I want to murder him. I want to put my hands around his throat and squeeze until the grin comes off. I keep my face exactly as it is, scowling. He looks down at me with that stupid smile.
He turns and heads down my hall like he’s lived here for years.
I freeze for half a beat. “Where are you going?”
“Tour, princess.” He doesn’t slow down. “Show me the layout. I’m thinking of buying.”
“Ermington.” I’m whisper-shouting now, scrambling after him. “Ermington. ERM—”
He doesn’t stop. And he doesn’t hesitate at a single door, doesn’t peek into the bathroom or Kirra’s room or the linen closet — he goes straight to mine, the last door on the right, because he saw it from the outside, so he knows exactly which one is mine.
By the time I catch up, he’s standing in my open doorway, and he’s stopped.
He’s scanning the wall by the window. The wall where his stick was just leaning.
Asshole.
Got him.
I watch him stare at the empty wall and keep every emotion off his face, and then he smiles, slow and enormous, and turns around to look at me.
He glances down like he’s impressed. “You moved it, princess.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t call me that and get out of my room.”
He puts his hands in his hoodie pocket and starts walking in. He walks the perimeter of my room, whistling under his breath, strolling along my bookshelf and my window and the foot of my bed like a man at an open house deciding where the sofa goes.
“Stop.” I’m right behind him, hands hovering, not sure whether to grab him or the things he’s drifting past. “Stop it. You cannot be in here. You cannot touch things. Ermington, I swear to God—”
He drops to his knees by the bed, lifts the dust ruffle, and looks underneath.
“Tell me you vacuum, Linwood.” He comes up with a cobweb in his stupid hair. “Tell me right now, or I’m calling somebody.”
I grab the back of his hoodie in both fists and haul. He lets me — he’s far too big for it to actually do anything, but he chokes theatrically, hand to his throat, gagging, and then before I can stop him, he flops sideways onto my bed, full length, and hangs his head off the far edge to check the floor on the other side.
“Get off my bed.” I’m begging now, all the steel gone out of my voice. I don’t like the fact that he’s exactly where I sleep every night, and his whole body covers the mattress. “Get off my bed, get off, get—”
He’s mid-grin, hanging upside down off my mattress, and his eyes land on my pillows — on the small, ancient, mostly-bald stuffed shark tucked half under the top one, the one I’ve had since before I could walk, the one I would deny to my grave — and the grin goes.
Just for a second. His whole face changes. Something moves through it that isn’t a joke and isn’t a jab, something almost careful, and I watch him not say anything. He must know that my dad played for the Sharks, and I’ve had that mascot stuffed animal as my forever bed companion. I’ve literally slept with it since I was born. It’s raggedy now, and it’s embarrassing he’s witnessing it.
Then he rolls off my bed and onto his feet, and the grin’s back when he looks down at me quietly. My heart’s pumping in ways I didn’t know possible. He goes for my dresser.
He opens the top drawer.
I lunge and slam it shut, and he yanks his fingers clear half a second before I take them off.
“Touch one more thing,” I breathe, “and I scream.”
“You can’t scream.” He’s delighted. “Your roommates are asleep.”
Asshole.
He moves toward the closet, watching me the whole way like he wants me to see him do it. I’m in front of the doors in an instant — body flat across them, arms out a little, a bluff in full motion, defending a closet that has nothing in it because the thing he wants is in the back of my car.
He stops a foot away and looks down at me. He looks at the closet over my shoulder. He looks back down at me.
“Step aside, princess.”
