“It’s pretty simple,” Jude said in her teacher voice—the one she always used when she was in her element, aka talking about dating, sex, guys, or a combination of either of those. “Guys invite you in when they think you’re a quick and easy lay or when you’re in the friend zone. Either you’ve given him the impression you’re one of those two, or he actually likes you and doesn’t want to add you to the ‘meaningless sex’ pile because he believes more could develop between you. Given that he knows nothing about you, meaning you could be the biggest slut or the greatest saint on earth, I’d go with the second option. He thinks you’re not ‘meaningless sex’ material. Does that make sense?”
No, it didn’t. Not one bit.
“Your theory’s faulty, because he’s not a relationship kind of guy,” I pointed out. “He didn’t invite me in because he wants this job. We keep our communication limited to a strictly professional level.”
Only, we hadn’t. Some of his gestures had been too intimate, while his words had made me sense a deeper layer to them.
“If you think so.” Jude smirked, which she always did when she didn’t agree with me. “But I’m telling you, you’re wrong. If he has enough money to buy himself the fast little number he’s driving and a shack outside the city, surrounded by beautiful nature and hundreds of acres of land, he doesn’t need your shitty-paying job, no offense.”
“None taken,” I mumbled. I hadn’t seen it that way before, but she was right. Chase could afford an expensive car and an apartment in Los Angeles and a weekend house outside the city? It wasn’t even rented. He had said he bought it as an investment.
Still, I wanted to tell her that her suggestion was silly, but then I noticed how quiet she had become. Suddenly, she jumped up and in three strides she reached the window, her back turned to me as she pulled the curtains aside and peered out onto the dark street.
“Switch off the lights,” she commanded.
“What’s—” I began, but she cut me off.
“Do it, Laurie.”
I switched off the lights, bathing the room in complete darkness. A sense of discomfort suddenly gripped hold of me as I inched to the window, trying to peer over Jude’s shoulder. Unfortunately, she was a few inches taller than I was and blocked my view of the street below.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
Jude didn’t reply, but her rigid back and worried face showed her tension.
“Jude,” I prompted. My voice betrayed a sharp edge.
“I think I saw someone loitering outside,” Jude finally replied, her gaze still glued to the window, searching through the moonless night. It wasn’t her words that worried me; it was her tone. That and the fact that we lived on the first floor. It would have been all too easy to break into the apartment through one of the windows.
“What do you mean by ‘loitering’?” I whispered, and then tugged at her sleeve. “Let me see.”
As she stepped aside, I scanned the street below. A streetlamp cast ominous shadows on the bushes on the other side of the road, but apart from a few parked cars, I saw nothing. Still, a shudder ran down my spine.
Streetlamps, with their dim light and flickering bulbs, had often scared me as a child. I used to spend hours long past my bedtime staring at the one in our driveway, right below my bedroom window—where I had watched all the comings and goings, and my fair share of incidents no child should ever see.
To this day, streetlamps scared me because of the way the darkness around them seemed to swallow the light, giving refuge to lurking shadows. It was as if streetlamps were not only attracting and protecting bad people; they also seemed to reveal the dark side of humanity, the one that stayed hidden behind a smile during the day.
Even the purest of hearts hides darkness in it, be it a single, silent drop or a raging hurricane. The heart might not know it until darkness descends, but by then it is lost forever in an ocean of shadows.
I had learned that lesson the hard way.
Jude closed the curtains and switched on the lights. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the sudden brightness, I blinked several times.
“What did you see?” I asked, even though my conscious mind kept telling me there had been nothing out there. Probably just a trick of the light.
“Just—” Jude shook her head and sat down on the sofa, but her shoulders remained tense. “I thought I saw something stirring in the bushes.”
“Probably the wind.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t sound convinced. There was a short pause. She wanted to believe—I could see it written all over her face—but something kept her back. Maybe intuition. Maybe an overactive imagination, the consequence of a hard day and too much stress.