“It suits you,” he smirks, taking a fork and cutting a bite of his steak as if arguing is his preferred conversation method while eating. Is this guy weird or what?
“And why in the world would you think that?”
“I see you sneaking a little bite of peach cobbler every now and then while you’re working.”
“Oh, now you’re going to tell me what I can eat and what I shouldn’t eat. What the hell’s wrong with you? I should throw—“
“Throw on a few more pounds,” he says, as he stabs another bite of his steak. “You’re working too much and it’s stressing you out. Not only that, but now you have people trying to attack you in the night.”
“What do you care about me, about any of this?”
“Like I said, I’m a man. It’s my job.”
“You may be a man, but you’re not my man,” I huff.
He takes another bite, chews it slowly as I keep my eyes locked on his before he says as calmly as an empty lake on a windless morning, “We’ll see about that.”
5
Diana
“Hurry up in there,” a customer calls out as they knock on the bathroom door at work.
I put the finishing touches on a Gmail message and then schedule the timer. If I don’t cancel the message it will be sent to the police station and three major online news outlets, alerting them of my neighbor and his, shall we say, unusual, behavior.
I’m not taking any chances on my walk home tonight.
I exit the restroom and make my way out into the street.
There, leaning against a light pole looking way too sexy for his own good is my neighbor, whose name I still don’t know.
“You again,” I bite.
“Yes, me again. You ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“For me to walk you home.”
“I thought you were going to be in the shadows or something, not my after school date.”
“I like where this is headed. I can hold your hand if that makes you feel safer. Would you like that, little one?”
Geez! These terms of endearment are starting to really annoy me, because they’re so darn effective at breaking down my walls.
He extends his hand and I look at it. “Slow down, I don’t want to end up pregnant.”
“All in time,” he counters as if it’s a foregone conclusion, which is pretty bold considering I may not even wake up in this neighborhood tomorrow. At least if I was smart I’d slip out in the middle of the night and never come back.
We walk a few minutes and finally I throw him a bone. “Thank you for escorting me,” slips from my lips with complete sincerity.
“Thank you for allowing me to.”
“I didn’t know I had a choice.”
“You didn’t. When I see what I want I go after it until I get it, no matter the cost. The only difference is this time it’s a woman.”
“You’re trying to tell me that I’m the first woman you’ve ever pursued?” I question, looking him up and down incredulously.