Chapter 6
Prudence
He stares at me with utter disbelief, his dark, thick eyebrows raised high. I swallow an urge to laugh. My insides feel sweet and weightless like candy floss, and I have a ridiculous notion that if it wasn’t for his arms around me, I’d float away.
I’m giddy, confused, and something else, something reckless and pivotal. I’ve never felt this way before, and I’m not sure I like it.
“Wet my bed?” he asks, shaking his head slowly. “Where did that come from?”
“Well, you’re a serial killer.” I speak fast to control the tumbling lightness in my stomach.
“And that most likely means you’re a psychopath, and there are those criteria that determine psychopathic personality.
I used to watch a lot of true crime shows, stuff about FBI profilers, and so on. So, did you?”
He blinks heavily and clears his throat. His lips are tipped in a small smile, and there’s a shine of wetness just where they meet. I yank my gaze away and focus on his cheek.
“Let’s see. No, I don’t think so. I was a pretty normal child. Played outside a lot. My parents weren’t perfect, but I wouldn’t say my childhood was traumatic or anything.”
I tilt my head to the side, unconvinced. “You said your mother is a narcissist.”
“Yeah. She’s self-absorbed and manipulative. My dad kept her in check when I was younger, but ever since he passed away, she’s gone off the rails. Last I saw her, she was trying to start a cult with her as the main priestess. I want nothing to do with that.”
I do my best to ignore the way his thumb rubs my waist in small circles while he speaks.
His openness is fascinating. We’re basically strangers, yet he treats me like an old, trustworthy friend.
It’s as if we’ve neatly jumped over all those painful stages of meeting someone new that I severely suck at.
“Okay, so you have a pathological relationship with your mother,” I sum up. “That’s actually one of the smaller indicators. The other big ones, aside from bed wetting, are arson and animal cruelty in childhood.”
I look at him expectantly and he hums, thinking. “That’s funny. I actually set something on fire when I was seven. My dad’s old garden shed. All I wanted was to make a small bonfire to roast marshmallows, but I built it too close to the shed, and it caught. Does that count? Am I a psychopath?”
His smile is open and genuine, eyes warm. My throat bobs as I swallow. Why is this man so attractive? He shouldn’t be. All the killers I ever saw on screen were on the homely side. Maybe that’s why they were caught?
“You’re too pretty to be one,” I blurt out, frustrated.
When he laughs, I shake my head and rush to explain.
“No, I mean, you’re objectively pretty. The ancient Greeks had this notion of kalos kagathos.
It means ‘beautiful and good’, and it was this idea that a person who’s outwardly beautiful can’t be evil.
And vice versa—unattractive people were considered more likely to be criminals.
I think it’s still pervasive in our society.
We expect beautiful people to be good, or at least better than others.
That’s why no one in their right mind would say you’re a psychopath, even if you are. ”
His eyes spark with pleasure. “You think I’m pretty. You’re attracted to me.”
My face heats with embarrassment, and I look away, trying to keep my blush from spreading. “No, I said you’re objectively attractive. That’s different.”
His laughter is low and warm, and it’s like a caress. My nape prickles with goosebumps.
“Ah, but there is no such thing as ‘objectively attractive’. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You beheld me and said I’m pretty. I think you’re beautiful.”
I huff, embarrassed by how much this strange man affects me. “The Greeks were obviously wrong. You’re insufferable, ergo, you can’t actually be pretty, and I take back what I… Wait. What did you just say?”
His eyes are so very dark and inviting when they capture mine. “I said you’re beautiful.”
My throat is so dry, I swallow repeatedly to ease the tight burn.
Rowley watches me with pleased amusement, and his face is a work of art I cannot look away from.
His eyes are two deep wells, and I’m falling, and, oh, why are our faces suddenly so much closer?
If I leaned in just a little bit, I could kiss him.
Kiss the killer.
I recoil so hard, I fall off his lap and crumple on the floor in a humiliated, miserable heap. Rowley springs to his feet to help me up, but I wave him away.
“No. Don’t get closer. I mean it.”
He takes a neat step back and watches as I roll and twist, trying to get up with some dignity. When I look up, he’s grinning.
“You’re overwhelmed by my magnetic charm, aren’t you?”
I huff, turning so he can’t see my red face. “No. I just remembered who you are.”
