Apartment 4B

Chapter 5 - Deacon

My head drops into my hands for the hundredth time, before bringing it up and blinking rapidly.

What the heck am I doing?

She's been gone a while, and I'm stupidly still just sitting half naked on her couch, twiddling my thumbs, long after I've finished setting her TV up... I know in reality I should just leave, but I can't make my legs move in the direction of the door, although I can't say I've actually tried that hard too.

I blame having nothing else to do, and I really try not too, but my eyes can't help as they roam over her things. Taking in the smallest of details on the built-in shelving around her TV, like the little blue elephant poking out from under a book that's leaning, to the way her DVD's seem to be alphabetically lined up. The small dark green masked character battling an invisible monster with a bow, and the colourful little robot thing wearing what looks like a lion's head helmet. My eyes linger on the assortment of trinkets, appearing to be little characters from a TV show, arranged in some sort of scene only known to her.

The thing's she has around this place, while completely baffling to me, are not what I expected from her at all...

Shaking my head, I stand, knowing I need to get the hell out of here for a second and give myself a bit of breathing room. That look on her face before she basically bolted earlier, still fresh in my mind, and slowly tormenting me. I'm not sure what was rattling around in her head, but damn hell, the longer I sit here, the more I seriously want to know...

      
    
       

I'm just closing my door up after retrieving a shirt, when my feet stop, her keys in my pocket thumping my thigh lightly. There's a guy I've never seen before, standing by her door with one hand on the handle, while the other jiggles something a bit higher up.

"Hey man, can I help you at all? Lock yourself out?"

He freezes the moment I begin to speak, a sly grin spreading across his face, while he slowly turns towards me.

"Yeah, my ah, friend.. said I could borrow something, and that the door would be open. Think the damn things just stuck again. Has a bit of a habit of doing that."

My eyes stay on him, while my phone starts to vibrate away. I've spent enough time around her the last few days, that I know for a fact that she doesn't have any male friends, other than the twins and I. Her name flashes across the screen as I pull my phone out, and I return his smile while I answer it.

"Hey beautiful, what's up?"

He watches me for a moment longer, as I lean my back against my door and smile widely down at the floor, before going back to what he was doing. She sounds frantic, her words half blurring together in long, almost incoherent sentences. My eyes keep him in sight, taking in the tattoo sleeve, the grungy clothes he's wearing, complete with the 'don't give a shit' hair. Dude reminds me of the struggling musician look...

The moment she says 'ex', I straighten up.

I let her finish, my voice a bit colder, and rougher than I intend as I reply before hanging up on her. So, this is the fucking jerk that mooched off her, while sleeping with all her friends. The one she ditched with well deserved revenge, and is now trying to break into her apartment to seek payment.

Oh, fuck no.

I'm in his face in three steps, and he barely turns towards me, before my fist rams hard into his face. He drops down in a heap, trying to swear at me through the tears already filling his eyes, and the blood running from his now broken nose. My knuckles ache, but I keep my fist clenched as I look down at him.