Then he’d leap up the stairs, suddenly.
Right when she had nothing to defend herself.
Just run, now,her mind insisted. And it was tempting, it was. The front door was right there. He was definitely down in the depths. It made sense to try. She could even slam the trapdoor closed before she did, and maybe shove the dresser over it too.
But before she could, she took one terrified glance down, beyond the jutting rim that hid the basement beyond. And saw the light on down there, illuminating the very thing she should have guessed. Because of course it wasn’t an axe-wielding maniac at all. Or even a garden-variety burglar.
Oh no no no no.
It was Seth Brubaker.
Somehow, it was Seth fucking Brubaker. Just down there, in her grandmother’s basement, in the middle of the motherfucking night. Rummaging around, clear as day, as if that was an incredibly normal thing to do. When it was the opposite of normal in every single way. In fact, it was so not normal she couldn’t even bring herself to believe it was true.
She had to creep down a few of the rickety basement steps to confirm.
Though all that did was make the situation worse. Now she could see him in the highest-possible definition. Like someone had jammed a telescope between her eyes and his face, entirely against her will. And that only revealed a bunch of other things she wasn’t really braced for.
For some reason, he looked sick.
Seriously, horribly sick, in a way that was making him perspire.
In fact, no. It wasn’t just something as slight as perspiration.
This dude wassweating. He was leaking buckets of the stuff, from what looked like every pore. She could see it running down the nape of his neck and gleaming all over the space between his nose and his top lip. Hell, she could see it gleaming on weirder places—like the backs of his hands. Even though she felt sure that the backs of hands didn’t sweat.
And god, he seemed gray. Actuallygray—not simply ashen or pale or whatever else people usually said when someone was sick. Like he’d just stepped out of a black-and-white movie, she thought, and was fairly alarmed at how well that fit.
But she was even more alarmed by his left leg.
It just didnotseem to want to stop jiggling.
Massively jiggling, like someone was setting off firecrackers inside of it.
And as she watched, said firecrackers seemed to spread to other parts of his body. Now his right leg was jiggling too—which honestly just made it look like he really badly needed the bathroom. She almost wanted to tell him he could go if he had to.
But she was glad her brain saw sense, and forced her not to. Because (a) it definitely wasn’t the need to pee that was causing this to happen, and (b) he had broken into her home, in the middle of the night, and was now doing god only knew what. Really, she should have been whacking him with the hatstand. Not politely inviting him to use the facilities.
And especially after he seemed to clock her standing there, inthe middle of that rickety staircase. He actually jerked as if struck. As ifshewere the wild, unexpected thing here.
Then even more unbelievably, he saidthis:
“I swear to god, I am not down here looking for drugs.”
Instead of anything more reasonable, like an apology. Or an explanation for breaking in. Or even an excuse for something she had actually accused him of. Which of course only made him look more guilty of the very thing he was trying to deny.
“I feel like youtotallyjust confessed to being here looking for drugs,” she told him.
But weirdly, he didn’t seem chastened by this. He actually sighed in an exasperated way instead. And waved an impatient hand at her. Likehesimply didn’t have time forhernonsense.
“No, I said the opposite. The opposite. You need to listen better,” he said.
And that meant he was going to get it both barrels now.
“I’m honestly trying to, but the thing is you just broke into my house in the middle of the night, scared the absolute shit out of me, made me creep down here with a hatstand for a weapon, and are now talking to me through gritted teeth for some reason I probably don’t want to know,” she said, and was proud of herself for doing it. She had spelled everything out. And sounded calm as she did so. In fact, the words had almost come out a little dry and deadpan.
Even though she was practically boiling alive inside.
Honestly it was a miracle she hadn’t breathed fire on him. Or at the very least hit him with the hatstand she was still clutching. But he didn’t seem to care. “Okay, for starters, my teeth are not gritted. I’m just clenching my jaw really hard,” he said.
