I pressed my palms to my thighs as I continued standing in the living room, wondering what to do. My stomach gurgled again.
I tracked across to the kitchen, directly passing my bedroom door, where I could hear the low murmur of his voice. As I made myself a bowl of cereal, I saw him pacing, phone to his ear as he clenched his jaw.
"The meet-up went to shit," he said sharply. "The dickhead shot at me, Vince."
I slowly lowered my spoon to the countertop while I listened carefully. But I missed the counter completely and dropped the spoon to the floor instead. It clattered loudly, bouncing along the tiles until it rattled to a stop.
Romeo stopped talking as he looked at me.
I averted my gaze and squatted behind the counter to retrieve the spoon, cringing and hiding the redness on my face until I heard the bedroom door close.
Last night wasn’t a botched robbery but a meeting gone wrong. He had used the fire escape to escape but slipped, conveniently hitting the exact spot of his eyebrow injury.
I stood and stared down at my cereal, my appetite fading. I plopped the spoon into the bowl and waited. For what? I didn’t know. It's not like Romeo was about to walk out and tell me all about his phone call. Truthfully, I didn’t want him to. I just wanted him out of my room and out of the apartment. The sooner, the better.
Things had gone extremely quiet on his side of the door. The deep murmur of his voice had stopped.
What if he’s looking through my underwear drawer?
I cupped my hands around the sides of the bowl and tapped my fingers against the ceramic, chewing my cheek as I watched the door. For a millisecond, I took a step towards it, to tell him to get out, until reason settled my thoughts. I caught myself mid-step and re-directed where I was going. I sat on one of the two bar stools on the other side of the counter, forcing myself to take a mouthful of the already soggy cereal.
The bedroom door opened and my heart lurched.
Romeo stepped out, tapping away at his phone as he returned to the couch. His eyebrows set in a frown again, lips in a tight line, as his jaw ticked.
I wondered if he ever smiled as I subtly watched him drop onto the couch and drag his fingers through his black hair. His eyes were still on his phone, one knee bouncing. When my mind wandered to those curious thoughts, trying to understand why he was the way he was, I blinked and looked away. He was a criminal, that’s all I needed to know. Yes, I helped him, and technically still was helping him, but that would be as far as my hospitality stretched for someone like him.
I squared my shoulders again and stepped down from the stool, pulling up the dregs of my confidence. But my movement caught Romeo’s attention, and he slowly dragged those eyes from his screen.
My confidence slipped. “Obviously, you can’t stay here forever.”
He only watched with cold uninterest in his eyes.
“I’m going to go downstairs and check the mail.”
He shook his head slowly. “Okay?”
"Well, I could see if the police have left." My neck felt hot.
He was reading my face, trying to weed out a lie, wondering if he could trust me not to give him up. But then he nodded. “Yeah, alright.”
The constricting feeling in my chest eased. “Great. Be back in a minute.”
Heart pounding against my chest, adrenaline racing through my veins, apartment keys in hand, and still wearing my satin Pooh Bear pajama set, I headed for the front door and shoved my boots on.
I was running on autopilot again, sorting my thoughts into tiny boxes as I left the apartment. The third-floor hallways were empty, and I took the stairs to the level below. The police weren't on this floor either, but there was plenty to show there was an investigation. Police tape was across the door of Marcus’s apartment on the right of the hallway. His apartment sat directly under our right-side neighbor’s place, which explained why the gunshots were so loud.
I continued downstairs to the foyer, scanning the space for any police officers as I walked across to the front door, bypassing the mailboxes altogether. With no one in sight, there wasn’t any point pretending to check them.
Heaving open the solid front doors, I stuck my head through the gap just in time to see the last police officers speaking with the guys from a forensics van. Their few boxes of evidence were on the curb. That didn’t mean the investigation was done, but they were leaving. Meaning Romeo had a small time frame to get out before they returned.
I just had to make sure none of my neighbors saw him leave.
“Horrible, isn’t it?” The woman’s voice had come from nearby but had sent a jolt through my body as I spun around.
Susan, our middle-aged, nosey neighbor from across the hallway, was collecting her mail with her hair still in a nightcap.
I hadn’t even heard her enter the foyer.
