Page 13 of Sully

Tall, fit, with great posture, medium brown hair that he had a bit long, a sharp jaw, bright blue eyes, and little smile lines that said he likely did so openly and often.

I even found myself liking his loud, bright pink Hawaiian shirt with little sunglass-clad cacti giving the finger printed all over it oddly charming. And the silly blobfish slippers had to be given a nod as well.

What can I say? I’d always admired people who wore whatever the hell they wanted, not caring what others might have to say about it. It was especially appealing, in my humble opinion, when men did it, since male clothing was all kind of bland and generic most of the time.

Even his bedroom seemed to be an extension of his personality. I mean, he had the wall behind his TV and dresser decorated with an ‘80s inspired wallpaper mural.

Speaking of the ‘80s, he had a shelf all along the entire room, just above head height that seemed to feature a ton of movies from the decade, alongside every single rom-com ever filmed.

As for the bed, when I’d pulled off the somewhat tame black and green checked bedspread, the sheets underneath had to be custom and featured what seemed to be a ton of quotes from various romantic comedies.

And from my cocoon, I could see inside his open closet door. Inside seemed to be about two dozen more Hawaiian shirts.

By the time I finished inspecting his room, my anxiety felt back to a tolerable four instead of off-the-charts.

I knew from my many hours of research for coping mechanisms to ease my anxiety that the act of observing, in and of itself, could soothe you when your anxiety is spiking.

And there was a lot to observe in this strange space.

Aside from the visuals of Sully’s room, there were the low murmurs of male voices from the other room. Where they were, no doubt, talking about the whole incident.

There was even something to smell, since Sully’s room seemed to smell, inexplicably, like peaches and vanilla. The blanket I was wrapped in smelled strongly of it, making me pretty sure that the man himself smelled like peaches and vanilla.

I’d been too busy sniffling when he’d been holding me before to actually be able to smell anything.

When he came back, though, he brought another wave of it in with him. Along with the bold scent of coffee and the richness of what had to be hot chocolate. The third mug, I assumed, had to be tea.

“Hey, honey,” he said, his head tipped to the side as he looked at me in my blanket cocoon. “How you holding up?” he asked, kicking the door mostly closed, then moving inside to setthe tray on the nightstand next to me as he dropped down onto the bed.

“I’m okay,” I said, freeing one of my hands to reach for the hot chocolate.

“Hot chocolate. Noted,” he said, reaching for the coffee himself.

“I like them all,” I told him as I took a small sip.

“But some situations just call for chocolate,” he said, nodding. “This particular one might call for a shot. At ten in the morning.”

“I don’t really drink,” I said, shrugging. “So this will do.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Okay.”

“What message did you have to give me?”

“That’s the thing,” I said, glancing over at him. His bright-eyed gaze was on me, and I couldn’t help but worry about my likely splotchy skin, my swollen lids, my messy, greasy hair.

Which was extra crazy since, even if this was a normal situation, a man like him wouldn’t want anything to do with a girl who had to switch pizza places because my favorite one stopped having online ordering, and I could never talk myself into calling to place an order.

“What’s the thing?”

“There was no message. He told me that I was going to bring you a message. But there was no actual message. Just… the vest.”

“Message enough, I guess. But is there anything you can tell me about the man? What did he look like? Sound like? Where did he put that vest on you? Anything.”

“He had a ski mask on. He sounded… like anyone else.”

“Okay. That’s alright,” he told me, his voice soothing as he pretended to shrug that off. I might have appreciated his desire to be casual about it, but I wasn’t stupid; there was no way hefelt as blasé as he was acting right then. “What about the other details? How did you end up with the vest on?”

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