“Like Dining Room,” Gavin said with a small little tilt of his head.
Delilah laughed. “And my mother would natter on and on about the neighbors and groceries and her book club and the quilt she’s making for the new baby on the block.”
Gavin blinked over to the boisterous, popping fire and the pile of pillows behind her. “It’s not really that different,” he said, eyes wide with earnest pleading. “I think the protective parent is universal, you know?”
She wanted him to be right.
? ? ?
Gavin stood, stretching a mile above where she remained on the floor. His arms reached over his head, shirt riding up and exposing a slice of his torso: skin and muscle and the tiniest glimpse of hair.
She’d never seen a man shirtless before whom she so fiercely wanted to touch. And despite the fact that now was most certainly not the time to run her hands up and under his shirt, Delilah could almost feel the warmth of his skin she wanted it so much.
“Hey, Delilah, my face is up here,” he said with a laugh. Delilah didn’t bother to look away until he’d lowered his arms and waved his hand in front of his stomach. “Want to go for a walk?”
Delilah nearly burst into song. The oppressive weight of the house’s attention had started to feel like individual pinpricks all along her skin, a steady pressure pushing in at her temples. On a walk they could speak in hushed voices, could pause on the corner of each block and touch and laugh and kiss. Unfortunately, she had to use the restroom and didn’t think she could wait until they got to the park.
“Can I use the bathroom?” she asked as Gavin was nearly out of the room, their plates in his hand.
He paused, blinking down the hall in the direction of the closest downstairs bathroom before looking at her over his shoulder. “Yeah, but maybe use mine, upstairs?”
It was exactly the confidence killer she didn’t need.
The stairs beneath her feet felt odd, like they were made of only the thinnest layer of wood surrounding frigid water. They were ice-cold and creaked beneath her feet; she kept expecting her foot to crack through, to fall up to her knee through sharp wood and splinters digging into her leg. At the top of the stairs she stopped, searching for a light switch for a breath before remembering she wouldn’t find one.
With a wince, she called down to Gavin, “Hey, Gav? How do I get the lights on?”
She heard his feet stomp from the kitchen and the irritation in his voice when he yelled, “Hallway!”
Lights flickered on halfheartedly around her, buzzing and dim.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. Her anxiety was slowly transitioning into irritation. She was here, wasn’t she? Trying? Why was the house insisting on being so difficult?
Once she closed the bathroom door, she exhaled, remembering what Gavin had said about this room. She could see what he meant: It just felt like a bathroom. No sense that if she were quiet enough she could hear a heartbeat. No sense of invisible eyes watching her every move. It was amazing how blissful it could feel to be inside an ordinary room.
Moving to wash her hands, she stilled, catching sight of something behind her in the mirror. Delilah turned. On the windowsill was a tiny porcelain fawn, with golden dots on its beige fur, and with the same chip in its left hoof that her mother’s had. That sensation was back, of phantom fingers pressing against her forehead, her temples. She blinked and the statue was gone, blinked again and it was back.
Her mind grappled to find the obvious explanation—Gavin had liked it, had taken it when he was at her house, wanting something of her home here.
But Delilah knew without having to dive too deep into the rationalization that it wasn’t true. Mom kept the collection in the dining room.. . . Gavin had never even been in there.
This wasn’t just the action of an overprotective parent. This was something far, far more sinister. Delilah would have never noticed the fawn missing from her home, so why bother?