There’s silence, ominous and deep, and it stretches uncomfortably until I can’t take it any longer. My nape prickles, and my insides squirm with something, maybe fear, maybe guilt. When I turn to look at him, his expression is perfectly neutral, all the warmth and intimate amusement wiped clean.
I have a ridiculous urge to apologize. But why? I haven’t said anything hurtful, have I?
Rowley nods once, his mouth flattening in a determined line. He looks deadly serious, and I don’t understand why.
“You’re right. That’s prudent,” he says, quiet certainty in his voice. “But I won’t give up that easily.”
“Give up? What do you mean?”
He smiles, his dark eyes crinkling. “Just talking to myself, fluffy socks. Come on, show me where you keep your Christmas things. We have a house to decorate.”
I shake off my daze and look over at the table, my eggnog untouched. My throat tightens as I think about my grandpa teaching me how to make it when I was seventeen. He let me have some back then, saying he learned the hard way that keeping strict rules about alcohol and substances didn’t work.
“Everything in moderation, Prudy,” he’d say. “If you have too many rules and restrictions, you’ll just break them all. So have what you want, just not more than you should.”
God, I miss him so much.
“Prudence? You okay?”
I wonder what grandpa would say about me helping a killer. Would he curse me, say I became just like my mother—irredeemable?
No, a quiet voice in the back of my mind says reproachfully. No, he wouldn’t. He’d say he’s glad you’re not alone tonight. He loved you and wanted you to be happy above all else, remember?
I take a deep breath, straighten my spine, and turn. Rowley regards me with warm curiosity, and I give him a watery smile, blinking away unshed tears.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
It’s dusty in the attic. I haven’t been here in over five months, ever since I finished sorting through grandpa’s clothes. I donated most of them and left only his woolen winter coat and an old leather jacket he always wore for his morning walks in the fall.
“The boxes should be somewhere in the back, labeled,” I say to Rowley, who climbs the foldable stairs right behind me, even though I said I’d get the decorations myself.
“You better stay here, or your fluffy socks will get all dusty,” he says, laying a warm hand on my shoulder.
I shiver. He’s touched me so much tonight, first to threaten and restrain, and then whatever it was in the kitchen. But this touch, simple and friendly, is what makes me almost jump out of my skin. I don’t think I’ve touched another human being since the funeral.
“How many are there?” Rowley asks as he shuffles stuff in the weak, yellow light of the lone lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
“Just get one box,” I say, shrugging. “We don’t need to go all out, just do the minimum to be believable.”
But when he comes over, he hauls two big boxes. “Out of the way, fluffy socks. I’ll be back for the other two.”
I follow him down, huffing with annoyance. “Why? I just said…”
He looks up at me with a wide, charming smile.
“Because my girl deserves a nice Christmas.”
He turns around before I have a chance to respond and goes downstairs, whistling the tune of Deck the Halls. I gape after him, my face heating. My girl? What does he mean, my girl? I look around helplessly, expecting another woman to jump out of the bathroom, screaming “Surprise!”.
I’m still on the foldable stairs when Rowley comes back, now singing in a clear, warm baritone.
“Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!”
I stare at him. This is so uncanny, because my grandfather used to sing around the house, too. We’d decorate together for Christmas, and he’d always sing carols.
For a brief, terrifying moment, I consider the possibility Rowley isn’t real. I’ve always lived my life halfway in some fictional reality, so it’s not a stretch to suspect my mind has plunged me into a crazy fantasy in my time of grief.
And yet, would I actually fantasize about spending Christmas with a killer?
“What’s wrong?” he asks, stopping a few steps down in front of me.
“You’re just…” I shake my head, unable to express all the weird, half-formed thoughts that flit through my mind. “You’re singing.”
“And you don’t like it?” he asks, neither upset or annoyed, just curious.
I shake my head helplessly. “You have a beautiful voice. I just… I don’t know.”
His mouth widens in a grin, and he comes up, stopping one narrow stair below me. He’s still taller like this. For a moment, I think he’ll say something, but he only smiles wider, wrapping his hands around my waist, and lifts me.
I gasp from shock when Rowley turns in the narrow space, my body held closely against his to fit. He puts me down by the stairs, just out of the way, and goes up again for the other boxes.
“See the blazing Yule before us…” he sings, and I stare after him, my skin prickling where he held me.