Her grip tightened as I followed her inside, and a voice started screaming in my head to back up, to get away from this chick before I did something stupid or got blamed for it. But then I looked at her again, and the voice retreated to a whimper.
This woman wasn't like anyone I'd ever seen in my life. She was tall, heightened by the dark tights she wore and the loose, bright top with swirls of green and yellow which might have been flowers that cupped her small waist and drifted nearly to her thighs. But she was no delicate flower; she reminded me of a bunch of balloons, the kind that jackass clowns twist into animal shapes to impression stupid six-year-olds. There was so much color and noise in this woman-the whiteness of her skin, the loud shade of her dark lips, the jingle of the stack of bracelets on her wrist and the thick bundle of long chestnut colored hair that hung in a riot of waves and curls past her waist.
But it wasn't the chaos of colors she wore that kept me from bolting. It was the stare she gave, the pause before she spoke as though she knew exactly who I was and why I'd pounded on her door.
I had forgotten why I had pounded on her door.
I couldn't explain the sensation if I had a billion words to describe it. It was something weird but familiar, something I didn't recognize in her expression, in the slow, sweet smile that moved across her face the longer she watched me. Like she knew me. Like I was supposed to be right there standing in front of her waiting for something to happen.
Hell. I was sleep deprived.
When she stopped watching me, when that little smirk vanished from her features, she squinted, looking over my head as though she was considering something, like she needed to figure out what kind of flaw I had.
"It's bad." She waved her long fingers over my head, swooping one hand up and down my body, breaking the moment and confusing the hell outta me. "It's just the wrong color." Another wave and I finally wrestled my thoughts under control enough to step away from this crazy woman even as she tugged me further into her apartment.
I finally found my voice and my reason. "That shit is too loud," I said, mustering all the good damn sense I could, as I looked around her cluttered apartment.
"What?" she asked, her brown eyes wide, innocent.
My gaze settled on an old ass record player in the corner, spinning, with the needle up. "Your record … that turn table?"
She frowned, but more confused than unfriendly. She had one of those faces, some females do-like tears and worry and rudeness wouldn't, couldn't, keep her from being beautiful. And she was. Beautiful. For a tall, skinny white girl, she was damn beautiful.
"The turn table, the speakers, you got to cut that noise down. I can't sleep as it is, but that fucking … "
"Oh you shouldn't curse like that."
Again she reached for me, fussing at me, bossy as hell as she led me to what I guessed was supposed to be a sofa but looked like a stack of fluffy mattresses with the loudest looking blankets and pillows thrown around them. The entire place reminded me a circus caravan-colors that were deep and rich, tapestries and blankets draped over all the furniture, covering the lampshades like some drifter's wet dream, and flowers, both dried and blooming in vases along the window sill and across the mantel. The thick scent of something that smelled a little like weed clouded in the air, something sticky and sweet, but too flowery to be anything worth smoking.
She stared me down, gaze hard, critical and I brought my attention back her, trying to dismiss the fact that I'd gotten nosy eyeballing her place but not wanting to give in entirely. "Um … mind your business about my mouth … "
"Sit." When I folded my arms, keeping another curse between my teeth for God knows why, the woman moved her brows up, those coffee-colored eyes matching me pound for pound. I meant to tell her to fuck off. I thought about just rolling out without so much as a word to her, but that look on her face, the one that was both severe and tempting all at the same time kept me stuck to where I stood. Damn, it would be a mistake to underestimate this woman, doe eyes or not.
After the glare went on for damn ever, she nodded at the sofa, staring at me like she'd lost her own shit a long time ago and hadn't bothered with finding it. A few seconds, several long, furious blinks and I gave up, too damn tired to fight with some crazy woman I didn't know.
Somehow, she got me to sit, damn the good sense God gave me. No one bosses me but this woman found a way to get me inside her place and on her sofa with half a dozen words, all of them bossy as hell.