When Perfect Meets Crazy

Chapter 18: 18 - Did you roofie me?

“Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?” I countered innocently.

He tilted his head, awarding me an unimpressed look. “You’re better than that. Answer the question.”

I heaved a sigh, drew in a deep breath, straightened my spine and forced myself to meet his gaze,

holding it steady as I tried to stare him out of countenance. He sat back, stretched out his legs and laid

his clasped hands on the table top as he stared back, unwaveringly. I scowled.

“Fine.” I sighed, averting my gaze. He was like a brick wall, unyielding. “Fine,” I repeated, stalling for

time as I tried to come up with a distraction.

“Here’s the thing,” I drawled conversationally, stalling even more as I came to the realization that the

quaint almost empty ice-cream parlor had nothing to offer by way of a distraction.

“Go on,” he urged as though he knew what I was thinking.

I pressed my lips together, forcing them into the semblance of a smile.

“Well, I...” I picked up the long aesthetically pleasing but not particularly practical spoon that came with

my ice-cream and waved it in a circular all-encompassing motion with all the authority of a college

professor. “I was wondering. How did you find this place? It’s so... it has a nice... aura. “

That had to be the worst diversion tactic out there. While I was a bit curious about the answer, I couldn’t

help cringing at how obvious the attempt was. This corner-of-an-alley struggling ice-cream parlor did

not fit either of his personas, not the rich kid and definitely not the hardened criminal but such an

obvious poorly constructed diversion technic didn’t suit me either. It was all I could do to not hide my

face in shame.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“Don’t change the subject.”

I rolled my eyes as offhandedly as I could manage even though inwardly, my embarrassment quotient

boiled over. ‘Can’t I win one battle today?’ a part of me wanted to scream.

“I’m just curious. No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t fit.” My voice sounded just a little high pitched to

my ears and despite my efforts, my eyes kept darting away.

It was embarrassing. Humiliating, even. I normally prided myself on being an excellent liar with no tells

but here I was, acting like an amateur. It wasn’t my day and even on a good day, something about

Masked Idiot threw me off my game. From the very first day he showed up at the library. There were at

least ten better ways to have handled that besides agreeing to let him publicly stalk me. There was just

something about him that made me keep doing these stupid things.

I set my spoon down, an annoyed scowl making its way onto my face.

“Because... It’s what I do. It’s what I’m supposed to do,” I answered brusquely, hoping to put him off

with the attitude.

He shook his head, a confused smile on his face.

“What?”

“You heard me.” My tone didn’t soften.

“Doing that girl’s dirty work is what you’re supposed to do?” he questioned in a mocking tone. “That

makes perfect sense.”

His eye narrowed, not with suspicion but disbelief. Like he considered the idea a ridiculous notion. I

shrugged, rubbing my hands together to warm up my cold fingers.

“You hate her. She hates you. There’s no reason for you to do her dirty work,” he oversimplified. Like

life is ever that simple.

“Look,” I refrained from rolling my eyes, “it’s complicated.”

I picked up the spoon again, absently pushing it around in my ice-cream bowl while waiting for him to

follow up with another of his infamous annoying questions.

“Simplify it because I’m not following.”

I rolled my eyes and dumped a spoonful of the ice-cream in my mouth. He was so predictable.

“I’m going to have to plead the fifth,” I stated. “Not that I owe you an explanation.”

“Your right to not incriminate yourself,” he vocalized offhandedly. “Wonderful. You might as well have

just said you wanted me to be more suspicious of you. Also, we’re not in court.”

“You know what the pleading the fifth means?” Surprise coloured my tone. Interest followed in its wake

as soon as he guiltily averted his gaze.

As a lawyer’s kid, I knew all sorts about the law, decidedly more than the average person but judging

from the way his eyes were darting everywhere but at me, he had come into his knowledge by some

means he couldn’t casually share.

A light bulb went on in my head. He had been in a trial before. Probably for his criminal activities. It truly

was wonder no one else had discovered his secret identity given how horrible he was at keeping any

sort of secret.

“I’m not just a pretty face,” he joked, a second too late for it to be believable. It also didn’t help that his

face was colored with irritation.

“You’re not even a pretty face,” I corrected, managing to withhold my scoff. “And don’t even try

convincing me there’s a brain somewhere behind that face. You have neither brains nor beauty.”

I withdrew my hands from the table top and tucked them under my laps to warm them up.

“You’re a smart ass.”

“And you’re not even a pretty face,” I countered blandly.

His eyes narrowed in irritation but I couldn’t care less. He couldn’t have looked any less threatening

than he did at the monent in this quaint out-of-a-’70s-movies ice-cream parlor. I shivered, pulling my

hands out from under me to rub them up and down my arms. The parlor was much cooler than I had

expected.

