Page 106 of Lights Out

I gestured between us. “You and me. Did Tyler tell you he broke things off, and you decided to make your first creepy move?”

He grinned and pulled his hand away. “Tyler showed me the text you sent him.”

I gaped at him. “No, he didn’t.”

Josh nodded.

“And he didn’t recognize your tattoos in it?”

“No. You might have noticed, but my roommate is more than a little self-involved.”

I leaned back, remembering how grateful Tyler had looked to have some of Josh’s focus on me now, and it made me wonder. What if Tyler had known about Josh’s masktok account all along, and when I sent him that text, he decided to play matchmaker?

“What is it?” Josh asked. “You’ve got the same squirrelly look on your face that Fred had when he stole that piece of bacon.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said. Tyler was probably too full of himself for something so diabolical. “So what happened after he showed you the text?”

Now it was Josh’s turn to look squirrelly. “I, uh, might have spent several hours looking for you in my comments and reading everything you’d ever written.” He turned away from me, rubbing the back of his neck. “And then I decided to see if you were all talk or if you were really as into the mask thing as I am.”

“Who would have thought that a few weeks later, you’d get yourself a girlfriend out of it,” I said.

Josh turned back to me, his gaze steady on mine. “The first night I watched you at the hospital, I knew I wanted this to be more than the kinky hookup I’d planned.”

My insides went all mushy at the confession. “And there I’d been, ready to shoot you. You must have been shitting yourself when you watched me clear the house after you broke in.”

He sent me a wink. “Yeah, but they say you can tell a lot about a woman by the way she handles a gun, and I was more than –”

A loud yowl echoed through the car.

Josh and I shared a panicked look.

I unlatched my seatbelt. “Finish that sentence later. Peepants McGee sounds desperate.”

I climbed out and grabbed Fred’s carrier, careful not to jostle him too much as I dashed for my front door. There was a second litter box in my laundry room, and as soon as I got Fred’s carrier unzipped, he beelined toward it.

I followed after him into the house, wary. It smelled like bleach and the fabricated scent of pine. My hardwood floors shone like they’d been freshly polished.

How much had my cousin’s crew cleaned? Brad was mainly on the kitchen floor and then briefly carted through the living room, but he’d already been in my snowboard bag by then. From how my house sparkled, it looked like every surface had been wiped down. Out of an abundance of caution? If so, I wasn’t about to complain. It would save me from having to clean for a while.

Josh stepped inside behind me, carrying our bags and the litter box. I turned to help him, wondering where my guest was.

Josh leaned toward me and dropped his voice. “The hood was still hot. I’ll need to sweep our things and my car for a tracker later.”

Son of a bitch. What was it with all these stalkers lately? Was it me? Was I giving off some weird, come-at-me pheromone? Or was Mercury in retrograde again?

We left our things by the front door and went to find my latest home invader. Sure enough, my cousin, Junior, sat at my kitchen table, sipping coffee from a paper to-go cup. He was the spitting image of his father, short and trim with bold facial features that were more striking than handsome.

His gaze shifted from me to Josh, and he arched a dark brow. “I see you shaved and lost the glasses.”

Behind me, Josh swore.

I stepped between the men, putting Josh at my back. “What are you doing here?”

I liked it when Josh invaded my space and pushed my boundaries, but it turned out he was the exception to the rule. Anyone else doing it made me grumpy, bordering on homicidal – family included.

Junior stood, spreading his arms. “Is that any way to greet your oldest cousin?”

I eyed him, making no move to accept his offered embrace. “That depends. Did you or did you not point a gun at my boyfriend yesterday?”

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