“You can’t jam now!” she yelled at the door. “Skinny Michael Myers is after me!”

“I am not after you,” Skinny Jeans said. “At least, not in the way you’re imagining. Will you please stop with all the drama and let me explain why I’m here? Because I don’t think either of us can take more of your attempts at self-defense or our olfactory senses will pack up and leave our bodies.”

Marina had no idea why the man’s words caused her to pause but she found herself turning back to look. He stood in the middle of the room, arms by his side, his nose wrinkled in distaste. But Marina was most impressed by the fact that he was glaring at her, eyes wide open, giving no indication that the perfume had bothered him at all. Which made no sense. Marina had accidentally sprayed some in her eyes one morning before work and she’d cut Mrs. Breaux’s hair an inch too short in the back. It had taken a good hour before her eyes stabilized. Way longer than that for Mrs. Breaux’s hair.

“Do you have something I can wipe this off with?” Skinny Jeans asked. “Before I pass out from the smell. This is so awful.”

“That’s Chanel!”

“No. It’s not. It’s a really cheap and awful knockoff.”

Marina sighed, all fear slipping away from her. How dangerous could a man who recognized knockoff perfume really be?

“I should have known,” she said. “It was a gift from my soon-to-be ex-husband.”

“It smells like a skunk in a stinkweed patch with a hint of motor oil. Please don’t tell me you’ve been wearing this.”

“I thought maybe it smelled differently on me—you know how you don’t smell it the same as other people do.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the case here.”

“Of course not.” Her perfume was just one more thing in a long line of failures. She shouldn’t have been surprised.

She headed into the kitchen and located a dish towel in one of the boxes, then wet it and handed it to Skinny Jeans. He rubbed his face but didn’t seem satisfied with the results.

“I can offer you dishwashing soap,” Marina said. “But that’s all I’ve had time to unpack.”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I’ll shower later and snort coffee grounds.”

Marina nodded. Shoving her nose in a jar of coffee grounds sounded really good. Why in the world had she thought that perfume smelled okay?

“So you want to tell me why you’ve been stalking me?” Marina asked, no longer concerned about his intentions. If he wanted to kill her, he’d had plenty of opportunity already. “Let’s start with your name.”

“I am called Alexios.”

“But that’s not your name?”

He frowned. “I just said it was.”

“No. You said you were called Alexios. Some people call me Biscuit because it’s all I’d eat for a year when I was three, but that doesn’t mean it’s my name.”

“Why does my choice of grammar seem to annoy you?” He looked genuinely confused.