“Is today the day you tell me who you’re working for?” I arched an eyebrow, pressing my palms against

both of my ears to warm them up.

“Not even close,” he replied flatly.

“Oh come on,” I cajoled. “Save me the trouble.”

Absently, I wiped the light sheen of sweat off my clammy forehead.

“You know I’ll get it out of you eventually. I’ll figure it out so you might as well,” I paused to draw in a

breath, inattentively wondering why I felt breathless at all, “just tell me now.”

“Not a cha...” He paused, brows furrowing.

I arched an eyebrow, wordlessly asking what was wrong.

“You look weird,” he announced a few beats later.

“What a gentleman,” I automatically countered sarcastically, stretching the ends of my sleeves to cover

my cold fingers. It really was too cold in the parlor. I was beginning to consider asking for the air con to

be turned down.

I shovelled another spoonful of ice-cream into my mouth and glanced at Masked Idiot, waiting for his

comeback. Something about the picture he presented did not seem right though. I frowned and set my

spoon down. My gaze honed in on him. He wasn’t shivering like I was nor did he seem the least bit

affected by the cold despite only having on a light tee shirt. What I had on was a lot thicker and I was

actually starting to feel cold in my bones. It should’ve been the other way around.

“You’re not cold.” It was supposed to be a question but it ended up coming out as an accusation.

Thoughts raced through my mind in succession. Why wasn’t he not cold? I was shivering. He should

have at least seemed cold. Had he put something in my ice-cream? Was that it? I definitely hadn’t left

him alone with it at any point but he was the one who suggested this place. The waiter could be an

accomplice of his.

My gaze shot to the softly snoring scrawny underweight waiter. Or maybe not.

“Okay, I get that I’m involved in some sketchy stuff but that doesn’t mean I have to be cold,” he

answered, annoyance coating his tone.

He was completely off point but I saw how he could have arrived there thanks to my accusatory tone.

“Sketchy is one word for it,” I muttered, wincing as my teeth chattered while voicing the words.

Something was truly wrong.

“You know what I mean.” He scowled.

I refrained from rolling my eyes.

“Calm down, Emotional Emily.” I winced at the reminder that came with the name. “I meant temperature

wise, you don’t feel cold?” I clarified.

“Oh.” He had enough sense to look sheepish. “No. Why?”

I wiped my sweaty forehead once more. “Weird.”

“You feel cold?” he questioned.

“Little bit.” I downplayed.

I was almost sure my teeth would start chattering soon regardless of whether I was talking or not.

“Are you sick?” he asked, suddenly reaching across the table to touch my forehead.

Sick? The idea sounded almost foreign. I hadn’t been sick in years.

His hand made contact with my head for a few seconds before common sense kicked in and I leaned

away. His question was all but forgotten as I glared at the offending hand.

“What was that?” I bit out.

“You’re sick,” he diagnosed. “You have a fever. And your skin is clammy.”

He wiped his hand dry with a napkin.

I arched a brow, irritation coating my features.

“Did you get an MB between yesterday and now?”

“The last time you saw me was almost a week ago,” he said. “Now I know you’re not feeling well for

sure. Normal you would never make such a mistake.”

I scowled.

There was truth to that even though I had said it without thinking. Just a while ago I had been pissed at

him for ghosting me for a week so unthinkingly or not, I should not have made such a silly mistake. Not

unless something was wrong somewhere. I had been feeling off all day. I had chalked it up to residual

feelings from last night’s clash with my dad but maybe it was more. Maybe I was coming down with

something.

It would explain the queasy feeling in my stomach -it wasn’t about Emily after all- and the chills -not the

ice-cream parlor’s fault after all- and the headache that I thought was just an aftereffect of crying

throughout the night and the consequent bad day.

I sighed resignedly, lifting one trembling hand to my forehead. It was a lot warmer than it should have

been. Not to mention the hand tremors. If it was that cold in the building, there was no way I’d be at

tremor stage while, judging from the looks of Masked Idiot and the snoring waiter, everyone else would

be just fine.

“You might be right.” I reluctantly acquiesced.

“Hmm? What was that?”

“Don’t push it.”

• • •

I parked slowly, carefully, conscious of the way my hands shook. My jaw was clenched so tight it hurt

but the alternative was letting my teeth chatter uncontrollably. Showing such weakness with Masked

Idiot in the car was a big fat flashing neon ‘no’ for me.

Slowly, I got out of the car, carefully walking up to the door before I realized Masked Idiot was still in the

car. I turned around.

“What are you waiting for?”

The look on his face answered my question.

“I may be ill and out of sorts but I haven’t lost my mind.” I rolled my eyes.

He arched a brow as though to say, ‘haven’t you?’

I scowled, releasing my breath in one noisy whoosh.

