Romila climbs up, worried and confused. When she is at the window, she sees it's open. She climbs inside and finds Ed sitting on his bed.
I nod, determined. Sophia squints at me.
“So in this scene, maybe he immediately opens his laptop and sits in front of it to distract her, knowing he kind of screwed up. But his sister was using it right before this, and she left a Twilight fanfic open?”
“We can definitely do something with that,” Emily says. “Oliver is bringing all the punch-up energy today. Come on, guys. We need the whole team on this.”
“Suck up,” Sophia snarks, but she’s smiling.
I absolutely adore this team. I hope this weird werewolf teenage drama never ends.
***
By evening, I’m mentally exhausted but antsy. So, I bake. It's a great way to get rid of some of that extra energy. I’m not sociopathic enough to go for a run. And rooftop walks are officially on my ‘don’t even joke about it’ list.
After my second batch of cupcakes is out of the oven, I carefully ice the first with chocolate. Halfway through, my brainsupplies the reason why I made so many. If unexpected guests show up, I won’t be unprepared.
My hands still.
It’s not just for Matt, alright? I love baking,and I want to see him licking the frosting off my cupcake.I mean, I want to thank him for being nice.
There. That makes sense. I go back to icing.
When my door is extremely un-knocked by 8 pm, I pace around the living room.
Maybe I should take the cupcakes over to Matt? No, that would be weird. The guy just came to check on me.
Wait, he could be working one of his shifts, right? I do a mental calculation of his weird hours. Yeah, that’s above my pay grade.
I look at the cupcakes covering my entire kitchen counter. Maybe I can use them for some sly detective work again?
I've never seen anyone on drugs react the way Dalton did. Not in any movies, TV shows, and definitely not in real life. Maybe I can go around, talk to a few neighbours? If they’ve seen him behave that way before, I’d definitely feel better, less lonely and terrified.
I desperately need some sleep, but the idea of closing my eyes and seeing Dalton’s angry face again scares me.
Giving the neighbors sweets is a kind, neighbourly thing to do, right? Besides, I've been procrastinating on visiting a lot of people anyway. I’ve interacted with almost everyone in the elevator, lobby, and once on the roof. It wouldn’t hurt to get to know them better.
That decided, I plate four of the cupcakes and take them to the eighth floor.
I'm not being nosy. I’m just getting to know my neighbours,starting from the first apartment on the top floor. It's just chronology.
The door opens immediately after the first knock. Beck, a lean, muscled guy with thick blonde hair running down his shoulders and a barbell piercing in his left eyebrow, never fails to stop and talk to me whenever we run into each other.
I internally groan. Did he have to be the first apartment?
The loud commentary coming from the television tells me I’m clearly interrupting something important. He glances at me, looks back at his television, then back to me. A slow smile spreads across his lips. His eyes assess me lazily.
“Hey, there,” he says.
I put on my best smile. “I got cupcakes.”
“Is that a euphemism?” He looks at my cupcakes.
Yeah, I’m not flirting back. One complicated neighbor relationship was more than enough for me.
“No, I brought real cupcakes.” I hold up the plate.
He snorts out a laugh and tilts his head. “You brought cupcakes.”
