Five #2
“It’s all right,” Ava said. “I have a few things to do. But if we lose contact, I’ll come to you, okay? Don’t. Go. Anywhere. Not to my place—not to the airport. I have no clue where I’ll be landing, and I need to know where to find you.”
For a younger sister, she sure loved ordering me around.
It felt all kinds of wrong ending the call when I’d been trying for days to get through, but I gave in. “Okay. I’ll be right here, I swear. Please stay safe. I love you.”
The phone line crackled as she responded, and I couldn’t make out what she was saying. A second later, the call dropped out, her words lost in the ether.
The silence stretched on, my pulse beating too fast, pounding in my ears.
She was fine. She’d be fine.
And I had the girls here as a welcome distraction.
I smiled to lighten the mood when the door opened again, and another familiar face appeared.
Theo.
My stomach bottomed out, and I almost dropped my phone. “Hi.”
We may have taken a few steps in the right direction, but he was right here. In my private space.
I’d never been inside his apartment.
Mine was filled with mementos from the past; furniture, art, ornaments and books. Almost every object I owned had a connection to the people I’d once loved. Being surrounded by memories usually brought me comfort, but I didn’t feel comfortable now.
I left my phone on the dining table and focused on my breathing, twisting the sapphire ring on my finger.
He closed the door and stood there with his bed hair and tattoos, more appealing than anyone had the right to be with so little effort. His presence sucked all the air out of the room, and he took in my possessions as if every detail interested him.
“Hi,” he said.
“Theo!” Ellie raced over to him and grabbed his arm, dragging him toward me. “I hope you don’t mind Theo coming, Sadie. Everyone’s getting so bored, and Theo loves a good pamper session, don’t you, Theo?”
“Do you get paid every time you say my name?” he asked. “You told me you’d cleared this with her.” His eyes met mine, and the antsy feeling intensified. “She didn’t clear it with you?”
“No, she didn’t. This is the first I’m hearing about it.”
“Can he stay?” Willow sidled in next to me and hit me with her big, blue, pleading eyes. “Please? It’ll be fun.”
He must have wanted to be here, or he wouldn’t have come. Unlike me, Theo had no trouble saying no to situations that didn’t work for him.
Still riding the high from speaking with my sister, I wouldn’t ruin it by sending him away. “All right, we can keep him—but it’s your responsibility to feed him and take him for walks.”
With an amused huff, Theo stepped away from Ellie and wandered over to me. “Sorry. I didn’t know we were being parent-trapped,” he said. “I would have texted you to confirm, but I don’t have your number.”
Parent-trapped. The word hit harder than expected, and I forced out a laugh. “Don’t worry about it. Are you here for a beauty treatment or just basic company?”
“I… don’t know.” I wanted to bask in his attention and hide from it at the same time.
With a vague smile, he took in the folding treatment table I’d set up next to the dining area, my creams and serums laid out beside it.
A neighbour had lent it to me during the first lockdown, and I never got the chance to return it to her.
“I think I’ll wait and see how it all works,” he said. “Mind if I turn on the news?”
“Go for it.”
Theo rounded the couch and grabbed the remote from the entertainment unit. With his back to me, he remained standing as another Ultimus update drifted from the television.
“Me first.” Willow climbed onto the table before Ellie could stake her claim. She settled into position and rested her hands on her stomach, tilting her head and meeting my eyes. “Did you see the fight on the news today?”
I slipped a headband under her neck and fastened the Velcro across her forehead. “No, I haven’t watched any news yet.” I found myself waiting longer and longer to turn it on each day.
“Two ladies were fighting in the supermarket,” she went on. “It got really bad, really fast.”
Flaming cars. Fights in supermarkets. What was next? Were we even safe to go outside anymore? “Did someone break it up?”
“Nope.” Ellie carried a dining chair over and joined us, plonking down beside her sister. “It moved out onto the street, and more people got involved. There was screaming and hair pulling. One woman even punched another like a boxer. It’s the worst I’ve seen so far.”
