Chapter 10 - Fitz
FITZ
Is she… sexting with someone online? Who the fuck does she think she is? And who in the death wish is texting my girl?
I turn on the music as I head toward Winnie’s bungalow. It’s been twenty-four hours since I saw her in that dress. Twenty-four hours of slowly but surely losing my mind.
The noise and the teeth-grinding annoyance of her online talking to another man gives me a headache.
I turn it off.
Part of me wishes I could just curl up next to her.
I just want a real home like in the movies, not like how I grew up, where people have nice stuff.
Posters on the walls, a sister with fairy lights and cozy curtains who has one of those clear plastic phones with all the colored wires you can see inside.
But now instead of my perfect Winnie just for me, she’s sending lewd messages to a man she’s never met on the internet.
“She better not be planning on meeting with him.” I stew in the shadows as I watch her and her family spill out of the house.
“I’m not eating at no vegan place,” her grandmother complains. “A friend of mine has stopped eating dairy, and it turned her into a psychopath. I’m going to have to quit the knitting club at this rate.”
“We are eating Italian, Mom. If you don’t like it, you can just have wine,” Winnie tells her.
“Ooh! Are we going to Olive Garden?” her sister asks happily.
“No, we’re going to a nice little Italian place.”
“I don’t want weird food.”
“Why can’t we go to Olive Garden?”
“I think I can get a Groupon…”
The car door slams, and the family drives off.
I walk in the shadows up the street to her house.
“I’m not escalating,” I tell myself as I jimmy the lock to the French doors that lead into Winnie’s bedroom with the soft-white curtains and the watercolors in gold frames on the wallpaper with its subtle pink-and-gray pattern.
Sure, I’ve been in her house before. But that was to clean or leave her presents. And it was during the day.
This is helping me not escalate.
I had to change my methods. I was forced to. She moved her entire family in, for Christ’s sake.
Fidget, yawning, noses the bedroom door open, stumbles into the room, and wags her black-and-white tail at me.
“Hey, girl, how’s my favorite cone head?” I tease the dog, scratching her furry head under the plastic cone.
She doesn’t bark. She knows I’ve got treats for her.
I give her some vegan pepperoni. Low calorie.
“You’re a terrible guard dog,” I whisper to her, scratching her ears. “We’re lucky no one actually dangerous is after Winnie, or we’d be in big trouble, wouldn’t we?”
Scanning her room, I hope she hasn’t washed it.
The dress.
I wanted to take it last night when the smell of her was still there.
The garment is hanging up on the back of the bathroom door. It’s soft pressed to my face. She didn’t wash it. No harsh chemical smell, just her.
I’m half hard breathing in the smell of her. I’d jack off, humping the couch like a teenager, except the border collie is right there in the room, gnawing on the treat.
I swap the new dress with the old one then continue slowly roaming through her space, wanting to know every piece of her.
A scrap of lace peeks out from underneath the lid of the white laundry hamper.
“Don’t do it,” I tell myself out loud.
I’ve had her clothes washed before, meaning I take the bag in the hamper and drive them to the laundry service my hotels use that washes and folds them for her.
I don’t dig through her dirty laundry. That would be… well, escalation.
My hand balls into a fist. Back away. But I’m already reaching out—
“God, they drive me crazy!”
Fuck. Fuck! Winnie’s back. What did she forget?
I have to go. I look around wildly.
Too late. She’s running up the stairs.
I don’t have enough time to make it to the French doors, open them, and close them before she’ll come into the room.
Under the bed? The closet? Back to the bathroom?
Her footsteps thud at the top of the stairs.
“Goddamn it, Fidget. Kathy wants a scarf and sunglasses. Like anyone’s going to recognize her here. I have to get these people out of my house. This is crazy. Also, why are we eating dinner so early? It’s like five thirty.”
Fuck. Fidget is still gnawing on the treat I gave her.
“What do you have there?” Winnie demands.
Fidget swallows the last of her treat.
“That better not be one of those sticky bra things, Fidget. I will get another border collie, I swear to—”
Through the crack in the closet door, I see her pause. She senses someone watching her.
Her breathing gets more shallow as she hesitates, tiptoes up to the French doors, and throws them open. “I thought I locked these… Hello? Fidget, was someone in here?” She steels herself then grabs a fistful of the comforter to check under the bed.
My teeth dig into the skin over my knuckles.
She heads to the bathroom, pulling out her phone to check the cameras that I’ve been looping the feed over. “I shouldn’t put up a camera in my bedroom, right?” She sounds uncertain.
Fidget waddles over to the closet.
“And you’re not even going to help me look for the creepy stalker?”
I’m silently offended. I almost, almost want to jump out of the closet and demand that she take that back.
“Maybe I should put up another camera,” Winnie chatters anxiously as she swipes through the app.
Fidget plops down, panting at the door to the closet. She smells the other treats I brought for her.
I will give you all the treats if you go anywhere else in the room, I try to silently communicate to the dog.
The cameras don’t show anything untoward, but then, they never do. Winnie’s not stupid.
I can’t even breathe as she glances at the closet door.
Just get the scarf and leave, I mouth.
“There isn’t anyone here.” She takes a step toward the closet door. “I’m being crazy, right?” She swallows. “Hello?”
In my pocket, my phone beeps with a message. I silently curse whichever brother is texting me.
“What the—” She looks down at her phone. “What was that?”
Outside, the car horn honks.
“Coming!” she yells and looks at the closet door.
I just clap a hand over my pocket and pray the phone doesn’t go off.
The front door opens.
“Winnie,” her grandmother hollers, “are you up there masturbating?”
“Oh my god, no!” Winnie hollers, throwing open the dresser drawer and grabbing a scarf then the sunglasses hanging on the mirror and racing out of the room.
It takes me two steps from the closet to the French doors. Then another step to drop to one knee and roll against the bed when she comes racing back into the room, Fidget barking in surprise from where she’s begging for her treat in front of the bed.
“Ha! Got you.” Winnie throws open the closet door. “Huh. Empty…”
If she walks back toward the French doors and around the couch, she will see me. I’m on the fluffy rug by the bed.
She has so much shit under her bed I can’t squeeze under there.
“Weird.” She runs her hand through the clothes in the closet.
“My family is making me crazy. That’s it,” she decides.
Outside, the car horn blares.
“Well, be good, Fidget.”
I hold my breath, listening to Winnie head down the stairs, then crawl over to the window to watch the headlights finally, finally leave.
“Fuck!” Laughing, I collapse on the bed, turn my face into her pillow, breathe in the smell of her. I’m half hard with the thrill of almost being caught, of getting away with it.
What would she do if she had seen me? Would she run? Would she scream? Or would she give me that scared, wide-eyed, excited look as I tangled my fingers in her hair, kissed her, shoved her to her knees, and dragged her to mess up that pristine white bedspread?
I’m not jerking off on her bed, but I might on this dress later.
Not ready to leave her space yet, I thumb my phone, reading the message that almost got me caught.
Orcas GM: The NHL approved the trade request.
Orcas GM: Trade is in the works.
Orcas GM: Knox Yandle star forward from Minneapolis is coming to Seattle.