That is a fact.
I pace across the room, then back. “I could go to practice. Pack up some things at home and come back. But I don’t want to leave you. You could come with me.” I stop. “Yeah. You could come with me and stay at my place. They won’t find you there.”
She gapes at me. “That’s ridiculous. I can stay here. It’ll be fine.”
But I see the misgiving in her eyes.
“You’re going to deal with them every time you go out?”
“No. I just won’t go out.”
I give her a come-on look.
“Instacart,” she says. “Door Dash. Amazon.”
I still look at her.
“I won’t be able to go to the gym,” she adds with a twist of her pretty lips. “Not that I really want to anyway.”
“I have a gym in my building.”
She blinks at me.
“But my things are here.” She gestures at the piano in her living room. I also saw one of her bedrooms has other instruments and equipment in it.
“You can do without for a while.”
She gives me a weird, troubled look. Like she’s afraid.
“I want you to be safe,” I add in a gentle tone. “And happy.”
With a slow side to side movement of her head, she says in a small voice, “I can’t be happy.”
“Maybe not right now,” I agree. “But you will.”
Her mouth droops, her expression doubtful.
“Pack a bag,” I rumble. “I’ll help.”
After a long, loaded moment, amazingly she complies. Still in her cotton pajamas, she trudges down the hall to her room. I follow.
“I need to get dressed.” She shoots a look over her shoulder at me.
“Okay. Five minutes.”
“My big suitcase is in the spare bedroom closet.”
Perfect. I hike in there and find it then cool my jets waiting for her to open the bedroom door again. She does moments later, now wearing loose jeans and a black Radiohead hoodie. The song “Creep” comes to mind.
What the hell am I doing here?
I lift the suitcase onto her bed and she starts tossing stuff into it.
“Jesus.” I grab a T-shirt, shake it out, and fold it neatly. I continue with that as she flings clothing at the bed. Until she tosses a bunch of lacey little panties and bra things. I stare at them, forgetting what I’m doing. Where I am.
I snap out of it when Nikki returns from the bathroom and chucks a big flowered bag loaded with… stuff into the suitcase.
She looks around the room. “I don’t even know what I need.”
