Page 5 of This

“So, what are we moving next?” he asks, rubbing his hands together.

“The beds.” Keaton tucks Snort away in a box clearly marked as hers. “They both need to go to the storage unit.”

He watches her walk away before he turns to me. “You’re good to entertain yourself for twenty to thirty minutes, yes?”

“Sure, I’ll even have a beer waiting for you.”

“Now you’re getting it,” he says, already following her.

I start packing up the kitchen cupboards. Most of our stuff will go into storage. Keaton’s moving in with Liam, and he has all the basics, as does my new roommate in Portland. I like the idea of only taking the essentials with me and leaving the rest behind. My mother and I are definitely related.

I push on my tiptoes to retrieve the butter dish we’ve never used off the top shelf and wrap it in newspaper. I set it in the bottom of the box on the kitchen island. When I look up, my heart stops. He’s standing in the living room, wearing his ugly beanie and a smile.

“Still fucking beautiful,” he says, and it sounds just like I remember.

They say you never know how you’ll react to something until it happens to you. But in my case, I respond to seeing a psycho stalker appearing in my living room very much how I anticipated I would—screaming bloody fucking murder.

He starts toward me, shaking his head. “No, no, no.”

I back into the counter, looking for anything to use as a weapon. I grab a roll of packing tape with the blade attached, intending to slice any part of him that comes close enough. “Get away from me!”

“It’s okay.” He holds up his hands as if it will subdue me.Oh God,he’s going to subdue me. “I’m not—”

Liam charges out of the bedroom, pulling up his jeans. “What the fuck?” He stops a few feet away from the stalker but barely acknowledges him. “Why the fuck are you screaming?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out, so I point with the tape dispenser.

Liam looks between us, shaking his head. “Dane? My cousin?”

No.

“She might think I’m a psycho stalker,” says the not-psycho stalker.

“And what were you planning to do with that, Bennett?” Liam gestures toward the tape in my hand. “Pack him?”

I toss it down, absolutely mortified.

He walks back to Keaton’s room. “Thanks for coming to help, man,” he says over his shoulder. “Welcome to the crazy.”

The most awkward silence of my entire life follows the slamming of the bedroom door. We stare at each other with a kitchen island and most of the living room between us as he chews on his lip. We aren’t Snake and Angel anymore but Dane and Bennett, meeting for the first time with what feels like other people’s memories of each other.

He breaks the standoff first by taking off his beanie. “I think the lesson we’ve learned today is not to sneak up, unannounced, on someone after joking about being a psycho stalker.”

“Or you could avoid both as a general rule.”

“True.” He sits on a barstool across from me. “While we’re exchanging helpful tips, can I give you one?”

“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

“There’s a knife block behind you. One of those might have been a little more intimidating than a roll of tape.”

If he shares traits with Liam, a reaction will only prolong my torture, so I go back to emptying cupboards and change the topic. “So, you’re the hot cousin I was supposed to meet at the bar last weekend.”

He steps beside me and reaches the top shelf. “And you’re the bangable roommate I was supposed to wash my junk for.” He catches the ceramic serving bowl I dropped and adds, “Liam’s words.”

The red finally hits my cheeks. “Of course.”

We set into a rhythm. He hands me dishes, and I wrap them in newspaper. Once a box fills, I mark it for him to carry over to the others.

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