Page 7 of Midnight Kiss
“No, Em. You’ll just waste their time if you call them back here. And you don’t want to get in trouble for that. If they go in there and find the place empty—” He cut off and shrugged. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”
I walked down the stairs with him, thinking hard about what had happened.
It was so vivid. How could it possibly have been my imagination? I’d talked to my therapist about trauma responses before, but this was different. This had felt real.
At the bottom of the grand stone steps, I stopped. “What are you even doing here, Mike?” I asked.
“I came to get you,” he said. “I know you keep working late, and I was worried.” He tapped me lightly on the shoulder with his fist. “We’re best buds, remember?”
“Thanks,” I said, a little of my anxiety easing.
“Let’s get a cab.” Michael hailed one, and we got inside.
I barely paid attention as we took the long ride over to our apartment block in Kingsbridge. The building was brick and tall, but rundown with a crack running up the glass of the front door.
Michael buzzed us both in the building, and we took the long walk up the stairs to the fifth floor. The elevator was still on the fritz, and I did not feel like getting stuck in a hot, sweaty metal compartment today.
Michael stopped in front of the door to his apartment, and his pet dog, Reginald Tailwag the Third, barked and whined, scratching to be let out. “You want to come in?” he asked. “I’ve got a bag of microwave popcorn with your name on it. We can stay up late and watch movies.”
“Nah, I’m beat. I think I’m just going to hit the sack.” Really, I wanted to get my book out and page through it. And have a cup of lavender tea to get rid of the residual fear after my “nightmare” in the library.
“Suit yourself.” Michael gave me a quick hug goodnight then opened the door and foisted his Labrador backward. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m home. You’d swear I was gone a year. Night, Em.”
“Night.” I let myself into my apartment and shut the door, scraping the chain into place.
“What’s with the Fort Knox routine?” Morgan, my night-owl of a roommate, asked from our beat-up sofa in the tiny living room. She wore a pink onesie covered in unicorns and bopped her head in time to the beat from the headphones around her neck.
“Hi, Morgan,” I said, dumping my bag on the kitchen counter. “How are you?”
“Better than you? What’s popping, honey bunny? You look like you saw a ghost.”
“What’s popping? What year is it anyway?” I asked.
Morgan stuck out her tongue. “Whatever. Just because I’m keeping up with the slang of the young uns’ doesn’t make me cringe.”
I pulled a face. “You sound like Steve Buschemi from 30 Rock. ‘What is up, fellow kids.’”
“Hey.” Morgan pointed a finger at me. “Most people would kill to be Steve Buschemi. The man is a chameleon, I tell you. A true actor.” And that was Morgan’s calling—being an actress.
I placed my hand on top of my tote, biting down on my bottom lip. The outline of the book was a visceral reminder of what had happened at the library. What Michael said hadn’t happened.
“Seriously,” Morgan said. “What’s up? You’re acting weird. Did Michael bother you in the hall again?”
“Micheal doesn’t bother me, Morg. He’s our friend, remember?”
“Your friend,” Morgan replied. “And quit calling me Morg. It makes me sound like I’m a literal morgue.”
“That’s … super dark,” I said. “But okay, fine. I thought it was cute.”
“Do you think Michael’s cute?” Morgan asked.
“I—I don’t know, I’ve never really thought of him like that. And this isn’t about Michael anyway,” I replied.
“Then what is it about?”
I removed the book from the tote, simply because I wanted to feel its weight in my hands, and Morgan frowned at it. “A book?”
“No, not the book.” And then I told her everything that had happened since Jenna had left me alone at work.