The Coldest Summer✓

Forty-four

"What are you doing here?" I fling back automatically, keeping myself away from him.

"Relax, Kira." His breath smells like a strong liquor as he says this.

He's drunk.

I stride back toward the couch, my eyes stuck on his. He's staring at me intensely, and I shudder at his presence alone.

"Why are you here?" I flap.

"You look great," Jeremy says in a normal tone of voice, my question ignored. "Going somewhere?"

The nerve of this guy! 

"Are you meeting your boyfriend?" he adds.

"It's none of your business!" I retort wryly, failing to hold my anger.

He frowns, his eyeballs rotating as though he's trying to remember something.

What is he up to? I steady myself, still holding my cell phone tightly as a reminder of the call I was about to make.

"Oh, I forgot! You've left him in Miami, right?" he asks with a faint smile. Seeing my calm reaction to his theory, he quickly wipes off his delight. "No way! Don't tell me he's in L.A for you." He glares at me briskly, his eyes darkening with anger and contempt.

My heart pounds fast but I stay focused, fully aware that I'm truly in danger with this bastard around me, and alone. I have to throw him out or leave; we can't coexist.

"I was heading out and you're running me late, Jeremy." I pretend to feel no fear by holding my stance confidently, head held high. "First of all, how did you find my address?" I grip my phone steadfastly.

Should I call the police just in case?

"I don't know why I'm here," Jeremy replies carelessly, shrugging his shoulders.

I frown.

Sighing, he glances at me fleetingly and shifts his eyes towards my bedroom, as though he's trying to see if I'm alone.

I feel wary.

"I was somewhere having a drink, and you somehow popped in my head, Kira. I mean . . . Who am I kidding? You're forever in my head like the damn disease in the brain," he says with a tiny laugh.

As he keeps himself busy with the inspection of my apartment, while blurting his nonsense, I take a peek on my phone. Liam's number is still on the screen, a single tap and I can make a call, but Jeremy's attention returns to me at the same time.

I hide the phone behind.

"I think I needed to see you badly today," Jeremy utters softly, his face somehow calm and dejected. Almost tender and harmless.

But no! I shouldn't be swayed with any fake emotion he may exude artfully. He's a bastard—that's all.

"So, are you going on a date with him or something? The blue eyes, I mean," Jeremy inquires after drinking in the sight of me from head to toe.

"I think it's very rude of you to come to someone's house without any notice, don't you think? We don't have any sort of a relationship so I want you to leave, Jeremy." My composure weavers as anger stirs me little by little.

"Oh? I'm sorry about that." He raises his hands up in the air. "It's not my intention to scare you, Kira, because I only came here to talk. I mean it. Do you have issues receiving friends to your house? We used to be friends, right?"

Friends? This guy is clearly sick in the head.

He sighs heavily and strides around my small foyer, taking no long distance from the door. He looks thoughtful, and almost troubled about something. His hair looks messy, and his clothes are not so clean despite being full black.