“No one is home. My mom travelled a while back for an out-of-state hearing and my dad is never home

this early. Olly has violin practice that’ll last till much later,” I ground out. “I haven’t lost my mind.”

“You haven’t.” He nodded.

“Idiot,” I cussed under my breath, then called out, “You can keep sitting in the car though, dummy.”

He grunted an unintelligible sound before getting out of the car. I pressed the lock button on the key fob

and spun on my heel. The action made me lightheaded. I had to wait a few seconds before continuing

to the door.

Inserting the key of the front door into the keyhole proved to be a much tougher task than I was used

to. My trembling hands connived with blurry double vision to work against me. I growled exasperatedly

as I missed the keyhole for the umpteenth time, accidentally stabbing the key out of my hands. I

heaved a sigh, my eyelids drifting shut for a second. I bent, picked it up and settled for feeling for the

keyhole with my fingers the way a blind person would. I was inwardly thankful Masked Idiot hadn’t

reached the door yet to see my clumsy fumbling.

“How the mighty have fallen,” I muttered dejectedly when the key finally went it.

“You’re shivering,” he commented, finally catching up to me.

“You’re quite the observer, Sherlock.” I sniped, staggering into the house.

He trailed in behind me, shutting the door in his wake.

“Can it with the Sherlock jibes.” His expression made it clear he had had enough of it on the ride back

home.

In my defence, he was being unnecessarily annoying with his observations about my state of health

and whether or not I should be the one behind the wheel on the drive back. He had been asking for all

those jabs in my opinion.

I made it to the stairs before the shaking in my legs and dizziness became unbearable. I propped

myself up against the wall, taking deep breaths as I willed strength into my legs. How it hadn’t occurred

to me that I could be sick until Masked Idiot pointed it out despite things being this bad was beyond me.

I knew I wasn’t particularly attentive to my body but this was an extreme for me.

“What’s wrong?” He appeared at my elbow suddenly when he was done gawking at the living room.

It occurred to me in a distant part of my mind that this was the first time he was seeing any part of the

house besides my room. Even with my eyes closed, I could see what he was seeing; the abstract

polished wood sculpture, the mantle filled with fancy awards and framed certificates, the three blown up

family photos just before the stairway, and the cream coloured furniture and brown panelling. I’d only

had a handful of friends over a few times but one thing they all had in common was the fact that they

were intimidated by what Olly and I had dubbed our ‘mantle of honor.’

“What’s wrong?” he repeated. “Why are you standing like that? And... are you whimpering?”

“No. Nothing is wrong.” I forced myself into an upright position. “I was just waiting for you to finish

gawking,” I lied.

No way was I sacrificing my dignity to this boy.

He flashed me an obviously fake smile. I responded with one of my own before continuing up the stairs,

slowly dragging one foot in front of the other. He followed leisurely behind me, taking in the sights.

“Sit,” I ordered, shutting my room door behind us.

I took out a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants before disappearing into the bathroom. My bath was quick,

short and scalding but that had more to do with the fact that I had to prop myself up against the wall

every few minutes to catch my breath than the fact that Masked Idiot was more or less alone in my

home, free to explore everywhere and everything. Dressing up, on the other hand, was time consuming

and slow. My muscles felt like putty. They were weak and everywhere ached but eventually, I managed.

“Feeling better?”

“Worse,” I answered, closing the bathroom door behind me.

“Should I get you something to eat?” he asked, concern coloring his features. He angled the chair in my

direction to get a better look at me as I crossed over to my bed. “Have you taken any meds?”

“We just had ice-cream.” I answered, lazily throwing my hair into a bun. I sank under the covers. “And

yes, it’s probably just the flu so I took some from the medicine cabinet.”

“You only took a few spoons of your ice-cream.”

I shrugged under the covers even though he probably couldn’t tell. Luckily, he had enough sense to not

open my curtains and I didn’t turn on the light before hopping into the shower so the room was

relatively dark. Regardless, I pulled the covers over my head.

“What did you have before that?” he probed.

“Before what?”

“The ice-cream.”

“I don’t know.” I frowned, thinking back. “An apple.”

“All day?” I could hear the incredulity in his tone.

“It’s barely four o’clock. Calm down.” I yawned loudly, my words slurring. “I obviously haven’t had much

of an appetite.”

“I’m getting you something to eat,” he declared.

I started to protest but it came out as a yawn so I gave up. I didn’t have it in me to argue at the

moment.

“If you get caught, I’m going to deny knowing you and claim you’re an intruder.”

The warning would’ve probably come off sterner if it didn’t get interrupted by a big yawn that had my

shoulders quivering.

“An intruder cooking for you? I highly doubt anyone will believe that but point taken, I’ll be careful.”

I must’ve fallen asleep because I didn’t hear what he said next or the door close when he left my

room.