When Perfect Meets Crazy novel Chapter 5

There were two things I considered myself excellent at. Ridiculously excellent at. The wake-up-from-sleep-with-no-prior-warning-and-still-kill-it kind of excellent. They were my academics and staying out of trouble. I had never been in trouble before, not even once. Not unless you counted trouble at home which I definitely did not. Nobody could go through life without being in trouble at home at least once. It is impossible and anyone who said otherwise was smoking a unique idiocy-inducing kind of weed. School, however, was an entirely different ball game. I’d never been in detention, never been yelled at, never been punished, never even gotten a question wrong in front of my classmates. I was that good. Of course, I had a teacher who didn’t like me. Honestly, I think it was born out of jealousy and his need to see all students fail but everyone else loved me so there wasn’t much he could do about it. The teacher was known for never giving any higher than a B and I was known for only getting straight ‘As’. When I finally took his class, I broke his record. He wasn’t a fan of that.

Anyway, the point is, I had a flawless record when it came to staying out of trouble outside my family life. The one time I had a serious argument with a teacher, it was about the correct answer to an equation. It ended with said teacher having to formally apologize to me because it was discovered that I was right. And let’s not even get started on my jobs. I was never late, never unsavoury to customers, never not the best employee. Needless to say, I always got promoted easily. I was that girl. The one who excelled in her academics. The star of the school. The one who represents the school, then district, then the state and so on, in competitions. The one people in places of power either doted on publicly or disliked secretly without being able to do anything about it. The girl everyone knew would easily go to an Ivy League school. The one who would have her pick of Ivy League schools. That was me. Staying out of trouble and being smart were my superpowers.

But in that moment, as I froze in the process of re-shelving the books, my eyes trained on Masked Idiot, I wondered if I was truly any good at a staying out of trouble. In the space of less than a week, I’d gotten yelled at by my mom, had a criminal somehow trace me home and break in, and to top it off, that same criminal was now showing up at my place of work. I clearly wasn’t half as good at staying out of trouble as I thought. This was trouble. Big trouble with a capital ‘T’ and not only had I not managed to stay out of it, I was fore front and centre in it.

The only reason I followed Olly to that stupid arena was because I believed with me there, she wouldn’t get in trouble. Objectively speaking, I knew I accomplished that but I couldn’t exactly call myself a master trouble evader if I never even considered the remote possibility of getting in trouble myself. First with my mom and now, with this idiot.

This could not be happening to me again.

The first feeling that ran through me when I caught sight of him was fear. Pure unadulterated fear. Adrenaline kicked in but luckily, so did common sense before I gave in to the irrational urge to run. To high tail it out the back door and not look back. Thank God too because how exactly was I going to explain taking off mid shift to my boss who would undoubtedly call my mother to inform her since it was entirely out of character for me. That was not a conversation I at all wanted to have. Oh, you see I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. A few days ago, I went to an illegal fight club and a criminal followed me home from there. And today, that criminal showed up at library so, obviously I had to run. Yeah, no. I’d rather die first than see how that would play out with my parents. My upstanding law-abiding role-model-citizen parents.

My flight instincts changed to fight. Never mind that I had too much to lose by fleeing, I had no reason to do it. This was my place of work and on top of that, I’d been coming here since I was a kid. It was my turf. Not once in all that time had I seen the idiot here and now, a few days after breaking into my room, he was ‘coincidentally’ at my place of work. I wasn’t that naïve. The idiot was actually following me. How. Dare. He.

Now, I was pissed. I slammed the book in my hand into the appropriate slot on the shelf before stomping over. My anger was plain as day.

“What are you doing here?” I snarled with all the viciousness of a lone wolf.

“Teeming information.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s what a library is for, isn’t it?”

“Don’t play smart with me,” I hissed.

“Hmmm...” he intoned, scrunching up his face in a disapproving half-smile. “Didn’t you say I was all brawns and no brain? I couldn’t possibly hope to play smart with you.”

The idiot was actually trying to play smart. Did he think this was funny? For his information, I was beginning to seriously consider murdering him as an option.

