glasses, with his blanket wrapped around her, made her feel…not just vulnerable…scared. Nervous. Stupid.
Right. If he didn’t think she was batshit crazy before, that would pretty much seal the deal. Maybe if she pretended she was dressed, that she had her full armor on, she’d be fine. Uh-huh.
“Maya’s asleep,” she whispered. “So do you mind if we sit down here?”
“It’s fine.” He waited until she’d set herself up on one of the steps with her back against the wall, legs stretched out; then he took the one below, facing her. “You okay?”
She tried to nod, she really did, but had to stop when a “no” slipped off her tongue.
“I hate this,” she murmured. “I hate that he has the power to make me feel like this.”
“That’s all he wants, Ell. He wants you to feel powerless; don’t let him. Don’t give him that.”
“I’m not giving him anything. He’s just taking it, and I feel like there’s nothing I can do to stop him—that’s what I hate the most.” She forced herself to sit up a little to at least make it look like she wasn’t a total wimp. “I should have been on guard for something like that; I knew he’d ordered tulips from Maya. But those were white ones, not black…where does someone even get black tulips?…And Maya said he never went in to pick them up anyway, so…”
“Probably the smartest thing he’s done since he got here,” Brett said. “He’d have been taking his life in his hands going back there.”
It was kind of funny only because it was true. Maya didn’t get mad very often, but when she did…look out. She’d proven that well enough when she’d finally decided she’d had enough of Dickhead’s cheating. Not a dish was left unbroken, and she’d dumped the entire contents of the fridge on the floor, unscrewed the plug on the water bed, and taken a shiny new nine-iron to the giant flatscreen before embedding the club in the computer monitor.
Neither Ellie nor Brett spoke for a while, and each passing second made her twitchier. She didn’t know if it was still because of the break-in or if it was from having him sit so close to her when she wasn’t braced for it.
After a while, she released the grip on her blanket long enough to shove her hair out of her face and adjust her glasses, then took the safe route.
“So, Poncherello, what’s next? He’s not stupid enough to leave prints behind; he didn’t the last time.”
Brett started to say something, then stopped and nodded absently before changing the subject. “Your mom’s back tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I was hoping this would be over before she got back, but…What if—”
“Don’t. Does she know about Kurt?”
Ellie nodded. “I called her the other night but I didn’t go into detail—just said that he was here and that he’d been by the store.”
“I called the guy from the alarm company I use, and he’s going to go over to your place tomorrow and install a system.” He didn’t even give her time to respond. “It’s already set up, so you just need to be there at noon to let him in. Great time to be without your license, by the way.”
“I’m happy to take it back whenever you want to give it to me, dipwad.” She smiled, weak as it was, but he didn’t smile back. “Oh, come on, Ponch, not even a smirk? I’ll admit, he scared the shit out of me tonight, but you’re the one who just said I shouldn’t give him power. If I start hiding every second of the day, isn’t that what I’m doing? Besides, walking gives me the chance to be enlightened by Pastor Pete.”
Finally a hint of a smile. “Good ol’ Pete. The last few weeks, every time I pick him up, he keeps repeating the same verse—something about the devil lurking around like a noisy beast.”
“That’s the one he used on me tonight, too. It was kind of creepy, now that I think about it, because in his version, the devil’s looking for someone to eat, and then he called me ‘food girl.’ ” Shuddering, she rearranged the blanket a little, tugging it back up over her knees, but it just slid off again. “Why do you guys pick him up so much? He’s not hurting anyone, so why can’t he just stay there?”
“What are you talking about?” He took hold of the edge of the blanket, set it over her legs, then rested his arm over