3
MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
My apartment was me-sized.Meaning, it was a loft with just enough room for a queen-sized bed, a small kitchen table, and a sofa facing a rather large television. I didn't require much space, and it wasn't like anyone was ever here besides me. The only other living creature to step foot over the threshold was a giant Maine Coon cat I'd found sitting outside my door as a mangy, soaking wet kitten a few years back. Now over twenty pounds and mostly fluff, Bean the cat was a fixture you could usually find draped across the top of the couch. It was the perfect vantage point to watch the birds outside or watch me with judgmental green eyes.
Which was what he did presently.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked the cat, receiving a meow in return as if he understood me perfectly.
The room rang in silence with the TV muted, as it was most times while I brewed my coffee. Bean looked at the screen and back at me, meowing again.
“Your food bowl is full,” I reminded him.
Standing and stretching, his long claws extending past his furry paws, Bean walked to the edge of the couch with his tail flicking back and forth. Meowing again, exaggerating the sound with a purr, he looked at the TV.
“What are you getting on about, you fluffy monster?” I reached for the remote and turned on the sound. The irritating voice of the news reporter drowned out Bean’s melodic purr.
‘The billionaire oil tycoon, Isaac Aldean, announced this morning he was leaving the partnership he’d run with his wife of fifteen years, Kari Aldean. Sources claim the forty-year-old businessman was seen leaving the prestigious Renaldo Hotel early this morning, hand in hand with the heir apparent to the Renaldo Hotel empire, David Renaldo. Video footage taken on a cell phone seems to confirm the two have been engaging in an illicit affair. Stay tuned to see that footage after a word from our sponsors.’
Bean looked at me inquisitively, his green eyes narrowing in my direction.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered. “Whoops.”
My fluffy conspirator meowed in agreement.
I ran my hand through my thick brown hair, massaging my scalp with my nails. “This isn’t my fault. Don’t look at me like that!”
The cat stared back, baffled by my defense.
“Oh, come on! Mr. Aldean shouldn’t have been in a bar trying to pick up strange women anyway. If he hadn’t hooked up with me, it would have been someone else. It serves him right what happened to him. Besides, the mental nudge will wear off in a week or two. It’s not like I changed who he is forever. Maybe he’ll learn a valuable lesson from this and learn to be faithful to his wife.” It wasn’t entirely true. There hadn’t been any other women present, so if it wasn’t me, he probably would have gone home after his drink.
Rolling over onto his back, Bean peered at me from an upside-down position and licked his whiskers.
Biting my lower lip, I looked at the screen again as flashes of the two men passionately kissing outside the hotel played across the screen.
“If he even has a wife after this,” I whispered.
I turned off the TV.
My cat yawned and walked away, having lost interest in me. With a flick of a fluffy tail and not even a backward glance, Bean turned right and entered my bedroom space behind a wall divider where, if I followed, I was sure I would find him making himself comfy on the bed. Oh, to be a cat and not have anything to do with one’s life except eat, sleep, and shit. It would either be a fabulous existence or an eternally dull one, and I didn’t have time to decipher which. Work waited for no one.
Heaving a sigh, I pulled my hair back in a loose ponytail and grabbed my purse off the extra chair at the table. My keys were in the side pocket exactly where I left them. Locking the door behind me, I glanced both ways down the hall before making my walk to the parking garage below.
My small Honda Civic sat in the space marked for apartment ten and blinked her lights at me as I unlocked the doors. I’d bought the car to blend in. In a city where there were as many cars on the roads as people, I didn’t want to stand out. This car did the trick.
At the gate, my keycard slid into the reader easily and beeped to lift the gate. I eased the gas pedal to make sure no pedestrians were trying to cross in front of me before pulling out onto the city street.
On my left, a man I’d never seen before gazed through my window with emerald-green eyes and a five o’clock shadow covering his strong jawline in stubble. He was no more than a foot from the glass. My fingers trembled from the sudden intrusion into my space before a blanket of warmth enveloped me, my insides pulling tight like a rubber band. His lips parted, and the smallest image of his pink tongue emerged as he wet his lips.
He put his hand up as if imploring me to lower the glass. My finger went to the button, independent from the demand. My brain screamed to ignore the man and get on with it. Before the window could open fully, my foot took control, pressing the gas pedal too hard and driving me into traffic, catching me off guard. An SUV slammed on its brakes to keep from hitting me and laid on the horn in the process.
In the rearview mirror, the man watched me drive away. The yearning on his face made my heart beat hard against the inside of my rib cage.