I drew in a deep breath and reminded myself there were tons of witnesses around.

“I didn’t specifically say that but I’m glad we agree on that point.” My gaze, full of venom, narrowed in on him. “Unfortunately, even a dead clock is right twice a day. Meaning I still have to be careful. Now what are you actually doing here?”

My words wiped the smug grin off his face. “Dead clock?” His tone was flat, unimpressed and irritated.

It was my turn to adopt an air of condescending indifference.

“Well, not at all if it’s a digital clock as opposed to analog. You strike me as digital but I’m giving you the benefit of doubt. There’s no way you aren’t a dead clock though. We did already agree that you were all brawns and no brains.” My gaze swept over him, lingering meaningfully on his muscular toned arms and athletic build.

He scowled.

“You work here.” His tone made it clear he was less than impressed.

It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Impressing him was nowhere on my radar. I didn’t give a crap what he thought of anything, much less my job. He could drop dead for all I cared. Actually, I’d quite like that. At least then, I wouldn’t have to deal him ever again.

“You’re a genius, Sherlock,” I drawled in a tone heavily laced with condescension.

If my name tag didn’t give it away, then the fact that I was re-shelving should have. It wasn’t exactly a conundrum. Anyone with half a brain could’ve figured it out. As a matter of fact, there was a kid who’d gotten a hemispherectomy -a surgery to remove half of his brain- who had figured it out in less time. And not only was he missing half a brain, he was only nine years old.

“I have a vague idea of why you’re here,” I said. “Scowl when I hit jackpot.”

He had another thing coming if he thought he could waltz in and make me feel unsafe at my place of work. I wasn’t the type to cower. He was going to learn that soon enough.

“You’re here because you stupidly think that since I saw your face, not that you’re a model or a celebrity whose face is worth anything, you think you need to keep an eye on me so your secret doesn’t get out or to be sure I’m not doing something against you or some other ridiculously unrealistic line of thought like that.” I arched an eyebrow, waiting for his response.

Sure enough, he scowled.

“I’m not stupid enough to believe that you just so happened to stumble into my changing room right when I was taking off my mask.”

“Oh, you’re plenty stupid so don’t worry your pretty little head about just how stupid that is. Aim for the highest number you can think of and just know that your stupidity is much much higher.”

He had to be kidding. He was possibly the stupidest person I had ever met what with not being able to give directions properly, warning off someone who wanted absolutely nothing to do with you and now, this.

“Stupid enough to irritate heaven out of me but not stupid enough that your stupidity actually works for me. Perfect,” I muttered under my breath.

I had almost convinced myself it was all in my head but clearly, it wasn’t. The universe was out to get me. There was no other explanation. Karma was gunning for me. The prayer of one of my many enemies was finally getting answered. That voodoo doll, wherever it was, was being poked all too liberally.

His expression evened out as though he wasn’t quite sure how to proceed.

So I continued, “Not that it matters but to be fair, it wasn’t much of a mask.”

I shook my head in disapproval as a mental image of the moment when I first saw him filled my mind. I had been so relieved, thinking I had finally found someone who could give me directions on the way out. If only I had known.

“It was a black strip of cloth with eye slits. You were playing ninja dress up in June.” I shook my head in that ‘you poor stupid thing’ way. “Tragic,” I added.

He stared at me, anger, disbelief and confusion warring for dominance on his features.

“Just so you know,” I carried on, unperturbed, “if anyone applies themselves, they’d find out your real identity in a minute with that flimsy disguise. It hardly covered your face. If I actually knew you in real life, I’d have recognized you despite the ‘mask’.”

The air quotes and mocking expression might have been over the top considering he now wore a deadly expression.

“You...” was all he could manage.

