Much prefer when expectations are kept low.
So this thing where I like Sloane?
It’s just about knowing that she’s tempering her expectations of me so I won’t let her down, or at least so she’ll be expecting it when I do.
It’s probably not about actually liking her.
I’m merely appreciating that she doesn’t treat me like I must be infallible since I was once in a boy band. One that I know she liked.
Big difference.
She walked to work after walking to the museum this morning, so we make our way through the residential neighborhood north of downtown toward her house with the parrot trailing us and making occasional vulgar suggestions.
When we reach her house, she asks if I want to come inside the red brick cottage while she changes.
Fully expected her to tell me to wait outside.
That wholeI don’t trust youvibe and all, even if we need to sell our relationship to anyone who might be watching. For her sake more than mine.
But that feeling is also short-lived.
I grab her arm at the wooden door with three small windows making an arch at about my eye level. She has a porch the width of the house, with yellow and orange fall flowers in pots on either side of the door, but something’s not right here.
“Did you leave this open?”
The door’s cracked.
Not a lot, but enough that I notice.
She freezes and takes a half step back, right into me, giving me a whiff of antiseptic mingling with a softer cinnamon scent in her hair. “No.”
“Stay here.”
“Or maybe I did,” she adds.
“Do you usually leave your door cracked?”
“No, but everyone makes mistakes. I’m a little off these days.”
“Rawk! Intruder alert! Rawk!”
“Get lost, Long Beak Silver,” she says to the bird, but her voice is high and uneven.
I peer down at her. “Do you leave your porch light on?”
It’s off. In my experience, when people know they’re getting home after dark—and it gets dark early these days—they leave their porch light on.
She visibly shivers as she answers me in a small voice. “Yes. Usually.”
“Stay here,” I repeat. I tug her back so I can go in first.
“Oh my god. Peggy.”
She lunges for the door, but I grab her arm to keep her from going in. “Peggy?”
“My cat.My cat.”
I’m not the buffest guy in the world, but I’m not a weakling either. Lift weights regularly. Use my punching bags to manage stress. Keep up with martial arts practice too. So when Sloane wrenches herself out of my grasp and darts inside before me, I’m mildly startled.
