28 – Females Flounder, Too

Sage texted her.

It’s only been four minutes, but I gotta know what’s going on.

Not a damn thing. I just told him I was getting a restraining order on him.

How did he take that?

Reed peeked out the window. I can’t tell. He’s just standing there, watching my place.

Are you calling the cops?

Reed knew she wasn’t, but could she get him to leave on his own? Maybe, or maybe she could figure him out.

She texted Sage again.

I’m going back out. Ten minutes. Check me.

Sage sent back a clock face emoji.

Reed went onto her porch again and leaned against the railing, arms crossed, watching Troy watch her. He was dressed exactly like she’d seen him the day before at her office. Scratch that, her former office, thanks to him.

“Let me guess,” she called across the yard. “Your brother just happened to find that tree for you to lean on. You had nothing to do with it.”

Troy grinned and shifted his weight around but didn’t say anything.

She watched him. He watched her.

She sat down at the table and watched him watch her. He seemed perfectly content to do whatever they were doing all night long. Fine, she would figure him out.

“If I invite you up here to talk, will you get the hell out when I say get the hell out?”

He shot up off the tree nodding vigorously. “You tell me, and I’m gone.”

She believed him, but that didn’t mean she was being smart. She stood up and eyed him. He was bouncing, standing in one spot and waiting for her to give the go ahead. “I’m texting my friend your name,” she said. She took a picture of him for good measure, but all it really showed was dark shapes. “A picture, too,” she said. “In fact, come inside so I can get a better one.”

He moved quickly, and before she knew it, she heard him at the patio underneath her porch, her landlord’s patio. “Troy,” she hissed. “Not there.” Was he moving the table around down there? Oh no, had he stood on it?

A hand grabbed onto the porch railing in front of her and he hauled himself over it without even a grunt. Reed moved backwards quickly, pressing herself against the wall. “I have a door, you know,” she told him, but no this was good. She snapped a picture of him on the tail end of his climb over her balcony, then showed him the image. “There, now my friend has this picture, and if you kill me, you’ll fry.”

“Why would I do that?” he said, grabbing a chair and pulling it as far away from her as possible. He twisted it around and sat down, grabbing onto the back with both hands like it was a steering wheel. He grinned enthusiastically at her. She had to admit it was a grin she could easily stand to see every day for the rest of her life.

“What are you doing here?” she asked point blank, sitting down in the chair farthest from him.

“My friend is in a coma,” he said carefully. “Straight that- straight over there.” He pointed at the forest. She did not look. “I-.” He seemed to think carefully about his words, his mouth forming a few sounds, and she realized he was trying not to say certain words. Probably the ones with Ws in them. For the first time, she felt a little foolish. He’d come to her looking for help with a speech issue he obviously had, and she’d freaked out on him.

“Do this,” she said, making a kissy face at him.

He was up and moving for her before she knew what was happening.

“No!” she almost shouted, putting a hand up. He stopped immediately. “Back up,” she said. He did. “Back to your chair, now sit,” she told him, lowering her hand, palm flat, indicating which way his ass should go. He sat.

“I meant for you to do it from there so I can see if your lips have any structural abnormalities that are stopping you from speaking clearly.” She knew damn well his lips were perfect, she’d traced every inch of them with her tongue.

Troy touched his lips with one hand. Then he did what she’d asked.

“Close your lips all the way,” she said. “Can you?”

He tried harder, contorting his lips, pushing hard with his cheeks, but nothing really happened. His mouth was still open enough to fit a penny inside and she may have spotted part of the problem already. “I’ve got an exercise you can do that will help you with that,” she said.

He nodded eagerly.

She remembered what his file had said. “Yeah, about that, explain to me how it’s possible that you just started talking thirty days ago.”

She expected him to hem and haw, or to try to tell her a big long story, but instead, all he said was, “You’re half-angel, and you’re my mate,” his dark eyes flashing, begging her to understand, pleading with her to not throw him out.

Reed felt like she’d been socked in the gut, with no air available to her. Her fingers curled into her palms and she struggled to find her next breath. Troy watched her warily, like he wanted to help her but couldn’t think what to do.

