He hurried after her. “I’m not going to leave.”
That sent a little bit of a chill through her. She tried to shake it off. Sure, it had been scary getting away from his pack, but that had been the pack, not Todd himself. Todd wasn’t scary.
“Well, we’re not open yet, so you’ll have to wait outside,” she told him, and unlocked the door, leaving him waiting.
Inside, she took a deep breath, and tried to forget about it. He’d get bored and leave.
***
Todd did not get bored and leave.
He sat in a booth, nursing a cup of coffee, and his eyes followed her. Stella ignored him as best she could, laughing it off with her coworkers—look, I’m irresistible! Most of them bought it, though Pauline, older and sharper than most of them, was giving Todd the evil eye all shift. For once, Stella was glad of a busy day with a lot of tasks to take care of.
At the end of her shift, he followed her out to the parking lot.
“No, Todd.” She felt like she was disciplining a puppy.
“Just one date,” he said. “One date. Let me remind you what it was like.”
When she was younger, she might’ve said yes just to get it over with, thinking that she could go on the date and he’d see that it really was over. But she was older and wiser now. One date did not mean one date.
“I have to go home,” she told him. “And you can’t follow me there—remember what happened last time?”
“You’ll see,” he said. He had a desperate tone to her voice that she didn’t like, and she hurried to her car. “I’m not going away!”
She said a prayer and turned the key. It started, thank God, and she pulled away as quickly as possible.
He didn’t follow her. But she hadn’t been sure whether he would or not, and that didn’t bode well at all.
When she got home, Eva was sprawled out in the living room, watching Doctor Who on their grandmother’s old television. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, baby.” Stella came over to give her a kiss on the forehead. “Is this a good episode?”
Eva nodded vigorously and started explaining about how the aliens on the screen were from the distant future, and the Doctor and the redheaded girl were about to make friends with them, except it was all going to go terribly wrong.
Stella listened, frowning. “I’ll never understand how you can watch these over and over again. Why, when you already know what’s going to happen?”
“Because it’s so good, Mom, you seriously don’t get it. Sit down and watch with me, you’ll see.”
Eva tugged on her arm, reminding Stella of when she’d been much younger, and Stella smiled. “Let me go change out of my uniform, and I’ll watch.”
“Really? Awesome! I’ll just go back to the beginning...”
Stella tried to protest that it didn’t matter, but Eva wasn’t hearing it, and finally she went to change out of her uniform and come back and watch the full episode.
Stella had never been that interested in sci-fi, or much into TV shows in general. But sitting in the warm living room with her daughter, curled up on the couch while Eva chattered about the characters on the screen, was just the antidote that she needed for the tension that had gathered at the back of her neck while Todd was talking to her.
After a couple of episodes, Lynn arrived home, Ken coming in after her. Stella gave Eva a hug, stood up and went to greet her sister.
“Hey,” she said. “Want to talk about what we’re going to throw together for dinner?” They all took turns cooking, although Ken was probably the best at it.
“In a minute.” Lynn’s face was serious, and Stella found herself automatically bracing for whatever was coming.
Lynn continued, “Nina mentioned to me that one of her friends from the diner was worried about you today.”
Stella blinked. Nina was Lynn’s assistant at her guide business, but when she’d first come to town, Nina had had Stella’s job as a waitress. She was still friends with some of the other servers.
And apparently, she’d been talking to them about Stella. Stella felt a little sick at the idea—she’d been so sure that she’d projected careless unconcern about Todd. What had given away the fact that she was actually worried?