Fury rolled off him in waves. He clenched his jaw, fisting his hands as he struggled for control. If we were in an alley or a remotely private place, I might have been worried for my safety. Fortunately, not only could I hold my own, I wasn’t going to have to since he couldn’t exactly throw a punch in our very public surroundings unless he wanted to spend the next few hours in jail for nothing because I wasn’t going to let him get the punch in. I had a psychotic child kidnapper to thank for my self-defence skills. For a while back when I was in middle school, children kept getting kidnapped and murdered so my dad organized self-defence classes for those interested and as the kids of the sheriff, Olly and I didn’t have a choice. That was how we got into sparring.

Fortunately, we both ended up enjoying it. So much so that we kept going for even more classes. Case in point, a few days ago when I sparred with Deputy Parker. I think Olly and I both liked knowing that we could take down anyone who cornered us, especially since it wasn’t unheard for gang members or partners of a criminal to go after the kids of the cop who put them in jail. With a sheriff for a dad and a ruthless lawyer who almost never lost cases for a mom, we had huge targets painted on our backs so neither of our parents objected to our continued interest. We kept practicing with the deputies until we could pretty much teach classes of our own. Even now, there were days we still went in to spar -again, like the other day I trained with Parker- and for target practice.

Needless to say, Masked Idiot did not scare me one bit.

“Tone it down, Tasmanian or someone is going to report to security that I’m being harassed by you,” I said, pointing a finger over my shoulder to where I was sure my co-worker was seated. “Also, when you think about it, I should be the one who’s pissed. A criminal knows where I live, where I work and possibly, where I school. The top three places I spend my time. And on top of that, the criminal is stalking me.”

I dared him to deny it with my eyes. I really badly wanted to be wrong on this. He didn’t. I wasn’t wrong.

I sighed, disappointment coating my features.

“Would you like to leave on your own or should I call the cops?”

“I,” he gritted through tightly clenched jaws. If he wasn’t seriously inconveniencing me, I’d worry for his molars. “Am not going anywhere until I know for a fact that you’re not a threat.”

A tense silence descended.

I glared at him fiercely, trying to decide if he was bluffing or not. I would’ve scoffed but it wasn’t the least bit funny. Me? A threat? He was more of a threat to me than the other way around. One of us was a confirmed criminal -a mildly psychotic one- and it wasn’t me. A rational thinking person would be bluffing because who in their right mind would risk going to jail? Unfortunately, I had established that he was as stupid as they came which meant I couldn’t count on rationality from him. He might not be bluffing, not because he wasn’t scared of jail but because he stupidly didn’t know to be scared. Dealing with stupidity was so hard. I should really be nicer to teachers who had to deal with it every day.

My gaze hardened as I came to the conclusion that calling his bluff wasn’t a risk I could take. My mother would kill me in the most painful of ways if she found out about this and I shuddered to think what my father would do.

“Fine.” I spat, mentally wringing Olly’s precious little neck for ever suggesting the accursed trip to the arena. Why in heaven’s name did I even listen to her? I should’ve shut her down, let her go on her own, anything but gone with her. She got off scot-free but here I was, days later, still paying for it. And I didn’t even enjoy one bit of the stupid escapade. The universe was really out to get me.

“What?”

“I said fine.” I snapped. “You can follow me. Not spy and definitely not stalk, follow where I watch you watch me. Until you realize that I don’t give a shit who you are.”

“Oh,” he mouthed, shock at how easily I had given in evident on his features. “Okay.”

“I cannot believe this,” I muttered, turning away to head back to the aisle where I had been shelving books.

“How long is this going to take?” I asked as soon as the thought occurred to me. How long was I going to have him tagging along everywhere I went? A week? Two?

“As long as it takes,” he answered after a moment.

My eyes drifted shut, anger, resentment and resignation washing over me in succession.

“I’m going to kill Olly.”

“What was that?” he piped up, picking up speed behind me.

I ignored his question, swallow the rest of my complaints and tossed him a random book from the pile I was re-shelving. It was a book on the evolution of pottery. I couldn’t help but feel a little placated. A satisfied smile that took hold of my lips.

“Pull up a chair. Get comfortable. My shift ends in two hours.”

I didn’t need to look to know he was scowling. If he was going to make my life a living hell then it was only fair that I returned the favor.