I’ve barely seen her.
I know I’m not exactly achieving my objective here, so I have to make an effort to try harder. Maybe even corner her, even if she doesn’t like it. Fuck, I am seriously shitty at subterfuge or whatever I should be calling it.
At least Silas hasn’t called to check in on me. I guess he just assumes I’m a man of my word, and once given, I’ll stick to it. Or maybe he just thinks I’m pathetic enough that I want the car so badly, I’ll do anything to get it. Well, he does have that one over me…
As I pull back the quilt I brought from a house I haven’t seen in well over a week, I crawl into bed. As usual, sleep doesn’t come. Instead, I lay there staring at the ceiling and the other shadows cast by lights that the filmy blue curtains, which were here when I moved in, don’t filter out. The room itself is large enough. Nice enough too. Like the rest of the house, it’s painted a soft gray, and it has hardwood floors and a big window for extra light. It also overlooks the backyard, so the room feels more private.
I added my bed, dresser, clothes, a desk for my laptop, and bedding, which was pretty much it.
Right now, I feel like I’m going to spend another couple of hours asking myself the questions that have been building over the past week. Am I doing the right thing? It doesn’t feel like it because lying to someone else sucks, and I think I might be losing my mind. Is a tiny toy car seriously worth the next six months of doing this? Plus, I promised to look after Esme, whatever that means. How can I do that if she hates me and runs from me every time she even catches my scent?
I smile into the darkness at that. It’s funny, thinking about Esme having a keen sense of smell and raising her perfect little nose to the air whenever I’m around, sniffing—her nostrils flaring slightly. I don’t know why I find that amusing. I probably shouldn’t. I try not to think of Esme at all because when I do, I get strange tingles in strange places. Esme is gorgeous, so I know what those tingles are, but I prefer not to think about them at all because there is zero room in this horrible plot for attraction, even if I can’t actually help it.
I stretch out in the bed, more than frustrated at myself. I stare out the window and make a silent vow of sorts to try and get Esme to like me, or at least not run from me like prey being chased every time I even think about going into the same room. I stretch again, and my toe comes into contact with something firm and hairy.
No, I’m not doing crazy toe yoga where I try and touch my bits with my toes.
Immediate panic claws at my chest and I freeze, wondering, out of all the animals Esme has, what could be firm and hairy. While it could be a number of things, it isn’t warm and inviting, and it doesn’t hiss, meow, bark, or make any sort of noise, which leaves pretty much only one culprit.
Hector The Hellish.
Dear lord god.
I remember what I said about trying not to harm the blasted thing if it escaped again, so instead of yelping, screaming, and bursting from the bed like a crazed person, I slowly slide out. After that, when I’m sure I haven’t crushed the bastard, I run across the room and switch the lights on. I stay there, frozen up against the wall for a minute, panting hard as I try to catch my breath.
Holy Jesus and chicken drums.
I don’t know if I’m brave enough to peel back the blankets and look for the spider. Maybe I should go and get Esme.
Thinking about running upstairs to her room, which I know is upstairs because I hear her going up every single night and staying there, makes my balls shrivel to the size of raisins. I know how that would look. It would look humiliating. I’m not saying a dude being afraid of spiders is emasculating, but running upstairs and pounding wildly on Esme’s door, begging her to come and get her hairy spider out of my bed, might just make my balls jump into my body and stay there for the rest of my entire freaking life. I happen to like my balls where they are, so I creep, step by step, with incredible patience and stealth, across the room. When I reach the bed, I decide to just rip the bandage off and peel back the blankets.
“Please don’t jump onto my face, you hairy bastard. If you jump at me, I swear, you’ll meet your end. It will be a sad end for you because I won’t be able to help myself, and then I’ll have to confess to murdering you, and Esme will never forgive me, and everything will go straight to shit. So please, don’t freaking jump at me. Please, please, please…”