When she could finally speak again, all she could say was, “Your friend being in a coma doesn’t explain why you’re here.” Her words sounded weak and airy to her, like she couldn’t hardly breathe. Still.

“Right,” he said. He nodded, too, then he thought for a few minutes, all dark and sexy over there. She hated him for it, especially since she knew what he was going to say, and it was going to make her think of the wolf in the forest, the exact forest behind him. He was going to say he’d “scented” her.

But he didn’t.

“My brother told me where you’d be in a dream.”

“Oh,” she said, wanting to shoot to her feet, wanting to run screaming from him, wanting to stand up and shout, “Don’t lie you creeper, you looked me up in the police department computer,” but she couldn’t because she believed him and it was spinning her batshit crazy meter just a little too much. “Your brother does a lot for you.”

Troy nodded. “Different brother.”

“How many brothers do you have?” Reed whispered. This was it. The next crazy thing he said, she was ordering him off her porch.

“Two,” he said, “And a sister, but she died at birth.”

“I’m an only child,” Reed whispered. Next crazy thing he said, he was gone.

Troy leaned forward. “Tell me everything,” he said.

“Everything…?” she asked, not sure what else there was to say about being an only child.

He nodded. “Where you were born.” He struggled with the Ws, looking like he was forcing himself to say them and still they weren’t quite right. “Your favorite food and color and smell and place to visit. Your life’s story, from birth to now.” He dropped his eyes to the table, then looked up at her again quickly, handsome face set in worried lines. “And your name.”

Reed only stared at him, thinking he couldn’t possibly want to know all that. He had to be trying to get her into bed again. Except the look on his face was as sincere as she’d ever seen. Either he was a flawless actor… or he meant it.

“You first,” she said, her voice shaking. “If I’m half-angel, what are you?”

His dark eyes searched hers. When he spoke, his voice was softer than she’d ever heard it. He didn’t stumble over one word. “I don’t want to say, because your scent says you already know, and that you are terrified of it.” His jawline stiffened, like he was holding himself together, tightly, waiting for her response.

A wolf. He was going to tell her he was a wolf. Was she dreaming this? Had she finally gone all the way off her rocker, and he’d really said, “Half-angel, what are you talking about? I said, ‘Do you want to watch Charlie’s Angels’?”

“Let’s see it,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself, terrified of what she was about to see, him changing, him shifting right in front of her, like the wolf from her dream had, but still having to know.

Troy rubbed the back of his neck. Looked away. Looked at the forest. “Ah, see, the thing is…”

Reed shot to her feet, suddenly livid. She’d almost believed it. She’d almost been duped into eating the whole fucking enchilada. He’d almost made a fool out of her. New fucking rule. She didn’t know what it was, yet, but it had something to do with sexy stalkers at dusk and fireflies and porch railings. She would work on it. She clawed at the door, sliding it open, then turning to order him out, when he said the one thing that could possibly slow her down.

“You have a pendant,” he said carefully, but quickly, leaning into the words like they were the most important words ever said, “A wolf on one side and an angel on the other, your name is a plant name, and when I bit you, wings came out of your back for just a second. And,” he added. “You have a power. I don’t know what it is, but all your half-sisters have one, so you must, too.” He pushed the last few words out like he had no air left in his lungs and he wasn’t quite sure how to breathe and talk at the same time, even though that was something you learned when you were like… three.

Reed stiffened. Game over, Reed. Your marbles? Gone, baby, gone. Wings. Sisters. Wolf. Angel. Power. Not true. Not true. He was still crazy, he was still crazy.

But when she spoke, still facing the building with her head down, her voice was normal again, her anger was gone, and what she said was, “Did you know I grew up in this building?”

“No.”

She turned. She sat back down. “Not in this apartment. In one on the first floor, and we moved away when I was four, after… something bad happened.” She watched him. He settled into his chair like he was ready to listen to her all night. The word, ‘mate,’ pinged around in her brain as she spoke. “I used to play in that forest all the time.” She indicated behind him. He nodded, hanging on her every word.

She didn’t have any more words. She gestured behind her. “Would you like to come in?”