“You’re such a sweetheart. How are you such a sweetheart?”
She glanced up, whip-quick. Was he joking? He had to be joking. The words were just so weird and unexpected, and his expression didn’t help any with figuring them out. He looked surprised, she thought.
And sort of...warm.
“Anyone would do this.”
“I don’t think they would.”
“Of course they would.”
“I think they would have called the cops, the second they saw the busted door.”
“Well I didn’t see the busted door, so—”
“And they’d have probably gotten out their shotgun, for the ruined rug.”
“Nobody cares about a rug. Why are you so obsessed with the rug?”
“Everybody cares about a rug. And they care even more about a big, strange dude in their house.”
She was right on the verge of correcting him.You’re not strange, she wanted to say.You’re Holden Stark—everybody knows who you are.And then he spoke, and suddenly she couldn’t say anything at all. She kind of froze instead, with him still attached like a massive limb she’d never noticed before.
“Especially when big dudes obviously make them nervous.”
He meant her, she knew. She’d somehow given her nervousness away, though she hadn’t meant to. She hadn’t said a word when he’d suddenly smacked his big hand around her waist, and she was sure any flinching had been kept to a minimum. It was important to keep it to a minimum, when he clearly didn’t intend to grab her.
He’d just needed to steady himself, and now she’d somehow made him feel bad.
“No, really, I’m not nervous at all.”
She was aware that this just made her seem very nervous indeed. But what could she do? She couldn’t tell him the truth—I spent most of the last three years in a hospital, and now I’m socially weird.I still feel like I’m seventeen inside and no amount of house buying is making me grow up right.He wouldn’t understand that.Shedidn’t even understand that.
She’d always been old for her age...until it happened.
“It’s okay, honey—you should be nervous. Sudden huge, hairy stranger in your home...messing up your stuff, using you as a crutch.”
He wasn’t quite holding on to her that hard anymore. In fact, he’d worked his way up to a slow but steady pace and had just negotiated her coffee table almost solo.
She knew what he was driving at, however.
“Is this where you reveal you’re a secret serial killer?”
“Hey, I could be. You never know.”
“Think it would have been in the papers by now.”
“So youdoknow who I am. Damn. Almost thought I’d gotten away with it, then.”
He said it like a joke, but she could hear something underneath. Something unsettling, that kind of made her feel bad. Maybe he’d wanted her to pretend, or never bring it up. He was just an ordinary guy having a bad time, and she was some girl who’d decided to help him out of the goodness of her heart.
Only now...now it was possible he thought otherwise.
She could have done it all because he was famous.
“I don’t think you could ever get away with it...but I don’t care, if that’s what you mean. I was just saying that it made me feel a little safer, that’s all.”
“Oh honey, I can tell you don’t care.”
