by Roni Loren
He let out a breath, already mourning the loss of her company, and stood to follow her to the door. “Yeah, I have to head out to meet a friend. But thanks again for the brownies. You really didn’t need to go through that kind of trouble.”
She stopped at the door and turned to face him. “Not a problem. I enjoyed making them. My friends tell me my love language is baked goods.”
His eyebrows lifted.
She cringed. “And…that sounded weird.” She laughed self-consciously. “I just mean that I communicate in baked goods—usually purchased, not baked. I promise I’m not hitting on you.”
The words were playful, but they hit him like shrapnel, cutting in multiple places. Of course she wasn’t hitting on him. Of course this wasn’t flirting. Of course she was inviting him to tour WorkAround to be helpful, not to ask him out. She was being nice. Everyone was being so fucking nice to him these days. He forced a smile. “I knew what you meant.”
She wiggled her fingers in a wave and stepped out onto the porch. “See you on the lawn sometime, neighbor. And let me know if you decide you want that tour.”
“Thanks. Will do.” He shut the door behind her and then pressed his forehead to the doorjamb, deflated. “Fucking pathetic, man.”
He was so out of practice with women that he didn’t even know how to distinguish a neighbor offering a favor from interest anymore. The old version of Hill would’ve flirted his ass off with Andi. He would’ve turned on the charm and had her laughing and would’ve gotten her to go out to dinner with him tonight—or better yet, let him cook for her. He would’ve taken her to his bed and shown her all the fun ways he could make her feel good.
Now he was left with none of the finesse and all of the wanting.
He needed to steer clear of his neighbor. He was trying to find ways to get out of this mental hole, not make it worse by reminding himself what he couldn’t have.
***
“She baked you brownies?” Ramsey said between shoveling french fries into his mouth. “Dude, that was a clear opening to ask her out.”
Hill dumped more spicy salsa on his plate of nachos and shook his head at his friend. He and Ramsey had a standing lunch date each week since it was weird visiting the fire station with Josh, the scumbag who’d slept with his fiancée, still working there. “It was not an opening. They were guilt brownies. She felt like she’d insulted me about my leg, and she’s too nice to let something like that go. If you’d met her, you’d realize there’s no chance this was an attempt at flirting with me.”
“Why not?” Ramsey asked, dumping more ketchup on his plate. “She married or something?”
“That’s not what I mean.” Hill grabbed his phone off the table. He wiped it on his jeans where the sweat from his beer had gotten his screen wet, and then typed Andi’s pen name into the search. Her author website came up, and he turned the phone toward Ramsey. “This is her.”
Ramsey wiped the salt off his fingers and took Hill’s phone, bringing it close to his face. “Whoa. Hot.”
“Yeah. And young. And definitely not in the market for some washed-up firefighter who spends most of his time in doctors’ offices and therapy appointments.”
Ramsey scrolled, his gaze still on the screen, the light of the phone illuminating the faint freckles that redheaded Ramsey denied he had. A probie firefighter had once called Ramsey “Freckles” and had ended up on solo toilet-scrubbing duty at the station for a month. “Shit, she writes horror novels. That’s kind of awesome—or concerning. I mean, she probably knows a hundred ways to kill a man. But she’s also at a higher probability for being kinky.”
Hill groaned. “That is one hundred percent a bullshit assumption.” He forced his mind not to go there, not to picture Andi in all kinds of fun, naked situations. “All it means is that she likes scary books.”
Ramsey set Hill’s phone down and lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, got it, man. But I don’t see why you didn’t ask her out. I mean, the worst that could happen is she says no.”
“No, the worst that could happen is she has zero interest and I put her in a completely awkward position with a guy she has to live next door to. Or she could laugh—that’d be fun.” He shoved a chip in his mouth, chewing with more aggression than necessary.
“She wouldn’t laugh,” Ramsey said, going back to his fries. “And awkwardness never killed anyone. At least you’d be putting yourself out there. That’s better than this hermit routine you’ve got going on.”
Hill put more chips in his mouth, choosing not to honor the hermit comment with a response. He couldn’t deny his hermit state, but he also couldn’t justify venturing back into the dating world. Everyone came with a little baggage, but he had so much right now, he’d have to rent off-site storage to house all of it. No woman deserved that in her life.
“All I’m saying,” Ramsey said after taking a long swig of iced tea, “is that you need to look at the law of inertia.”
“Inertia,” Hill said flatly. “We’re having a physics discussion now?”
“Yes. I’m not saying you should go out in search of the love of your life. Or even go out and search for your next long-term career—though I’m sticking by my cookbook suggestion. All that stuff is really big, heavy shit. You don’t need more heavy stuff right now. But you also can’t keep doing what you’re doing because of inertia.” He took an ice cube out of his glass and set it on the table between them. “An object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by a force.” He pointed at the ice cube. “You are the object at rest. Your ass is going to sit there, unmoving, and let the rest of your life melt away.”
Hill gave him a droll look.
“Unless.” Ramsey flicked his finger, sending the cube sailing across the table and into Hill’s lap. “Some force acts upon it—like me.”
