“Plus, you’re a catch, Gabby.” The thin gold bracelets adorning Layla’s wrists jingled as she gestured towards me. “Can’t blame Hunter for having a thing for you.”
“Oh, God.” I stood up, groaning. “Let’s stop this conversation right here. For all we know, your earlier theory of him having a staring problem could be accurate and we’re just being silly by thinking he has a crush on me.” I putcrushin air quotations. My ego wasn’t so grand to assume that everyone with a dick in my vicinity had the hots for me. “And though he’s cute and I’ll admit thatmaybeI’m attracted to him, it doesn’t matter because I’llneveract on that attraction.”
They both seemed genuinely puzzled.
“Why not?” Anna asked. “He seems like a nice guy. Not like…”
She trailed off, but we all knew about the elephant in the room.
Not like Franco, my ex-boyfriend.
The stupid fucker who birthed all my trust issues. I regretted giving him three years of my life. If I could turn back time, I’d undo all our memories and make sure to kick him where the sun didn’t shine.
“Yeah, Hunter does seem nice.” Reminders of my ex brought out a bitter note to my voice. “Alas, still a no.”
My best friends didn’t push the topic anymore.
Layla tried to ease the mood by wiggling her eyebrows and jokingly saying, “Do you want me to text Josh and ask if he thinks Hunter has a staring problem?”
Anna chuckled and a scoff escaped me.
“Please, don’t do that,” I pleaded, adjusting the strap of my structured black minidress so it rested better on my shoulder. “If this gets back to Hunter, I’ll die of embarrassment.”
We spent the next few moments exchanging goodbyes and making plans to meet up for a study session midweek. Since I didn’t have my license yet, Layla drove me to my apartment, which was located in a complex owned by the Remingtons—Josh’s family—and not too far away from Vesta University’s campus.
The best decision I made was moving out of my childhood home for the sake of my mental health. I loved my parents, but distance really made the heart grow fonder. Moreover, I liked living alone, sans roommate. It helped strengthen my independence.
Maverick, the security guard who doubled up as a doorman, welcomed me as I neared the entrance of the building. “Hello, Miss Bellafiore.”
I forced a smile. “Hey, Rick. Good day?”
“Better now that you’re here.” He gave me a suggestive once-over that made me want to gag. I resisted the urge to hurry up to my apartment so I didn’t come off as a total bitch. “How’s your day going?”
He put a pudgy hand on my waist under the guise of guiding me inside the building and I shuddered, quickly ducking out of his hold. “Great. Thanks for asking.”
Maverick was in his early forties and a little too flirty and handsy with the female patrons living in the apartments. A few months ago, when I came back home after a night out, he propositioned me, asking me to dinner and well, everything that comes afterwards. I politely declined and he took it like a champ, never asking me out again. But he did make me uncomfortable with his creepy grins and leery-eyed looks.
I bet if he knew about the gun sitting in the drawer of my console table, he’d never look my way again. Nevertheless, I gauged Maverick to be relatively harmless and never bothered reporting his weird behaviour to management.
“I hope you have a great rest of your day,” Maverick drawled with a wink.
But something about the way he saidgreatanddayhad my gut tightening with instinct. I couldn’t quite place my finger on the trigger, but I felt edgy. I tried squandering the feeling screaming inside of me that something was off as I headed for my apartment.
Visibly, everything was status quo. The usual potted plants sitting in the foyer. The speckled flooring from the ’90s. The light smell of lemon-scented cleaning products. The gentle whirring of the air conditioning unit. The cockatoo from the ground floor apartment squawking faintly in the background.
But eeriness pulsed through the air as I climbed up the steps in the empty stairwell, the echo sounding like nails beingpounded into a coffin. My skin itched like a hundred little ants crawling down my spine by the time I reached the third floor.
The hallway was exceptionally quiet. With every footstep, my senses whetted as I neared my apartment…and automatically halted.
My door was unlocked and ajar.
I pushed it open and stepped inside before thinking twice.
Once I did, my eyes widened in shock as I soaked in my wrecked place.
My favourite crystal vase, which used to rest on my console table in the entryway, was broken, shattered into tiny little pieces on the floor.
And the white living room wall before me bore an angry sentence, scrawled in crimson red paint.
