“Don’t answer the door,” Freddie squealed and dived in front of me.
I frowned, not sure if it was time for her to see a professional for help. She hadn’t been to school all week or seen any of her friends. She hadn’t even left the house once. And every time the doorbell rang, she begged us not to answer it. This was becoming a problem since I ordered everything online. Even the groceries. I had no time to go to the shops. So much easier to use work time and do it then.
The last two delivery drivers were nice enough to pass their signature pad through the window for me to sign. But I’d had enough. There had been no sign of Dickhead. Not even a threatening message. Nothing.
Admittedly, I’d hardly slept at all since the incident and as a result looked like shit, but Freddie was taking her worry to a new level. I was not sure when she last took the time to shower and to make matters worse, she’d started watching daytime soaps with Oma. It was entirely possibly she had gone a tad bit crazy.
Oma was religious about her soaps. You didn’t talk to her while they were on. She had two favorites at the moment, El Talisman and Days of Our Lives. She even named her demon cat after a character in the series, Celeste Perrault. And now she had a faithful companion in Freddie. The fact that they didn’t speak a word of Spanish didn’t stop them from staring at the screen every time El Talisman was on.
I shook my head and moved her to the side. “Move over, I’m opening this door no matter what.” Our worry was unfounded, since we now had our personal bodyguard. He mysteriously showed up the day Rhett stormed out of my office and hadn’t left.
A glance out the window confirmed him still sitting in his car across the street. If whoever was at the door was a threat, he wouldn’t have let them get close. He was a mammoth of a man. His name was Gunner, at least that’s what I thought he’d grunted at me last time I brought him a cup of coffee.
She jumped back in front of me. “What if it’s Colin?”
“Who’s Colin?”
“Really, Emmi?” Freddie asked me, incredulous. “Dickhead is Colin. What did you think his name was?”
Right, I thought his name started with C. I moved her again, advancing further towards the door. The person on the other side was getting impatient, the banging getting louder and more frequent.
I tried to, once again, reason with her. “Don’t you think it’s pretty unlikely he would just walk up to our door and ring the bell? Especially with Gunner right outside?” More likely he’d kick down our back door, but I didn’t voice that concern. I thought I had that entry covered anyway. With a big ass kitchen cabinet that was a bitch to move and left a lot of dust in its wake.
I peeked out the peephole and my hand froze on the doorknob. Hell no, I was not answering the door. “Never mind. I think you’re right. We shouldn’t open the door for anyone.”
I carefully backed up, waving Freddie along. We almost made it out of the hallway when Oma appeared behind us. “Why is nobody answering the door?” she asked.
“They have the wrong house,” I tried to explain.
“Doesn’t seem like they think they do,” she said and walked past us. She ignored our cries to keep the door closed and short of physically stopping her, we had no other option. And that was just wrong, tackling an eighty-five-year-old lady.
She opened the door to a scowling Rhett. Seriously, did the man not know how to smile?
“Rhett,mein lieber, what are you doing here?” Oma asked and held out her arms for a hug. Rhett complied and kissed her on the cheek. She acted as if she had been waiting for him to arrive all day. Shouldn’t really surprise me since she’d always loved him. Apparently she still did.
“Edeltraud. You are looking as radiant as ever. So good to see you.”
Oma blushed—BLUSHED—and waved him inside. “I just made rhubarb pie. You’ll stay and have some.” She looked past Rhett as if expecting someone else to come through the door. “Have you seen Celeste on your way in?”
Hopefully that incarnation of evil was somewhere far, far away. She peed in my boots this morning. The smell was close to impossible to get rid of. The week before, she pulled the curtains down and shredded them. But Oma loved her cat no matter how much damage she caused to us humans and the furniture.
“She’s still alive? She’d be close to twenty years old now,” Rhett said and Oma nodded proudly.
She pulled Rhett through the door, telling him to take a seat and went outside to look for her hellcat.
“Thank you, Edeltraud,” he answered.
Once she was out of earshot, he turned to me. “You know I could hear everything that you guys were saying? I was standing right on the other side of that door.”
Well, now that just made this whole thing so much less awkward. Not.
“Good for you. Have fun hanging out with Oma. I have to get milk.”
Was it too much to ask for him to let me pass for once? But no, he stopped me, like usual, and crossed his arms over his chest, very unusual. So far there had been a lot of arms and hand holding involved. This was a new approach.
“We need to talk.”
“Just what every girl likes to hear.”