Hill brushed the ice cube onto the floor. “You’re a force all right. Newton’s fourth law—the law of pains in the ass.”
Ramsey smirked. “I will gladly be a pain in the ass if it means getting you out of this dark, depressing place you’re in. You need to get into motion, just a little bit, and then it will be easier to keep moving. Like asking your hot neighbor out would’ve put things in motion, even if she said no. It would’ve been easier the next time to ask someone else.”
Hill let out a breath, feeling exhausted all of a sudden.
“Look, I can’t say I’ve been there,” Ramsey went on. “I don’t know what you’re going through, but I’ve had times in my life when I’ve felt stuck. If you stop moving, you get more stuck, more hopeless. So even if moving forward is the last thing you feel like you have the energy to do, you have to force yourself sometimes—even if it’s little things. It’s like working out. No one wants to do it, but the more you do it, the easier it is. Then it starts feeling good. Then you’re running miles and can’t remember why you used to hate working out.”
Hill pushed his plate aside. “Right.”
“And believe me, remembering how great it is to get laid is a way quicker trajectory than learning how to love working out.” Ramsey picked up his burger with a flash of a grin. “Once you get past that first time, you’re going to wonder why you waited so long to get back out there.”
Hill’s neck muscles tightened. He had not forgotten how great sex was or even just making out on the couch, but imagining doing those things now—with this new body and all its scars—made dread wash through him. After his accident, Christina had stopped sleeping with him. At first he’d thought it was because she was afraid she’d hurt him, but once he’d found out about Josh, he’d figured out the truth. She wasn’t attracted to him anymore and was getting what she needed from someone else.
“I don’t think I’m ready for the dating scene yet, but I hear what you’re saying,” Hill said, knowing his friend’s heart was in the right place. “Maybe I can find some way to get moving on the finding-a-new-car
eer thing. Andi offered to give me a tour of the coworking space where she has an office. She said meeting people who are doing all kinds of different things can be inspiring. And there’s a test kitchen there that food vloggers use.”
Ramsey paused midbite and lowered his burger. “What the fuck? You let me get halfway through lunch without telling me that part? She wants to show you around where she works? Help you figure out what you want to be when you grow up? You dumbass, you totally should’ve asked her out. You’ve got zero game. No, not even zero—negative points would have to be given.”
Hill leaned back in his chair and flipped his friend off. Ramsey was a pain in the ass, but Hill loved that he still treated him like he had before the accident. Other people had become more careful around him, like he was so fragile he’d break. Ramsey still regularly insulted him. It was the best. “Fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ramsey said, unperturbed. “But at least now you have a second chance to get this shit right. Tell her you’ll take that tour and then ask her out for coffee after or something.”
“And if she only sees me as the disabled firefighter she wants to help out because she’s a charitable person?”
He shrugged. “Then at least you know what’s what. And hey, she could become your hot friend and then I can ask her out. Because”—he picked up Hill’s phone again and turned Andi’s headshot his way—“hell yes.”
Hill grabbed his phone out of Ramsey’s hand. “Stay away from my neighbor. Our walls are thin, and I can’t handle that kind of trauma.”
Ramsey chuckled and went back to his food.
They moved on to a different conversation, but Hill couldn’t get the previous one out of his head. Andi had absolutely not been flirting with him, but he found himself fantasizing about that being the case. That she’d come over because she was interested. That she’d invited him on a tour because she wanted to spend more time with him.
But as quickly as he let the thoughts spool, they started to unravel. He was deluding himself, and if he let those thoughts go in that direction, he’d end up embarrassing himself. He knew he needed to take baby steps, and Ramsey was probably right. He should have a hookup at some point to get past that initial fear and dread of sleeping with someone. But doing that with Andi would be a terrible idea, even if she was interested. Beyond the fact that she was his neighbor and tenant, a hookup was supposed to be a temporary, fleeting thing. Lighthearted. Low stakes.
Nothing about Andi said low stakes.
She seemed like the kind of woman who would make a guy want to push in all his chips. Bet the house.
He couldn’t afford to risk that much again. He’d already lost it all.
Andi Lockley was off-limits.
Chapter Five
“Every woman knows what it’s like to contemplate murder. Not as the perpetrator—though some ex-bosses and ex-boyfriends can definitely inspire a fleeting thought—but her own murder. The loud guy trying to sell you something in the street. The man two aisles away in the grocery store who’s watching you instead of inspecting the quality of the tangerines that are on sale. The random grammatically challenged dude on Instagram who thinks your pics with your dog ‘r real sexxy.’
“We’re all familiar with that sick pang of warning in our guts, the tensing of muscles in our legs, our bodies readying themselves to bolt, or even just that vague sense of unease.” Andi paused the recording to edit out a place where she’d coughed. She hit Play again. “Listeners, that feeling is your personal oh-shit detector. Listen to it. Be best friends with it. Trust it like you trust your hairdresser. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s silly, that you’re overreacting, that you’re being ridiculous.
