Chapter II - A Bump in the Night

Typically Evan wouldn't ever dare to laugh at a customer, even in the exceedingly rare scenario that they gave him permission. It was way too easy nowadays to make the slightest slipup and get slammed with a one-star review minutes after pulling away from the job.

Still, he found himself cracking a smile at her antics. She had this magnetic friendliness about her, a carefree, almost innocent expression of warmth as if she had known you her whole life and the two of you had shared experiences and inside jokes that no one else knew about. And all this despite Evan only meeting her barely four hours ago.

She noticed his smile and gave a playful roll of her eyes before starting to walk over to the kitchen island, her hips casually swaying with an easy confidence. The confidence of someone who'd never really had any run-ins with rejection.

About a quarter of the way, she got frustrated with a strand of hair that kept coming loose from behind an ear, and reached up, undoing her bun and causing a cascading shower of wavy dark brown strands to completely cover her face. She looked down, quickly tucking the hair pin in her mouth as her hands begin a series of practiced motions with her hair, not missing a beat while continuing to walk.

Evan took the few brief moments of her distraction to finally sneak a good look in. She wasn't just extremely friendly, but also understatedly beautiful. Not really in the way that turned heads and made you go "damn", but the way that gave you that warm feeling in your stomach and the back of your neck that felt like the early, blooming days of spring and good things to come.

Her clothes were simple, just a ratty, paint-splotched old college t-shirt tied off at one end, exposing her midriff and inward-curving, taut waist. Fraying jean shorts that shared a similar amount of paint as the shirt wrapped the flair of her hips and the slender girth of her thighs, held up loosely by a plain, thin leather belt. Her build was femininely slim, but with the slight tone of muscle one who took care of their body had.

Evan's eyes traced the curves of her legs down to a petite foot nails painted a light shade of chipping red, before returning to the impossible-to-ignore bump in her stomach, the defining mark of someone in the very early months of pregnancy.

Damn, wonder what type of dude gets to impregnate that.

It was at this moment she had finished her new bun and looked up, almost immediately locking on and following the direction of his gaze to her stomach.

Fuck.

This was usually the point where things went south. Evan had always been told, mostly implicitly, that people were just generally uncomfortable around him and the "vibes" he gave off. Women always seemed to look at him as sort of an oddball and uncertainty that they'd rather not deal with. Most were looking for any excuse to just write him off as a weirdo, and that's what seemed about to happen now, as she caught him staring at her exposed stomach.

But instead she just grinned again, standing up straight and resting one hand on the slight bump in her abdomen.

"See you noticed the little bugger, he's still got a ways to go but one day he'll be able help his mom with painting," she said, smiling affectionately at her stomach before adding: "...and hopefully will get his father's sense of coordination."

Stroking the bump with her thumb, she then stuck out her tongue slightly and made a raspberry at it, before suddenly stopping and looking at Evan with an expression that was the closest thing he'd seen to embarrassment come across her features.

"Sorry... I'm a bit of a weirdo. No idea why my husband decided to marry me" she proposed, once again finding an excuse to laugh.

Evan was really too stunned to speak, but somehow fumbled his way to a coherent sentence.

"How'd you know he's a boy this early?"

She shot him a sly look as if he'd just said something incredibly silly.

"A woman just knows these kinds of things."

Evan flushed, not exactly sure why, possibly just his mind knowing at this point it was usually his turn to be ashamed of something. He started typing in his login info to the long-awaiting prompt, and changed the subject to a role he knew how to play well.

"So Mrs. Turner, all the cameras have been installed, I just need to login here and hook them up to your cloud account. The manufacturer gives you a one-year trial of their premium cloud plan, after that it's only $10 a month. I'd recommend it, as the increased storage and higher resolution is worth it alone."

She wrinkled her nose.

"Please, it's Miranda, we look practically the same age. If you start maam'ing me next I'll be growing grey hairs by the end of the day." She then squinted her eyes and gave him an accusing look.

"And you better be under thirty."

Evan wasn't able to hold back his grin.

"Sure thing, Miranda."

Even her name felt pleasant rolling of his tongue.

It only took him a few minutes to hook up the cameras, having done this numerous times before. As he tapped away on the computer, Miranda busied herself unloading the dishwasher which had just completed moments ago, humming away to a tune she alone knew.

