Page 17 of EverGreene
I stared at her, unmoving, chuckling quietly to myself. A moment later, Ever let out a frustrated sigh as she got up from the table and grabbed a small steno pad and pen from a drawer in her kitchen, tossing them aggressively onto the table in front of me. Fire blazing in her eyes, she sat back down, staring at me as I picked up the steno pad, finding a blank page amid old grocery lists and random names and phone numbers, and wrote:
Can’t stop. Won’t stop.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Ever narrowed her eyes. “You know what? Fine. Keep sending your gifts. I don’t have to open them.”
I scribbled down my response and turned the steno pad around.
“What do you mean by ‘I will, though’?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me. She meant it to be intimidating, but curiously, spicy Ever was making my dick turn to stone.
I shrugged, discreetly trying to readjust myself under the table while enjoying the flustered look on her face more than I should
“You know what? Waste your money. Because the next box that finds its way to my door will absolutely be sitting unopened well after it’s received.”
I shrugged, holding my hands out at my sides in a we’ll see kind of way. In no way was I going to proclaim to be an expert on Ever, but I did recall her demolishing an Advent calendar full of candy she had sitting on her desk about two weeksearlier than she should have. My guess was that it was pretty consistent with her overall level of self-control.
Ever went back to opening the package she’d started opening, confusion swiftly giving way to shock. “You bought me a security system?” She looked from the camera up at me and back down again. “Isn’t this a tad against your own self-interest?”
I shook my head, leaving out the fact that Cole would be the one installing the device and programming it to email the recorded video not only to Ever but also to me.
“Why are you doing this?”
I pointed to the box, watching as Ever retrieved the note I’d written at the bottom.
For the times I can’t be there to watch over you.
-V
“I don’t know whether this is the sweetest note someone has ever written to me or the most disturbing one. But I guess it perfectly illustrates all of this.” She gestured haphazardly between herself and me. “Thank you. I think. Yeah, we’ll go with thank you for now. At the very least, thank you for coming to my rescue today.”
I scribbled down another note on the steno pad and held it up to her, doing my best to gauge what may be going through her mind based on her facial expressions. “No. I really don’t want to talk about what happened this evening. At least, not tonight.” She stood up from the table. “Actually, I think I may turn in, try to purge my brain of the memory.”
I scooted my chair back and stood up, nodding as I moved to take a step toward the door.
“V,” Ever called out to me. “If that’s what we’re calling you.”
I turned around to see her watching me meekly, all traces of the confident woman I knew from the office gone.
Ever appeared to let out a breath as though she’d had a pretty intense mental conversation with herself and asked, “Do you mind staying with me? Until I fall asleep, that is. After that, you can leave.”
That’s it? It didn’t seem like it should be such an intimidating ask. But then again, knowing what I, as Loche, knew about Ever, this was probably a level of intimacy she hadn’t had in quite some time. With a nod of my head, a metric ton of weight looked like it had been lifted from her shoulders. She nodded and began to walk down the hallway where her bedroom was located, motioning for me to follow her.
“But no sex,” she said without breaking her stride down the hallway. “I sleep with a knife somewhere near my reach at all times. If I feel so much as a poke, you’d better hope there’s a world-class surgeon specializing in penile attachment nearby.”
There’s the Ever Loche knows.
“Capeesh?”
I held both of my hands up in response, following her into her bedroom. Ever flipped on the light, revealing a modest room with simple furniture. Her twin bed sat against the far wall, unmade. A small white dresser was situated at an angle near the corner of the room, next to the closet. Next to the bed, a nightstand in the same shade of white as the dresser had been placed with a small lamp resting on top of it. It looked like the room of someone who wasn’t planning on sticking around too long. Easy to pack up and leave at a moment’s notice.
You need to give her a reason to stay.
Shut up, penis. The closest large hospital is a good hour away. I don’t?—
My thoughts trailed away, becoming nothing more than garbled garbage the moment Ever unzipped her hoodie the rest of the way down and then tugged the tank top she wore under it off and threw them both into the hamper near the dresser, revealing the tattoo of the bird that had captivated my attention in the car. A lone specimen in black ink in the middle of taking flight, I couldn’t tell what kind of bird it was. Ornithology was not my strong suit and probably wouldn’t be for at least another five decades or so.
Ever glanced down when I pointed to it right as she was also unfastening and slipping her bra off.
Fuck my life. I was definitely not getting out of here with my penis intact.
