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But Shayla didn’t act disappointed or even mention once how she wished she would’ve been there. She listened. She kept her eyes on me the entire time, taking everything in, smiling, laughing, doing little dances in excitement when I told her how the girls reacted to the bedroom furniture and the fish.
Her little dances were cute.
How Shayla looked watching me, happy for me, smiling, was not. That wasn’t cute at all. It was a lot more. It was a helluva lot more.
I was telling her about Caroline drawing that picture for me when someone knocked at the door.
Shayla was in the kitchen washing off her plate. “Can you get that?” she hollered over the running water.
I stood from the chair and crossed the room, yanking the door open.
Some tall, skinny kid stood there, wearing a pressed dress shirt and holding fucking flowers. His hair covered half his face.
He looked like an asshole.
“Uh, hey,” he said awkwardly. “You’re not Shay.”
My eyes narrowed. Who the fuck was this?
“I, hey!”
I snatched the flowers out of the prick’s hand and slammed the door in his face. Then I crossed the room, reached the trash can against the wall just outside the kitchen, forced the lid to open with my foot pressing down on the pedal, and dropped the flowers inside.
I closed the lid just as Shayla stepped out.
“Who was that?”
“Nobody.”
“What the fuck?” The door swung open and this dead motherfucker actually walked into her apartment. “What’s your problem, man?”
“Uh, hey, Patrick,” Shayla greeted him, looking at me suspiciously.
Patrick. My nostrils flared.
“You walk in here when she invites you in. Last I checked, she didn’t.” My voice was low, murderous.
“I got a key. Technically, I can come in whenever I want,” he sassed.
I was in front of him before he could blink, grabbing this little shit up by the collar.
The kid gulped and wrapped his hands around my wrist.
“Sean! Hey! What are you doing?” Shayla slapped at my arm, then started tugging on it. “He’s my super! Let him go!”
I looked back at her. “He’s your what?”
“My super! Or whatever you call the people in the manager’s office. He’s a friend! Quit it!”
Her manager. Managers had keys.
Managers didn’t bring tenants fucking flowers, so what the fuck was that about?
I let the prick go.
“Dude, you are psycho.” The kid started rebuttoning his shirt. He was breathing heavily. “Shay, you know this guy?”
Shayla still had her eyes on me, full of confusion and questions. Then, shaking her head in discontentment, she looked at the kid. “Patrick, this is Sean, the cook I work with. I told you about him…”
She touched my arm, which I liked for several reasons, but the biggest reason being she wasn’t touching him, but what I didn’t like was her labeling me as just the cook she worked with. That pissed me off.
“Sean, this is Patrick. My super, like I said.”
“And her friend,” he added.
I took a sharp step toward him and backed him up against the door.
“I was saying it like, just her friend, you know?” he explained. His hands raised between us. “Christ.”
“Sean.” Shayla tugged on my arm again.
I looked back at her and glared. “That’s all I am? Just the cook you work with?”
She sucked in a breath and pressed her lips together, looking like she had no fucking idea how to answer that question.
That pissed me off more.
“I ain’t your friend?” I growled.
“Oh.” She blinked several times. “Yes! Of course you are. That’s not what I meant…I, I’m sorry. I just, when I’ve talked about you before, I would mention how you were the cook there. That’s how Patrick would know you. That’s all I was saying. It was for reference. I swear.”
I steadied my breathing.
“Oh, man, you’re Stitches, right?”
I slowly turned back to the kid.
He was smiling, looking between me and Shayla.
“Stitch,” she corrected him. Then she reached forward and punched the kid in the chest.
“Ow! What the fuck?”
“Your shirt was wrinkled,” she said, glaring at him the way you would do when you were silently communicating something.
I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. All I knew was this kid knew about me. Shayla just admitted to talking about me to him. And he was her super. A friend. Nothing else. Not sure why that gave me comfort, but it did.
Wanting my drink and no longer feeling inclined to put this kid through a wall, or standing around to fucking chat, I turned and walked back over to the table.
“Uh, can I get my flowers back?” Patrick called out.
Drink nearly at my mouth, I froze.
Shit.
“What flowers?” Shayla asked.
SHIT.
Before anything else was said, I sat my can down, went over to the trash can, flipped the lid open, dug out the flowers, and stalked back across the apartment. Then I shoved the bundle at the kid and walked away.
