Page 33 of Someone Like Me
“I did.”
The dog, who has been nearly pulling Evie’s arm out of socket in his forward assault, catches the scent of something interesting near a storm drain, and we stop walking to humor him.
“How’s that going?” she asks.
Staying busy at the garage the last two days has also been my only relief from thoughts of her. After I walked away on Wednesday, she stayed with me. Like smoke that clings to clothes after a bonfire. Or the heat of a sunburn on skin… long after the sun has set.
I kept seeing her laugh. Hearing the lilt of her voice when she called me a Taurus. I’d find myself imagining what it would feel like to bury my nose in those dark, lustrous curls. And that would inevitably lead me to wonder about other dark curls. The secret scent they might hold…
“Overtime,” I hear myself mutter.
“What?” I look down to see her frown of confusion.
I clear my throat. “I’ve been working overtime. It’s good. Keeps me busy.”
Her dog gives a loud snort and jerks forward, pulling Evie with him.
“Here,” I say, grabbing the leash. “Let me hold that.”
“He usually isn’t such a handful,” she says, but she unloops the handle of the leash off her wrist and offers it to me. “Walking at night excites him. Ridgebacks are hunters and trackers, and I guess there are different smells out here at night.”
The dog strains against the leash, and I have to firm my arm to keep him in check. I glance down at Evie. How the hell did she keep him from dragging her like a ragdoll?
She smiles up at me as though she’s read my thoughts. “I’m stronger than I look.”
I sniff to cover a laugh. That’s another thing I’ve kept reliving. The way she has of making me laugh. This lighter-than-air feeling that seems to fill the space above my diaphragm.
I didn’t leave the apartment to go in search of her. Really, I didn’t. Sleep was a long way off, and that Supra was right below me. And I had to get out. But when I turned onto St. Patrick Street, I knew I wanted to see the front of her house. Just see it. Just to fill in the landscape in my mind.
Because I know exactly what the back of her house looks like.
When I saw the car pull up, my heart had started this heavy chugging in my chest. The night she came over, Grandma Q told me that she lives in that house with her sister. That their parents are somewhere in Africa or something like that.
So when I saw the car, I guessed I had a fifty-fifty chance of catching sight of her. But I didn’t plan on her seeing me. In fact, I hung back a good thirty yards. Until I heard them. Heard that coddletwat hint he planned to fuck her silly. And she was definitely not giving him the checkered flag.
But she wasn’t telling the assnut to go choke on his own dick, either.
Honestly, I don’t even remember deciding to step onto her lawn. I was just there.
A little voice in the back of my head tells me this should alarm me, but it’s her voice I tune into.
“I don’t like disappointing people.” This lone confession seems to come out of nowhere, but the way she says it feels like it’s an answer to a question.
“You don’t like disappointing people,” I echo, testing out the statement and measuring it against what I know of her. My mind flicks through the images I’ve collected of her. Leading some woman through a yoga lesson on her back porch; baking a zucchini bread for her elderly neighbor; asking if I was okay the other day; going on a date with a bona fide buttmunch.
“I can’t imagine that happens often,” I tell her. “You’re a people-pleaser.”
We’re under the halo of a streetlamp, and I see her clearly when she looks up at me with a rueful smile. “It happens all the time.”
I frown. “What? People-pleasing?”
She shakes her head. “No. Disappointing them.”
I look at her like she’s crazy. “How?”
Her chest inflates, and she blows out a breath. “Oh, gosh, let’s see. My parents wish I’d stayed in school. My father is sure I’ll live in poverty because a career as a yoga instructor is only for the independently wealthy or River Ranch trophy wives.” She ticks these offenses off on her long, delicate fingers. “My sister Tori currently isn’t speaking to me because she overheard me complaining about her to my mom…”
She meets my eyes with a little nod. “I’m actually pretty disappointed in myself for that one, too, because I totally lost control, and I hate when I do that…”
