There was a wolf whistle from the assholes across the street, but I didn’t turn around and give them any of the attention that they so desperately wanted.
Using my key to unlock the handle, I pushed inside and froze.
There was a man on my couch.
“What the fuck?” I screeched.
My stepdad stood up, the blanket falling to the floor, and stared at me in shock. “What are you doing here?”
I blinked. “What am I doing here? I live here!”
“You’re supposed to be asleep!” he roared.
I opened my mouth then closed it, searching for the words that wouldn’t come.
“Get out!” I eventually cried out.
He held up his hands. “I just need a place to…”
“You’ve done enough!” I screeched. “I’m not interested in hearing what you have to say. Get out of my house and stay out!”
Before my stepfather could argue some more, a menacing voice from behind me said, “I think I’d do what the lady says.”
I turned to see Boone, my end-of-the-street neighbor, standing there with his feet spread apart and a ferocious frown on his face.
“This is my daughter. You’re interfering.”
“She asked you to leave. Twice. Next time she asks, I’ll help you out.”
My stepfather’s face went electric as he said, “I’m allowed to be here. My friend owns this place.”
“Even if he did, she has a lease. I heard her talking about it with the man that owns this house. You’re not on that lease. I would know, because I make sure I know who my neighbors are.”
“Oh, yeah. Like you agreed to have those miscreants as neighbors?” Tom scoffed.
“They’re exactly where we want them to be.” Boone tilted his head. “Now, either leave, or I make you leave.”
Tom slipped on his shoes and marched past me out the door, but not before shoulder-checking me on the way.
I caught the suitcase before he could knock it down the stairs and then stared in shock as my stepfather walked down the road to climb into his car that’d been parked behind some bushes.
Only when he’d peeled out of the neighborhood did Boone say, “He been living here?”
I thought about all those times that I’d smelled his cologne on the blankets on my couch.
A sick thought occurred to me.
Because a lot of things started to come together after we’d seen my stepfather sleeping in his car.
Mostly because when he’d asked me if he could stay with me, I’d said no, and he’d just given up.
But he hadn’t given up.
He’d been living with me, and I just didn’t know it.
Well, maybe not living, but staying for sure.
“I’ve been hearing some strange things at night that I thought were a squirrel,” I admitted. “In the attic. But I think it was him out in the living room all this time. It’s been months.”
