Page 40 of Yolo

Or maybe it was because I was holding my breath.

Whatever the reason, by the time I made it to the fifth floor, I was panting, out of breath, and my head was swimming.

I applied the same logic to get to the apartment I was looking for as I would use to get to my own one floor below. Hurrying as fast as I could without appearing to be running.

When I got to the door, I knocked, thankful that the stairwell door hadn’t opened yet.

Maybe it wouldn’t.

I knew he probably had a clear line of sight from the stairwell to the apartment I was standing in front of.

I knocked again and heard the sound of footsteps.

“Bindi, what…”

I pushed through the door, my heart in my throat, and said, “Close it. Hurry.”

It closed in a hurry.

“What’s going on, Bindi?” Garrett asked.

“Gee.” I shivered. “Someone’s been following me for forty-five minutes. And I can’t get my phone to call out.”

I held the phone up to him and felt him take it gently from my hands.

“It’s on pause,” he said. “Here.”

“Oh, thank God,” I heard my mother’s voice. “I didn’t know what the heck was going on.”

“Sorry, Mom,” I sighed. “I must’ve pressed a button to pause it or something. I’m not sure what happened.”

“I could hear you, but you couldn’t hear me,” she continued. “I tried hanging up and calling back, but it was like our phones were stuck in a weird sort of limbo. Who was that guy?”

I felt Garrett’s attention sharpen.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He followed me from the dog yard! I had to turn around and come up to Gee’s apartment. I was too scared to lead him back to mine.”

“Good idea,” Dad’s angry voice cut in. “You got her, Garrett?”

“I do, sir,” Garrett said. “I’ll go check it out now.”

“Thank you,” Dad said. “We’ll hang up now. Call us back when you have something figured out.”

They said goodbye, and that was when I heard a feminine voice say, “Gee?”

“That’s me,” Garrett said. “That’s what my girl Bindi calls me.”

The way he said it sounded like he was almost forbidding her to ever use it.

Why did that make me feel so good?

“Oh,” the woman replied. “I’ll just be over here.”

“Who’s that?” I whispered. “Did I interrupt a date?”

And why did the thought of that make me want to cry?

Maybe it was because he’d told me he couldn’t see anyone right now, more specifically me, and that would make it me being the problem. And not someone else.

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