Now I was really mad at him. More, of course, because he was right than anything else. Also because he was assuming that Jesse even returned my feelings, which sadly, I knew was not true. Why else would he have stayed away from me so assiduously these past few weeks?
Then Paul plunged the knife deeper.
"Besides, if the two of you were really right for each other, would you even be here? And would you have been kissing me like you were a minute ago?"
That did it. Now I was furious. Because he was right. That was the thing. He was right.
And it was breaking my heart. Worse than Jesse already had.
"If you don't get off me," I said, through gritted teeth, "I will jab my thumb into your eye socket."
Paul chuckled. Although I noticed he stopped chuckling when my thumb did actually meet with the corner of his eye.
"Ow!" he yelled, rolling off me fast. "What the - "
I was up and off that bed faster than you could say paranormal activity. I grabbed my shoes, my bag, and what was left of my dignity, and got the heck out of there.
"Suze!" Paul yelled from his bedroom. "Get back here! Suze!"
I didn't pay any attention. I just kept on running. I tore past Grandpa Slaters room - he was still watching an old rerun of Family Feud - then started down the twisting staircase to the front door.
I would have made it, too, if a three-hundred-pound Hell's Angel hadn't suddenly materialized between me and the door.
That's right. One minute my way was clear, and the next it was blocked by Biker Bob. Or should I say, the ghost of Biker Bob.
"Whoa," I said, as I nearly barreled into him. The guy had a handlebar mustache and heavily tattooed arms, which he had crossed in front of him. He was also, I shouldn't need to point out, quite, quite dead. "Where'd you come from?"
"Never you mind that, little lady," he said. "I think Mr. Slater'd still like a word with you."
I heard footsteps at the top of the stairs and looked up. Paul was there, one hand still over his eye.
"Suze," he said. "Don't go."
"Minions?" I called up to him incredulously. "You have ghostly minions to do your bidding? What are you?"
"I told you," Paul said. "I'm a shifter. So are you. And you are way overreacting about this whole thing. Can't we just talk, Suze? I swear I'll keep my hands to myself."
"Where have I heard that before?" I asked.
Then, as Biker Bob took a threatening step toward me, I did the only thing that, under the circumstances, I felt that I could. I lifted up one of my Jimmy Choos and smacked him in the head with it.
This is not, I am sure, the purpose for which Mr. Choo designed that particular mule. It did, however, work quite handily. With a very surprised Biker Bob incapacitated, it was only a matter of shoving him out of the way, throwing open the door, and making a run for it. Which I did, with alacrity.
I was tearing down the long cement steps from Paul's front door to his driveway when I heard him calling after me, "Suze! Suze, come on. I'm sorry for what I said about Jesse. I didn't mean it."
I turned in the driveway to face him. I am sorry to say that I responded to his statement by making a rude, single-fingered gesture.
"Suze." Paul had taken his hand down from his face, so that I could see that his eye was not, as I had hoped, dangling out of its socket. It just looked red. "At least let me drive you home."
"No, thank you," I called to him, pausing to slip on my Jimmy Choos. "I prefer to walk."
"Suze," Paul said. "It's like five miles from here to your house."
"Never speak to me again, please," I said, and started walking, hoping he wouldn't try to follow me. Because of course if he did, and attempted to kiss me again, there was a very good chance I would kiss him back. I knew that now. Knew it only too well.
He didn't follow me. I made it down his driveway and out onto the oceanfront road - imaginatively named Scenic Drive - with what was left of my self-esteem still more or less intact. It wasn't until I was out of sight of Paul's house that I yanked off my shoes and said what I'd wanted to say the whole time I'd been striding, with as much hauteur as I could, away from him. Which was, "Ouch, ouch, ouch!"
Stupid shoes. My toes were in shreds. No way could I walk in the torturous mules. I thought about flinging them into the ocean, which would have been easy considering it was below me.
On the other hand, the shoes were six hundred bucks, retail. Granted I had gotten them for a fraction of that, but still. The shopaholic in me would not allow so rash a move.
So, holding my shoes in my hand, I began to mince my way down the road barefoot, keeping a sharp eye out for bits of glass and any poison oak that might be growing alongside the street.
Paul had been right about one thing: it was a five-mile walk from his house to mine. Worse, it was about a mile walk from his house to the first commercial structure at which I might reasonably expect to find a pay phone where I could start calling around to see if I could get someone to pick me up. I could, I supposed, have gone up to one of the huge houses belonging to Paul's neighbors, rung the bell, and asked if I could use their phone. But how embarrassing would that be? No, a pay phone. That was all I needed. And I'd find one, soon enough.
There was only one real flaw in my plan, and that was the weather. Oh, don't get me wrong. It was a beautiful September day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.
That was the problem. The sun was beating down mercilessly upon Scenic Drive. It had to have been ninety degrees at least - even though the cool breeze from the sea didn't make it seem uncomfortable. But the pavement beneath my bare feet wasn't affected by the breeze. The road, which had seemed comfortably warm beneath the soles of my feet when I'd first come barreling out of Paul's cold, cold house, was actually extremely hot. Burning hot. Like fry-an-egg-on-it hot.
There wasn't anything I could do about it, of course. I couldn't put my shoes back on. My blisters hurt more than the soles of my feet. Maybe if a car had gone by, I'd have tried to flag it down - but probably not. I was too embarrassed by my predicament, really, to have to explain it to a total stranger. Besides, given my luck, I'd probably manage to flag down a serial killer and find myself out of the frying pan - literally - and smack in the middle of the fire.
No. I kept walking, cursing myself and my stupidity. How could I have been so dumb as to have agreed to go to Paul Slaters house? True, the stuff he'd shown me about the shifters had been interesting. And that thing about soul transference ... if there really was such a thing. I didn't even want to let myself think about what that might mean. To put a soul in someone else's body.
Shifting, I said to myself. Concentrate on the whole shifting thing. Better that, of course, than on the soul transference thing ... or worse, the even more unpleasant topic of how I could be so carried away by the kisses of someone other than the guy I happened to be in love with.
Or was it just that, after Jesse's seeming rejection, I was simply relieved to find that I was attractive to somebody ... even somebody whom I did not particularly like? Because I did not like Paul Slater. I did not. I think the fact that I had been having bad dreams about him for the past few weeks was proof enough of that... no matter how fast my traitorous heart might beat when his lips were pressed against mine.
It felt good, as I walked, to concentrate on this instead of my extremely sore feet. It was slow going, walking down Scenic Drive without any protection from the shards of gravel and, of course, the hot pavement beneath my soles. Of course, in a way I felt that the pain was punishment for my very bad behavior. True, Paul had lured me to his house with promises that he would reveal some information I had very badly wanted. But I ought to have resisted just the same, knowing that someone like Paul would have to have a hidden agenda.