be actively trying to keep her frown on her face now, and her tone had definitely changed.
“I bet there are lost works of art in there,” I teased. She just shook her head. “Undiscovered sonnets.”
“You are very strange,” she said, but she had cracked a bit of a smile.
“I could be a lot worse,” I said. She went silent as she looked back down the street and a shudder ran through her body. “I’m gonna get you home, okay?”
“Home?”
“You live around here, right?”
“Um...well, yeah,” she stammered. She looked in the direction she had originally been walking.
“I could walk you home,” I suggested. “Make sure…well, just get you home.”
“How can I trust you?” she said cautiously.
“Trust me?” I asked, trying to decide if I was offended by the very notion that I was somehow not trustworthy. I mean, I had certainly just saved her from a rough night, and most likely a whole lot worse than a little pushing and shoving. I raised both brows at her. “Well, if I was going to rape you and kill you—which was probably their plan—I would have just insisted on going first, not chase the other guys away.”
Her eyes went wide, and she dropped whatever she was holding onto the pavement. She quickly scrambled after it while I ran my hand through my hair and tried to get myself back together.
“Sorry,” I muttered again. I closed my eyes and rubbed my fingers into the sockets before looking back at her. “I think, all in all, you’re better off with me than you are by yourself.”
“Better the evil I know?” she responded with a smirk. The look and the tone of her voice didn’t match her eyes, though—there was fear there. It was entirely possible I was a bit too blunt, but that shit was also true.
“Something like that, but you don’t know me, either.” I smirked right back.
“You’re my hero,” she said but seemed to immediately regret the words. She looked away from me, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
She had a beautiful neck—long and pale. I could see the outline of her carotid artery as it pulsed just under her skin. Her heart rate was still a little higher than normal, and I wondered if I was the cause of her current fear. I tried to put her at ease, at least as much as she could be at ease in the dark street with a guy she didn’t know minutes after she was attacked.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I told her. She nodded but didn’t look up. “I’m just going to make sure you get home safely, okay?”
“Okay,” she said flatly.
I wondered if she was going to go into shock or something. I definitely needed to get her behind a locked door as quickly as possible so she could relax again. I hoped, since she was walking, she wouldn’t have too far to go.
“Where do you live?”
“Just around the corner,” she replied as she collected the last few items from the pavement and added them to the collection in the monster-bag. “A few blocks to the left. You don’t have to go out of your way—”
“I know the area,” I interrupted. “I’m walking you home.”
I wasn’t asking anymore, and she didn’t try to fight it. I picked up my gym bag, and she picked up her purse. I thought about putting a shirt on, but then I remembered I had dropped it back at Feet First. Considering Yolanda’s comment about how it smelled, maybe that was for the best. Besides, I was still warm from the exertion, and it wasn’t more than a ten-minute walk home.
I grabbed a couple of the other items that had been hanging out near my feet—packets of salad dressing, a tube of lipstick, and something else round—shit, a fucking tampon—and handed them to her without meeting her eyes. She took them quickly, mumbled a thank you, and shoved them into the huge, practically overflowing handbag.
She stood up and looked at me, and her eyes got big again.
“You got hurt!” she said as she lifted her fingers up toward my temple and then pulled away without touching me.
I reached up and felt the little cut above my eye and snickered.