“Tell me something true about you,” I said finally. “Anything. Please.”
Nicolas hesitated.
For a moment, I thought I wasn’t going to get a single word out of him. But then he sighed. “I’m someone who cares enough about your safety to pick you up after a sixteen-hour shift,” he said, sounding hesitant, as though he wasn’t sure he was beinghonest with either of us. After a pause, he added, “I know my behavior must seem… odd.”
“Odd is one word for it.”
“You got into a car with me. For a second time,” he pointed out. “Surely you’ve decided I’m not all bad.”
“It’s my car,” I replied hotly. “And I was worried you might steal my keys and club me over the head or something to get me into it. Saying yes was easier.”
Plus, I was reasonably sure he didn’t intend to murder me. Buying the house right next to me would have been a strange thing for a serial killer to do. Whatever else Nicolas was, he wasn’t directly harmful.
He was just… kind of manic. And deeply strange.
Because he wasn’t human. I knew I should have broached the topic—demanded an explanation. Or asked him point-blank:What are you?
The words were on the tip of my tongue. I just couldn’t bring myself to say them. What if they banished him for good? Or what if I was wrong, and I really was going insane?
His lips twitched. “I wouldn’t have clubbed you over the head. Instead, I’d have appealed to your sense of logic. I can be quite persuasive, you know.”
“Logic left the building a while back,” I muttered under my breath.
Nicolas snorted, shaking his head.
“Do you have tomorrow off?” he asked, changing lanes to the right abruptly, setting off a cacophony of honking behind us.
My heart skipped a beat, and I lunged for the oh-shit handle above my door, clinging to it one-handed like a lifeline. I sucked in a shaky breath, then let it out. With forced calmness—sounding nothing like myself—I said, “The turn signal is there for a reason. And you might be going a little fast for seven a.m. rush hour.”
Nicolas immediately eased off the gas, slowing to eighty.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “The question still stands.”
“I have tomorrow off. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
He shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. “Do you have plans?”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing with the sister?”
I snorted. Sam and I certainly weren’t going to be doing any brother-sister bonding. The only bonding she was likely to do was with a bottle—or box—of cheap wine. We might watch a movie together after dinner, but it was unlikely. She’d probably be too far gone by then.
I shook my head.
Nicolas took his eyes off the road for several long seconds and stared at me. His expression darkened with concern at whatever he saw on my face—
which was probably terror.
“No,” I said, pointing out the windshield at the semi we were about to plow into.
He immediately slowed the car, glanced out the windshield, then sighed.
“Also, please keep your eyes on the road. You’re driving a two-ton weapon at eighty miles an hour. You could hurt someone.”
“I could, couldn’t I?” he remarked, smiling again. But he dutifully returned his eyes to the road as I’d asked. Then, without warning, he added, “Let’s go on a date.”
I stared at him in silence for several long moments, trying to process his suggestion. A date? As in—what? Dinner and a movie? The idea of Nicolas in an Olive Garden or something was ridiculous.
