Still facing the window, I walk back—two steps, three—until I bump into her bed.
Then I sit.
This is her side of the bed. Doesn’t take a genius, or an obsessed stalker, to figure that out.
I pretend it’s morning. That she’s just woken and sat up, and I look out through the window.
This is her view.
My home.
Me.
I take a deep breath and scoot over an inch, then another.
Is this exactly where she would be sitting?
Slowly, I reach down and unlace my boots, then pull them off one at a time.
Then I lift my feet onto the bed.
I’ve never done this before.
Never crossed this line.
So I’ve touched her bed before, run my hands over the cool cotton sheets, but that’s nothing.
I lie back.
The mattress is okay. Not good enough for my Cassandra. But it’s comfortable.
I settle my head on her pillow.
It’s too soft. Too girly.
I look up at her ceiling. At the sparkly mini chandelier she installed over her bed.
This is the last thing she sees each night.
I close my eyes and pretend.
Just for two seconds, I pretend she’s here with me.
My eyes snap open.
A vehicle is approaching.
I sit straight up, disoriented in a place that borders on familiar and wrong.
The lighting has changed.
The shadows have shifted.
I look at the clock on the nightstand.
“Fuck me.”
I swing my feet over the edge of the bed and slide them into my boots, lacing them quickly.
“Did you seriously fall a-fucking-sleep in Cassandra’s house?” I’m so mad at myself. I can’t believe I fucked up this badly.
Not that it’s any real wonder. The stomachache I got from those mushy-ass cookies kept me up half the night.
Eyeing the rumpled bedding at my side, I run my palm over it once more before I stand, the cotton cool under my touch.
I stay far enough back from the window so I’m not visible to anyone below, but from this angle, I can still see out. And Cassandra’s car slows to a stop in the driveway, yards from where I’m standing.
“Shit.”
Her garage is attached to the side of her house, connecting through the small laundry room off the kitchen, which is right below me. The overhead garage door works, I’ve checked, but unless it’s snowing, Cassandra always chooses to park outside. For a reason only known to her.
I could sprint. I could get down the stairs, turn at the base of the staircase, duck into the laundry room, and slip into the garage, pulling the door closed at the same moment she slams the front door behind her. Then I could exit through the window in the back of the garage or wait for her to fall asleep and then go back through the laundry room, into the kitchen, and out the door that leads into the backyard.
I could do all of that. But that would require me to have moved by now, which I haven’t. And I don’t.
Cassandra steps out of her car, and my heart races for a reason other than the threat of getting caught. My heart is racing because she’s close. So close.
She has an iced coffee in one hand and a Target bag in the other, and she uses her perfect hip to shove the car door shut.
A little midday shopping trip, playing hooky from work?
The angle blocks me from seeing the expression on her face, but her body language telegraphs the fact that she’s trying to hurry. Either she really has to pee, or she’s trying not to be late for a work call.
I honestly don’t know if she would run upstairs to use the bathroom attached to her bedroom or if she’d use the other one downstairs. But I’ve watched her through the living room windows enough to know that it’s not unusual for her to have a virtual work meeting at any time of the day, so I’m hoping that’s what she’s in a hurry for.
As she moves beneath the bedroom window to the front door, I slowly unlock the window latch. Thankfully, I test these often enough, so it’s used to moving and does so silently.
Slowing my breath, I listen, and when I hear the front door open, I start to slide the window up.
By the time the front door slams shut, I’ve slid the windowpane all the way up.
The screens are still blessedly not in place. Cassandra removed them this spring to clean, but they’re still piled up in the corner of her garage, not installed.
I lift my left leg up and over the sill.
“I’m home! I’m home!” Her voice echoes up the stairwell, and I freeze.
Is she telling the empty house that she’s home, or does she somehow know I’m here?
I hear the crinkle of her dropping the shopping bag onto the floor, then the squeak of wheels on hardwood, and I picture her dropping into her little office chair.