I shrug my coat off and hang it over the stair banister.
“I was using the hair-dryer and didn't hear the door. I take it it's getting a little windy?” She smirks.
“Yeah no shit. I'll just have to use your straighteners.” I give her a smug smile and we go upstairs.
Cassey points to a shot glass and winks then carries on doing her make-up. She's using some crazy foundation technique, but at the moment it looks like she's wearing different tones of skin coloured face-paint.
I down the shot of Disaronno and enjoy the slight burn it gives coupled with smooth almond. Then I plug in the straighteners and they start warming up ready to tackle my mess of hair. I assess the damage in the mirror and once the green light comes on I start to pull the tongs through my hair.
I try to concentrate on what I'm doing but my mind keeps wondering to the guy across the street. The strange feeling I got when I felt him staring at me, how he was there one second then gone the next. First Nick gets all creepy and now the weird guy on the street. Maybe I'm being paranoid. Nick is just creepy anyway, that's nothing new and the guy across the street was probably just lost. Yeah, if I tell myself that enough times maybe I'll start to believe it.
“Krista you OK?” Cassey's voice is full of concern.
I didn't realise I'd stopped and was holding the straighteners pointlessly in the air.
“Yeah I'm good.” I say in what I hope is a convincing cheery voice and I carry on doing my hair.
Apparently not convincing enough because Cassey stops what she's doing and sits with me on the floor in front of the mirror.
“What's wrong? You jump into my house the second I open the door and you start staring off into space with a freaked out look on your face. Don't even get me started on your attempt at sounding happy just now.”
She looks at me with worry etched into her eyes and puts a hand on my knee.
The jig is up she's not gonna let this go. At the risk of sounding like a paranoid nut-job I tell her about the weird guy across the street staring at me then his sudden disappearing act. Even as I'm explaining it to her I realise how stupid I was being. He was just a random guy and I’m making something out of nothing.
“After hearing myself I know I'm exaggerating the whole thing. It's officially not even an issue.”
I square my shoulders and continue with my hair.
Cassey hasn't said anything in response so I look at her and notice she's doing the staring-into-space-looking-freaked thing now. I click the straighteners together in front of her face a couple of times to snap her out of it.
“Cooey!”
She pulls her hair behind her ear and looks at me with her brows furrowed.
“Was he wearing a black jacket, dark jeans and boots?”
“Yeah you saw him too?”
Thank the Gods I'm not hallucinating!
“I did but not today. He was in the car park when we left college yesterday. He was looking at us and you were on yourphone so you wouldn't have been paying attention. I just put it down to him checking us out.”
“Well that solves it. He just lives in the area and probably goes to our college and by the sounds of it has a very boring wardrobe.” I try to sound nonchalant, but with the way his presence made me feel, something in the back of my mind tells me it's not a coincidence.
“Meh probably, but if I see him again, I wanna know what his deal is with just staring at people. He had his hood up as well so I couldn't see his face.” Cassey shakes her head and gets up to go finish her make-up.
I tell myself that it's just a random coincidence and nothing to worry about. I come to the conclusion that I won't worry unless this guy actually does something worth worrying about. After all the guy could be perfectly innocent. No need to jump to conclusions. Not yet anyway.
Half an hour later she's finally finished and dressed in a bright red dress with a plunging neck line. It hugs her curves very tight and finishes half way down her thigh. I don't know where she gets her confidence from to pull off something like that so well. Then again with her silver heals she looks stunning. She has no reason not to be confident.
Cassey checks herself one last time in the mirror then grabs her silver clutch off the bed. “Right my sexy bitch, you ready?”
“I've been ready the last 20 minutes. Come on let’s go!”
I start to walk out her bedroom when she slaps me on the arse making me squeal and jump.
“What was that for?” I say laughing.