"Alrighty, that'll do it, she's all set up." Evan said, closing his laptop. Miranda turned around excitedly, squealing and clapping her hands as if he'd just told her she had won the lottery.

"Now I can stalk the hubby when he's home no matter where I am!"

"....errr, yes I suppose that is an option."

"Oh don't be such a futz, I bet you'd love to check in on whoever you got at home, I'm sure she's very cu-" Miranda stopped as she noticed Evan had suddenly gone rigid, hand clenched tightly in a fist, his face drained of color. She tried to catch his gaze but his eyes averted hers.

"Uh... by the way, um... how much do I owe you for this?" She offered, changing the subject.

Evan loosened, his mind slipping from panic to the comfortable role and mask of the smart home technician. He mustered the will to look into her eyes, an action which felt like staring into the sun. Miranda briefly looked away before managing to smile back, only a touch ****. The smile was slowly fading, though, and her expression softened as she seemed to work out something in her mind, her face gradually taking on a shape Evan was unfortunately too familiar with. Pity.

"Well, it'll come to about $1700, and you can pay with card, check, or Venmo." Evan stated flatly, wanting out of here as quick as possible. She nodded, and then spun to go rummage through a small white leather purse on the counter, not batting an eye at an amount that would be a month's rent for a decent studio elsewhere in the city, before finding the card she was looking for. Evan hefted it in his hand as she passed it to him, one of the thick ones with a metal core and an annual fee that would drain most people's checking account. A quick swipe and an emailed receipt and he was out of there.

Evan collapsed onto his couch, sinking into the cushions as he exhaled a sigh of frustration. He'd had a nice meal planned out for tonight, a little celebration for his recent success. Sauteed lobster tails in garlic butter with braised asparagus, something he'd been looking forward to making and researching all week. Cooking was one of the few real hobbies he had outside of work, if you considered Netflix playing in the background while you searched random things on your phone to be a valid other hobby.

But after what happened with Miranda, he just felt crushed, with no real energy. It wasn't remotely as if he thought he had a chance with her, but rather the idea that there could possibly be someone out there like her who actually thought positively of him. Someone who, if they saw him on the street, would smile and wave hi.

Aside from some business partners and contacts, Evan couldn't really think of anyone in the city who would even recognize him. Except for Amy. She was the girl who had lived above him for the past two years, probably three, maybe four years out of college. Super short, and fairly cute in a nerdy kinda way, always polite and reasonably friendly, but painfully shy. It had taken months of effort to get Amy to warm up to him, but Evan, finding another role to play as the friendly neighbor, had always waved and smiled, typically getting nothing more than a reserved "Hello". Until that one day she said hello first, with a warmer smile than he'd ever seen her make. Evan knew she had probably just been in a good mood, that he really shouldn't read too much into it, but his mind ran wild with possibilities. He found himself daydreaming about asking her out, a relationship blooming that was full of laughs and smiles. Eventually moving in together on the top floor. Marriage. If only he could find the nerve to say more than "Hey Amy" to her.

He ended up heating some leftovers in the microwave before calling it an early night.

Evan awoke to the sound of footsteps above him, an oddity as Amy was maybe 105 lbs soaking wet and he rarely heard more than soft, barely-audible thumps. And those thumps were there, over above where his bedroom door was, moving further into the room. But there was now another set: heavy and thudding, echoing loudly and beating into his head. The two pairs seemed to now be right across from each other, almost circling, before suddenly the lighter pair disappeared, and the heavier set, somehow now even louder and more impactful, made slow, methodical steps toward the area just above Evan's bed. The ceiling above him creaked loudly, as if a heavy weight above him had just shifted, before settling back down. It was followed by a deeper, lengthier creak, then a whole flurry of light, seemingly random ones. As he listened, puzzled, they gradually took on a rhythm, growing every so slightly louder.

It took him longer than he was willing to admit to put the pieces together, but when he did, the back of his neck turned ice cold. He lay there, despondent, feeling rejected despite what was happening up there having nothing to do with him, with a girl he barely knew. The minutes wore on and the creaks gradually slowed, deepening and lengthening, before suddenly becoming erratic and random again for several seconds.

He rolled over, looking at the glaring red lines of his clock.

11:27 PM.

Evan wished for the day to just be over.

The creaking started up again about ten minutes later.