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It all happens very quickly.
Izzy drops her clutch, and something else hits the floor with a ringing thud, as the two bodies collide.
She whips around, throwing a hand out as if to catch the man, or maybe steady them.
A hand smacks the wall. “Shi—shoot! Sorry.”
I catch a shock of white hair, and a gleaming blue eye as I bend down to pick up what they dropped, murmuring, “Sorry ’bout that,” under my breath. “Here you go, sir. Sorry about that,” I rush out, extending the bronze cane toward him.
You already said that, dumbass.
My cheeks blaze with my embarrassment, even though it was Izzy, technically, who ran into him.
The man takes a step back, and I feel his gaze homing in on me, but mine is locked on the falcon head handle topping his cane. It’s gaudy and pretentious as fuck. Something you’d see at a renaissance fair, or even a comic con convention.
I frown, staring into its beady little eyes.
“Thank you, little dove.”
At the sound of his voice, my gaze lifts.
He starts to dip his head, but does a double-take, straightening as his shockingly bright blue eyes widen on mine.
I frown, and a familiar sort of restlessness rushes through me, quickening my pulse. Izzy’s pink clutch that I forgot I’d picked up, creaks beneath my fingers.
The man stares straight into my eyes, glimmering with…with something.
No.
That’s all I can think.
Izzy’s suddenly there, gently prying her clutch from my iron-clad grip, peeling each finger away. “Come on,” she says, hooking our arms together, and leading me past the creepy man with the creepy cane and the creepy-as-fuck eyes that seem to want to devour me.
At my sister’s much-welcome interruption into whatever…trance he had me under, he turns his attention to her just as we pass, and I hang my head, staring hard, blankly at the ground, watching the distance to the doors shrink into nothing.
My sister shoves open the doors before I can get my hands to work, urging me forward, ahead of her.
Outside, a gust of air punches out of me, and it’s as if all my senses—including control over my body—return to me. I look around the veranda, not really seeing anything.
What the hell was that?
Rather…who the hell was that?
“JJ?”
My head whips around, eyes finding my sister’s.
What the fuck? she mouths with exaggerated enunciation, her eyes wide. And a laugh bursts out of her.
Shaking my head, I clear my throat and say, “That was really weird, right?
It wasn’t just me, right? is what I really want to say.
It wouldn’t be the first time I found suspicion—danger—in nothing.
She nods, eyes wide. “Totally.”
I’m about to ask her if she actually means that, but instead hang my head, feeling my cheeks grow warm as I recall the way that man looked at me. Not in disgust, like so many other men in the past have looked at me. But like the young guy who winked at me earlier—like he liked what he saw.