“Scary,” I said. “How do you feel about that?” Ellie was technically an adult, but we were facing challenges none of us had seen before.
“I don’t know. It’s just… weird. Like everything’s falling apart.”
“Mum told us we have nothing to worry about,” Willow said, “and it’s not like anyone’s going to punch a kid.”
“I hope not.” But I never expected people to have fistfights in the street and set things on fire for the hell of it, either.
“What did you buy for Dad yesterday?” Ellie pulled a few strands of hair away from Willow’s ear. “He wouldn’t tell us what it was, and then he hid it somewhere. I haven’t been able to find it yet.”
Of course she’d gone searching for it. I grabbed a bottle of cleanser. “If he won’t tell you, it’s not my place to say anything, but I hope he had a chat with you about Dustin.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” Ellie rolled her eyes as I massaged a no-rinse cleanser into Willow’s skin. “He went on about safety and situational awareness for almost half an hour. We got the full lecture, along with a bonus demonstration afterwards.”
I laughed at the visual.
“Now we know how to hurt a man with our bare hands,” Willow said with an evil little grin, “and I’m thinking about practising on Theo.”
“Hey!” With a quick smile, he caught my eye. “You could do with some lessons, too.”
“Maybe.” The biggest threat lurked right here in the building, not on the streets.
Since walking the halls armed with a knife would be overkill after one altercation with Dustin, learning a few tricks to defend myself wouldn’t be the worst idea.
I grabbed a cloth and wiped the cleanser from Willow’s face.
Theo went back to monitoring the news, and my hand stilled as I stared at his masculine presence in my very non-masculine apartment. His broad shoulders stretched the material of his t-shirt across his back, and part of the hem had got caught in the waistband of his tracksuit pants.
Ellie caught on to what had grabbed my attention and said under her breath, “We’ll get out of your way as fast as we can without being weird about it.”
“No,” I said in a heated whisper. “I’m not hurrying anything. I want to spend time with the two of you. It’s the whole reason I invited you over.”
The part I couldn’t mention out loud was that I needed them here as a buffer. Being alone with Theo on the rooftop or in public was one thing. In my apartment with no safety net? There were no limits to how much I could embarrass myself.
“You can get to know each other better without us here,” she said, leaning her elbows on the treatment table. “He’s a nice guy. You’ll like him. And the world’s falling apart, so you might as well.”
What better reason to throw myself at someone? We’re going to die anyway, so why not have a last-minute fling while the world burned around us? I would have laughed if my nerves hadn’t taken centre stage.
“Do it, Sadie.” Willow stared up at me. “He’s super cute.”
I clamped my hand over her mouth, and she giggled against my palm.
“Not lockdown cute either,” Ellie added. “Like, actual hot.”
Oh, God. He was right here in the room with us. This was not the time to be discussing him. And the idea of opening up to a man again made my stomach twist. I’d lost too much of myself last time to fall into that same trap again now.
I thought the TV might be loud enough to cover our whispers, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. “I’m not looking for anything,” I said, trying to inject some confidence into my tone. “With anyone.”
My face warmed, and a panicky feeling came over me. He was nice to look at and fun to be around, but I didn’t want him.
Not in that way. Not at all.
Ellie raised her brows. “But you should. I would if I was maybe ten years older... and he was into me... and I could be sure my dad wouldn’t kill him.”
With an awkward laugh, I lifted my hand from Willow’s mouth. I truly didn’t need this complication when we were stuck in the building and worried about our futures. I wanted simple. Easy.
Our lives could end anytime, and I wouldn’t waste whatever days or months I had left getting my heart stomped on by a man who lived next door to me.
“I’ll think about it,” I said as my pulse raced, hoping it would be enough to shut them down.
Theo still had his back to me, but I could have sworn his cheek moved as if he were smiling.