“If she hadn’t tried so hard to kill us, I would be impressed,” Eve decided, toothbrush in hand.
The afternoon haze had officially dissolved into the night, and Darius had finally called it quits. No more phone calls, no more researching, no more compulsively checking the security cameras on the house or the one next door.
Now it was just the two of them getting ready for bed.
“And for that same reason, I’m astounded that we still have no idea who she is,” he said, putting his own toothbrush back into its holder.
While Darius had spent most of the day on the phone, Eve had spent some of her time walking the same floors she had as a little girl.
Much like his own childhood home, Darius had changed everything save a few pieces of the familiar. The tired carpet had been updated to hardwood. The guest bathroom had been painted and the hardware updated. The kitchen cabinets had been replaced and a fairly new refrigerator stood where their less-than-aesthetically pleasing former one had stood. The room that had once belonged to her father had a new bedroom suite, along with curtains that were as subtle as the new wall color. There were still some signs that the en suite was being updated, but even still nothing in it fit the memory Eve had of the room.
It was only the first bedroom on the left that she recognized with one foot in the past and one in the present.
And Eve had no idea how to feel about any of it.
Darius had bought her home and saved parts of her childhood.
What did that mean?
Did he still feel like he owed her for what had happened at the warehouse when they were kids? Had some kind of misguided guilt led him to make such a drastic decision?
Or was it really about an easy investment?
Eve huffed now at the reflection in the bathroom’s mirror.
Darius must have thought it had to do with their current predicament. He walked past her to the bedroom.
“Don’t worry,” he said, oblivious to the almost-constant series of questions she had been listening to on repeat in her head since the discovery. “She might be good, but I’m better. We’ll figure out who she is.”
Eve trailed behind him, nodding.
She followed him into the guest bedroom, still nodding.
When he pulled back the covers and slid into the bed, she stopped.
Her eyebrow arched high. He caught the confusion and returned a small eye roll.
“I figured it would save you some time and energy by starting out in the same bed instead of having you creep around later.” He grabbed the covers next to him and pulled them away from the sheets. “You can go ahead and just start at the end.”
He was right, of course.
There had been no way—great love epiphany or not—that Eve was going to sleep a wink without having Darius beside her. She hadn’t even napped earlier despite his insistence.
Yet she hadn’t actually thought about what that meant until now. Or, really, how she felt about it now that shehadfinally realized that her love for the man was no longer just loyalty or friendship. Instead it was her—a woman very much aware of how that boy had grown up well—about to slide in next to him in bed wearing her little PJ set and no makeup, and swimming in a lot of feelings.
Darius was back to looking at his phone, texting someone. Eve used the distraction to hurry to her place. She pulled the covers up to her chin. Darius continued to go through his phone.
Minutes went by, and slowly the foreign awkwardness Eve was feeling fell away. She wiggled her toes under the covers and stared at the ceiling.
The same old popcorn treatment with light from the nightstand lamp discoloring it to an off-white. She tried to remember the last time she had been in the same room. The night before the move, she had stayed in Darius’s. Him on the floor, her lying on the side of his bed, hand draped over to hold his blanket.
Pure friendship. Pure loyalty. Pure love.
That was enough for her.
She could grow old with it. With him.
Like this.