“I think Janice Walters trusted her oh-shit detector about her new coworker. She brought up concerns about Cliff Bastrop to her boss, that she had a bad feeling about the new guy. Her concerns were dismissed. Where was the proof? He was a nice guy. He was helpful. He always had a compliment for every woman in the office. No one but Janice seemed to question why he was so ready to help, to go out of his way for the ladies in the office, until one night when she was the last one out the building and Bastrop was waiting there to help her carry things to her car. Before she could decline, he grabbed her, the file box she’d been carrying hit the ground, and no one ever saw Janice alive again.”
Andi inhaled deeply, trying not to imagine the scene and to focus on the podcast recording. She knew getting Janice’s story out there was important, knew her listeners needed to hear the message the story held, but she also didn’t want to have a complete freak-out the next time she had to leave WorkAround at night. Covering these cases and managing her anxiety was a fine line to walk every day.
Horror and true crime gave her an outlet to process her anxiety in a safe way. After what she’d been through as a teenager, she’d worried that she was demented for finding solace in this stuff, but her therapist had explained that it wasn’t uncommon. She’d given Andi a stack of research articles to show her she wasn’t alone. Andi had learned that the majority of true-crime enthusiasts were women. And horror movies and fiction were as popular with women as they were with men. Her therapist had said watching horror or studying true crime could act almost like exposure therapy, women looking their biggest fears straight in the face and coming up with mental plans for how they could keep themselves safe.
For instance, with Janice’s story, Andi wanted her listeners to hear that trusting the this-guy-makes-me-uncomfortable feeling wasn’t only valid, it could be lifesaving. And not to let others dismiss their instincts.
It was one of the main reasons Andi had started the podcast. She wanted to shine light on things that often remained in the dark otherwise. Scary stories gave people fuel to protect themselves. Those stories gave them proof that their fears or bad feelings or instincts weren’t “overreacting” or “being silly.” There was power in knowing that. In not letting society gaslight you into thinking you were being paranoid if you carried mace or sent a photo of the guy you were going home with to a friend or didn’t accept a drink that you didn’t see poured. Knowledge truly was power.
Which was why it annoyed Andi so much when she got podcast reviews from the haters. She had loads of five-star reviews, but of course, her eyes always went straight to the ones and twos when she checked them. Tonight, she’d had:
LollyVR4: People who listen to this shit and exploit these crimes are sick in the head.
BroWhoa62: This show is called What Can We Learn from This? I’ve learned not to listen. She makes it sound like every guy in the world is a psychopath.
Mayh3m: This chick probably watches true-crime shows and horror movies instead of porn to get off. I’ll tie you up, baby.
The last one she was able to flag and get removed. But the reviews had also inspired her to open a bottle of wine for her evening podcast shift. She huffed, getting frustrated all over again, and pulled off her headphones. She clicked on a file and inserted an audio clip from the documentary on Janice Walters’s murder.
Footsteps sounded on the other side of her wall and she frowned. The werewolf was prowling around again. Always heard, never seen. An image of Hill answering the door shirtless rushed back into her mind. Her tongue had nearly rolled out of her head like a cartoon character when she’d been greeted with that view. The man was built like a fucking gladiator. One who’d been through war. Next to the line of dark hair that had disappeared into his waistband, he’d had a swath of skin that was raised and pink with an almost melted texture. Burn scars.
The sight of him had made her blush, but it’d also made her heart hurt. This man had survived a horror. In that moment, that fear she always had around new men had softened some at the edges. She’d wanted to know more about him. She’d gone inside with him despite all the warnings that had automatically run through her head.
No one knows I’m here.
He’s a stranger.
Being a victim of something doesn’t mean he’s not a bad guy.
Freddy Krueger had burn scars.
But the worries had been unfounded. He hadn’t murdered her. In fact, he’d been nice and quietly funny, and she’d thought they’d made headway with the possibility of becoming friends. But she’d been wrong. It’d been almost two weeks since she’d brought those brownies over, and the handful of times she’d seen him outside, he’d given her a quick wave and then headed inside without a word. Dismissed.
He clearly didn’t want to be friends.
Which was his prerogative but also kind of sucked. She didn’t want awkwardness with the neighbor. But more than that, she was frustrated that she’d read the situation so wrong. That day at his house, she’d felt like they’d made a connection. He was clearly going through some stuff. She’d pieced together that his disability had taken him out of a career he loved, and she’d wanted to help. She didn’t know what it was like to have that kind of physical loss, but she remembered what it was like not knowing what she wanted to do with her life.
However, once again, her instincts had been wrong. There’d be no connection. He didn’t want her help. He’d probably thought she was meddling.
Message received: the hot werewolf didn’t want her around.
She sipped her wine and tried to shake off thoughts of Hill and refocus on her work. She needed to finish editing the episode tonight if she was going to post it on schedule tomorrow. She didn’t have time to obsess about the neighbor anymore. She put her headphones back on.
“Janice was reported missing the following Monday when she didn’t show up for work…”
Two hours and one too many glasses of wine later, Andi was done. She put aside her laptop, pulled off her headphones, and yawned, wondering if she should just sleep there on the couch. Getting ready for bed suddenly seemed like too much work. Her limbs felt heavy and her thoughts fuzzy.
