She was counting when they met for the job interview in her mind. To her, the flirting and dancing around each other started then. Otherwise there was no way to put a time period on it.
What she and Clay experienced together expedited her feelings.
“Oh,” Karl said. “You moved faster than I realized. I would have thought Fredrick and all his antics would have made you want to avoid men now, just like you said you were going to do. You know, take your time.”
She didn’t like anyone criticizing her choices in men. She did that enough to herself. She took another sip while she tried to form her words.
Karl was drinking his coffee with her and looking around the kitchen. She didn’t understand why.
“Did you want some cookies?”
“I hate drinking out of paper cups,” Karl said.
“Oh sorry,” she said, getting up. “I forgot.”
She got one of her four floral mugs down for herself and a different one for Karl. He took the top off his coffee and poured it in. She did the same with hers even though she was fine drinking it out of the takeout cup it came in.
“You never seem to remember things like that for me,” Karl said, his voice…just off. “When I know so much about you.”
Just great. Another person condemning her on her actions.
“I know stuff about you,” she said.
“Like what?” he asked, leaning back and crossing his arms. He was in a defensive stance she’d never seen from him before.
She didn’t know why he was pushing her. “You work from home. And you go into the office a few times a month.”
“What do I do?” Karl asked, his chin lifted.
“You work for an insurance company, right?”
“What kind of insurance?”
What the hell? Her mind couldn’t process anything. “Medical?”
“No,” he snapped. “Property and casualty. I process claims and have for fifteen years. Long before you moved here.”
“I get confused.”
“Because you don’t see what is in front of your face,” Karl said. “You don’t know who it is that is taking care of you and knows you like I do.”
She picked up her coffee to drink again while she tried to figure out a way to get him to leave without being a bitch. Everyone had a bad day and it seemed he was having one too.
It wasn’t the first time lately she’d seen a different side to him. A short one. Dare she say creepy dialed up more than a few notches?
But with everything else going on in her life, she just ignored Karl.
“You know me well,” she said. “I’ve really got some things to do, so?—”
“What things? Your laundry is done. You’ve cleaned out your refrigerator, scrubbed your floor and then broke a glass tossing it in the sink.”
Her jaw dropped, her eyes blinking. Things were rushing to her brain and her vision was blurry.
“How could you know that? Have you been watching me through my window?”
“Silly, Meredith.” He was shaking his head at her. There was a sneer to his voice now and a narrowing of his eyes that was almost sinister. “I told you, it’s right in front of your face.” Karl got up and walked toward the window over the sink, moved her curtain aside, and there was a tiny camera in the corner overthe frame above the curtain rod she’d never noticed before. “Did Fredrick know how you liked your towels folded like I do? Does Clay bring your trash cans in every week for you? No. I do.”
“You’re spying on me?” she asked, her eyes huge, her stomach churning with heat and nausea. “When? Why? For how long?”
