How did he know those were my favorite candies of all time? There was no way he could. Talk about a master guesser. My mouth started drooling as if I was one of Pavlov’s Dogs.
“Will you open up so I can give them to you?”
I closed my eyes, summoning the strength, the will—
“Do it!” Lizzie’s voice traveled through the open room, and I cringed. Hopefully he didn’t hear that.
“How ‘bout this? I’ll leave them here then I’ll step away. I know you don’t know me, don’t trust me. That’s okay. I need to know you’re okay. You’ve got me worried after the other night, but I don’t know anyone I can call to check on you.”
“How’d you know?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I’d asked it loud enough, but then he spoke up.
“Know what?” he asked, as if it wasn’t totally weird that we were talking through a closed door.
“That I loved candy corn?”
He laughed. “I didn’t. There was a cool Halloween display at the market down the street and I went for it. But I’m glad you do. Will you open up so I can give them to you?”
I glanced at my phone. He’d made no move to get up or anything. He probably knew I wouldn’t but wanted to give me a chance. He had to think I was a total freak. Well, I was, but still. It must be glaringly obvious now.
“Um. I’m okay. And…thank you for helping me.”
“Glad I was there for you. So, your name is Angelina? That’s pretty.”
“It was my grandmother’s name.” Why was I telling him that? Holy cow.
“It’s nice. How long have you lived here?”
Three years, sixteen days…I glanced at my phone again and saw that he’d stretched out his legs and crossed them at his ankles. He really wasn’t going anywhere, was he?
“I moved in last week. Hope we weren’t too noisy for you. Minnesota’s new to me, and I’m not sure I’ll be okay with the cold, but the change in leaves is starting. That’s pretty cool.”
We?
“I’ve been here three years,” I said as I turned and relaxed against the door. Only an inch separated me from a real, living human being. I closed my eyes and pictured his violet-blue eyes staring at me with a loving look. Tender and gentle, but protective and fierce too, since he was so huge.
“Three years, huh? That’s a while. You must like it here.”
“It’s nice.”
We sat there in silence for a while, but it wasn’t weird. It was…calming.
“Where did you come from?” I meant geographically but also in the figurative sense, too. He was my knight in shining armor the other night, and now he sat in a hallway talking to me through the door as if it wasn’t the most asinine thing in the world. So yeah, I needed to know.
“Nowhere special, but I’ve never lived in Minnesota before. What are the winters like?”
“Cold. Lots of snow. Hope you drive an SUV.”
“I do, actually. Good to know, though. Will I need chains for the tires?”
I laughed. “No. You’ll be fine.”
“I’ve never driven in snow before.”
He was from a warm climate. “Let me guess. You’re from Arizona.”
“Around there.”
“It’s just you?”