Chapter 14 #2
I’m standing in a mobster’s closet wearing his tie and I’m soaked.
This is the kind of thing that gets you featured on true crime podcasts.
But it smells like him. And I can’t make myself take it off.
There’s a suit jacket right in front of me. Charcoal grey. The same color he was wearing in that news photo.
My hands are already reaching for it.
No. Absolutely not. This is too far. This is way too far.
I pull it off the hanger and put it on over my t-shirt.
It’s huge. The shoulders too broad. The sleeves falling past my hands.
I wrap it around myself. Close my eyes.
The fabric is soft against my arms. Broken in. This isn’t a jacket he just bought. This is one he wears. Often.
I pull it tighter. Bury my face in the collar.
God. It smells like him everywhere. Collar, sleeves, lining. Like he’s wrapped around me. Like I’m inside his skin.
I’m inside his clothes in his bedroom in his house and my entire body is vibrating at a frequency that should require medical intervention.
For one breathless second, I pretend I’m someone he’d undress slowly. Someone who belongs here. Someone he’d come home to, wrap his arms around, press his face into her hair.
You need to stop. You need to stop right now.
There’s a mirror on the back of the closet door.
I open my eyes. Look at myself.
Blonde hair escaping from under my hat. His tie hanging loose around my neck. His jacket swallowing me whole.
I look like a woman who has completely lost control of her own decisions. I look alive.
The cologne’s on the dresser. I see it in the mirror’s reflection. A black bottle. Simple. Elegant.
Don’t you dare.
I pick it up.
Stevie.
Spray it once.
The scent surrounds me.
STEVIE.
I spray it again.
On my neck. My wrists. Between my breasts, getting ready for a date with my own felony. I’m marinating in his scent.
When I get home, I’ll smell like him. When I sleep tonight, my pillow will smell like him. Tomorrow when I wake up, I’ll be wearing Dario Marchetti like a second skin.
I spray it one more time. Just to make sure. I have officially crossed every line that exists.
This is insane. This is…
I’m having the time of my life.
Which is deeply concerning.
I should be horrified. I should be running. I should be calling Saul and confessing everything and begging to be relocated to a facility with better mental health services.
Instead, I’m huffing Dario’s cologne like it’s a controlled substance.
Okay. Okay. Time to go. You’ve had your fun. You’ve been maximally unhinged. Now put everything back and leave before…
“Yeah, I’ll handle it tomorrow.”
A voice. His voice.
Downstairs.
He’s home.
My blood turns to static.
He’s home. And I’m upstairs wearing his skin.
Oh fuck oh shit oh no oh fuck.
“No, tell Sal I said we wait.”
His voice is closer now. Kitchen, maybe. Right where I left the cookies. Right where he’s about to find evidence that someone broke into his house.
Move.
I rip off the jacket. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely grip the hanger. I shove it back into the closet, wrong spot, crooked, it looks wrong but I don’t have time to fix it.
The tie. I’m still wearing the tie. I grab for it, start to pull it over my head.
His voice again. Still talking. Still on the phone. But moving?
I freeze.
If I try to hang the tie up, I’ll make noise. The hangers will clatter. He’ll hear. If I try to leave, I might run right into him.
I’m trapped.
Move. You have to move.
I shove the tie into my pocket. Leave the jacket half-hanging because I can’t fix it without making noise.
Slip out of the bedroom as quietly as humanly possible.
At the foot of the stairs, the hallway stretches forever.
His voice is still in the kitchen. Words I can’t process because all my brain capacity is devoted to don’t make a sound don’t make a sound don’t make a sound.
The living room. The entryway.
The front door is right there.
I make myself walk.
Not run. Walk. Like a person who belongs here. Like I wasn’t just trying on his clothes in his closet like the world’s worst Goldilocks.
This suit is too big. This tie is just right. This woman is trespassing.
Hand on the doorknob. Turn it. Slip outside. Close it with a soft click.
And then I run. Down the steps. Across the lawn. Down the sidewalk. I’m not even pretending to be casual anymore. I’m a blonde woman in a hat sprinting away from a crime scene, and if anyone’s watching, they’re definitely calling the police.
My car. Where’s my car?
Three houses down. You parked three houses down like a professional stalker.
I throw myself into the driver’s seat. Lock the doors. Shove the key in the ignition with hands that won’t stop shaking.
Go. GO.
I peel away from the curb. Make it two blocks before I have to pull over because I can’t see through the panic.
I sit there. Engine running. Hands death-gripping the steering wheel. Heart trying to exit my body through every available orifice.
What did I just do? What the fuck did I just do?
I almost got caught. He was right there. Talking on the phone in the kitchen where I left cookies with a note.
He knows someone was there. He’s going to find the cookies. Read the note. See the jacket hanging crooked in his closet.
He’s going to know it was me.
Oh God. Oh GOD.
My heart is slamming. My hands are shaking.
And I’m so turned on I might actually die.
The adrenaline, the fear, the fact that I was this close to getting caught wearing his jacket in his bedroom.
My body doesn’t know the difference between terror and arousal and it’s chosen both.
I look down.
The tie is peeking out of my pocket.
I pull it out slowly.
It’s real. This is real. I actually did this.
I stole his pen last week.
Now I’ve stolen his tie.
I’m assembling a collection. A shrine. Saint Dario, Patron of Witness Protection Failures. I’m one lock of hair away from a serial killer documentary.
Coming up next on Dateline: The Witness Who Couldn’t Stay Away. She testified against him. Came for him. Then she baked him cookies. Then she broke into his house and smelled his clothes. Keith Morrison has thoughts.
I press the tie against my face.
It still smells like cedar and bergamot and felonies.
I should throw it out the window right now and drive home and never do anything this stupid again.
I fold it carefully instead. Set it on my lap.
The drive home takes forever. Four and a half hours of highway and replaying what just happened on an endless loop of humiliation and arousal and something that might be pride?
I broke into his house.
Felony.
I tried on his clothes.
Creepy.
I stole his tie.
Theft.
I left him cookies with a note.
Unhinged romantic gesture.
Saul said I’m going to be okay. He didn’t say I’d be okay in a healthy way.
I should be planning my escape route, figuring out how to disappear before Dario tracks me down and has me killed for breaking into his house and stealing his accessories.
Instead, I’m driving home with his tie in my lap and his cologne on my skin, feeling more like myself than I have in weeks.
Beth Taylor would never do this. Beth Taylor is boring and safe and would never dream of breaking and entering.
But Stevie Reeves? Stevie Reeves is thriving.
I pull into my apartment complex as the sun sets.
The beige building looks the same. The beige stairs. The beige door.
But when I step inside, there’s the teal blanket on my couch.
Saul’s blanket.
Proof that someone’s trying to help me build a life here.
And tucked against my hip, the tie I stole from the man I can’t stop orbiting.
Not proof of relapse. Proof of resurrection.
I hang my keys by the door. Walk to the bedroom.
Set the tie next to Dario’s pen. My altar. My receipts.
Proof that Stevie Reeves didn’t go quietly.
I don’t want to stop. I want to escalate.
To see his face when he finds the cookies. When he sees the jacket. When he realizes someone was in his space, touching his things, breathing his air.
I want him to know it was me.
To come looking.
I curl up on my bed, still wearing his cologne, the tie pressed against my chest.
And fall asleep reeking of sin and cologne.