Page 22 of The Man Upstairs

I couldn’t hold back, grinning to lighten it.

“Are you a sicko, then?”

He didn’t take it humorously.

“Ouch. That’s harsh.” He looked up at the ceiling and my cheeks burned all over again. “Maybe not all that untrue, though. I know plenty of people who’d agree with that statement. It depends on your view.”

It only made me more intrigued.

“Why don’t you try out mine? I’m quite open minded.”

“Like I said,” he told me. “It’s a rabbit hole I don’t really want to explore. And neither should you. I think you have more sense in your head than that. You’re a wise girl.”

Girl.

I wasn’t a girl, I was eighteen. He seemed to read my mind when I flinched.

“I’m forty-eight years old,” he said. “You’re a girl to me, Rosie. Or you should be.”

“Shouldbe?”

“Yes. Should be.” He brushed the crumbs from his shirt onto the empty pizza plate. “And you should be getting to bed now, you must be exhausted.”

He didn’t give me the chance to argue with him, just got up and walked away. I didn’t want to follow him. I didn’t want to move, I just wanted to hear his story. I wanted to hear about his life in Oxford, and what made him a sicko, and what really led him to Crenham Drive.

“Rosie, come on, please,” he said, from the hallway. I knew he’d be standing at the bedroom door, and I knew he wanted me out of sight. He really didn’t want to venture down any rabbit holes.

Who was I to argue? I was just a rescue puppy in a stranger’s flat.

“Sure, coming,” I replied, and picked up my bag from the floor.

The bedroom door was open when I got there. His bed was a double, but his wardrobe was a single. He had a solitary lamp on a bedside table. It was as barren as the rest of the place.

“My apologies again,” he said. “But I have only one set of bedding. You’ll have to make do with mine. And if you would like a makeshift nightdress, I have some shirts hanging up. Help yourself.”

If anything, the thought of wearing his shirt and sleeping in his sheets was thrilling.

He walked on in, sat down on his bed, and tried to fluff the flat pillows up for me. The bedsprings creaked underneath him. They gave me a zip up my spine, imagining how much noise they’d make if he was on top of me, fucking me. I leant against the doorframe, transfixed by the sight of him. Something had changed. His breaths were shallower, and he wouldn’t look at me, just busied himself by settling the pillows and switching on the bedside lamp. He was still avoiding my gaze as he took a towel from his wardrobe and placed it on the bed.

“I have one terrible bar of soap and a bit of shampoo, if you want to use it,” he said. “The bathroom is to your right.”

I flashed it a glance.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I moved aside on instinct as he left the room, but there was a moment of closeness. I wished I had the confidence to pull him back, and to ask him again, what made him asicko.What had he done to end up here? And did he really mean what he’d said that night when he’d pushed me away?

It’s not your mother I’m going to be wanting, Rosie, it’s you.

I couldn’t let it go. For once, I wanted to push forward with what I wanted. I didn’t want Jayden, or the boys from block seven, or any of the guys in college. I didn’t like the pizza house manager, Marvin, and I didn’t want Kieran, the guy in the kitchen who’d been asking me out for months.

I wantedhim.The man upstairs.

No matter how much I tried to deny it, I wanted him. And my fantasies had been getting filthier and filthier along with my books.

He was in the living room doorway when he finally looked back at me, and his breaths were still fast. His eyes were hard and dark.