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“Please?”he says.
Deep blue eyes pierce through me when he looks directly at me, his tall frame shadowing me to the point it makes a cold shiver pass through every cell in my entire body.
He’s asking me for something I know I can’t give him right now. He wants answers, and of course, I expected this at some stage, but not so soon. I don’t have all the answers. I just know he took something from me that was uniquely mine and I can’t let him get away with it.
“How did any of this happen?” he demands.
“I don’t know how it happened… it just happened, alright. I heard your song, and I realized you must have stolen my lyrics because there’s no way you could come up with that all on your own. It’s too much of a coincidence. There are too many similarities, and I want you to be held accountable for what you did.”
Reed throws his arms up in the air, glancing over my shoulder again at the group of girls still hovering around the stairwell on the building opposite of us. “You’re insane, you know that, right?”
I stare at him, feeling caught and cornered. “I’m not insane. And once we get back to mediation, everyone in the room will agree with me.”
“Not me.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
He starts pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, anger and frustration obviously warring inside him. “You’re so wrong you can’t even see it. That’s the problem with you. You know that? You can’t even see three feet in front of you because you’re so off with the fucking fairies.” He stops abruptly, spinning back around to look directly at me. “You can’t just accuse me of something, and then...” His eyes cut to the side once more when laughter rings out.
I turn slightly to see what’s caught his attention.
The teenage girls have noticed us now as well, most likely because he’s pacing all around and screaming like a hyena, and they’re watching us closely. They’re standing in a group, whispering to one another, giggling, and they’re all holding cell phones in their hands.
“Fuck,”he mutters under his breath.
I turn back around again, but Reed’s no longer paying me any of his attention. His eyes are darting back and forth between his Jeep and the front door of my apartment building. He seems to be considering his options and gauging by the deep frown lines on his forehead, he’s not pleased with either one of the choices presented before him.
“You’ll have to let me inside,” he suddenly says. He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the front door, dodging puddles as he drags me along closely behind him. “I won’t make it back to my car before they know for sure it’s me. You’re going to have to let me inside and we can wait it out for a while.”
“We?”
“Yes! Hurry up!”
“What? No. Why?”
His earlier anger has morphed into full-blown panic now. “Because in my line of work, a teenage girl with a cell phone is more dangerous than a lunatic wielding a semi-automatic. I promise you, Tink, if you don’t let me inside, in about three seconds flat, those chicks are going to realize who they’re looking at, and you’ll have paparazzi camped outside your apartment for a fucking week trying to get an exclusive.”
“Oh, man,”I whine loudly.
“Yeah, exactly. Now hurry the fuck up!”
We hastily dash up the front steps and Reed shields his face with his hands while I fish around in my purse for the door keys. Shoving the key into the lock, I push the door open and we tumble into the small common area where rows of mailboxes line one entire wall and the linoleum on the floor is torn and tattered.
The heavy door closes behind us; just as one of the girls appears breathlessly in the small gap left between the door and the thick wooden frame. They don’t get their shot, thank goodness, but I swear I hear one of them call Reed’s name right before the door closes over.
“Damn it,” he grumbles, running his hands back and forth through his hair again, water flying in every direction. He’s dripping wet and his leather vest looks like it might be ruined completely. Frustration marks his features and he shakes his head. “This day just keeps getting better and better.”
“Tell me about it,” I gripe.
I walk toward my apartment door, trying to ignore the trash-infested stairs and the yellow stains on the walls, desperately hoping that Reed isn’t paying any notice to how much of a dump I live in.
Just as I put the key into the lock, Ray opens the apartment door directly opposite mine.
Kill me now.
“Two week. You pay rent, or gone!” he yells in his thick accent.
“Go fuck yourself, Ray,” I reply without a second thought.
