“Why not?” I stepped back, waving him in with false bravado. “Make yourself at home, Comet.”
He stiffened, broad shoulders going rigid as he ducked to enter my doorway. “My name is Rudy.”
“Of course it is.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up as I closed the door. “Rudy. As in Rudolph? Where’s your glowing nose?”
His expression remained stoic, but I swore I caught a flicker of annoyance pass through those slate eyes.
He moved into my living room with surprising grace for someone whose head nearly brushed my ceiling, scanning my sparse decor with open curiosity.
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to reclaim some sense of control. “So what, you can... track me down whenever you want?”
His massive frame made my furniture look like dollhouse accessories as he carefully lowered himself onto my couch. The poor thing creaked in protest.
“I didn’t track you. I’ve been here before.” He gestured vaguely toward my kitchen.
I followed his gaze, ice forming in my veins as realization dawned. “That was you?”
He nodded once, his expression utterly unapologetic.
“You broke into my house to bake cookies?” Frost begancreeping across my hardwood floors, spreading outward from where I stood. “What kind of twisted home invasion is that?”
Rudy’s eyes tracked the spreading frost with something like satisfaction. “It wasn’t breaking in, and I didn’t bake here, seeing as you have no baking supplies. The others thought nostalgic food might help trigger your memories.”
“The others.” My nails dug crescents into my palms. “Right. Your reindeer friends who think I’m some kind of... ice creature.”
“You’re more than that.” He studied me with unnerving intensity.
I stared at him, trying to maintain my righteous indignation, but something else tugged at me beneath the anger. It was a peculiar pull, like gravity but warmer, drawing me toward his massive frame. For one absurd moment, I imagined climbing onto his lap, burying my face against his chest, and letting him solve whatever cosmic joke my life had become.
I shook my head, backing up a step. “Look, I don’t know what ‘more’ I’m supposed to be, but I’m just a woman with bills to pay and a spray tan addiction, not whatever magical creature you think I am.”
Rudy’s gaze swept over me, lingering on my face. “I see the tan didn’t take.”
My hand flew to my cheek reflexively. “Hey! How do you even… you know what? Never mind.”
The doorbell rang, its cheerful chime completely at odds with the existential crisis unfolding in my living room. Rudy’s lips quirked in what might have been the world’s most microscopic smile. “That would be the others.”
“The others? What do you mean the—” I didn’t finish because the doorbell rang again, followed by an impatient series of knocks that sounded like someone was using my door for drum practice.
I stomped over to it and yanked it open, ready to unleash hell on the threat that awaited.
Except the threat was a wall of extra-large pizza boxes balanced in someone’s arms. Behind them stood a snack foodconvoy of two-liter bottles of soda, bags of chips, and cookie boxes—holy Cookie Monster, so many cookie boxes.
“Special delivery!” a voice called from behind thefirstpizza tower.
The boxes shifted, revealing Dane’s grinning face. Behind him stood the entire collection of men who had been appearing everywhere, crowding my entryway like this was an average potluck.
They pushed past me in a herd of masculine energy, filling my living room with their presence. Food was placed on every available surface before I could stop them.
“We figured you’d be hungry.” Kip grabbed my hand, sending tingles up it, and pressed a warm cookie into my palm. “Food is always the best foundation for life-altering revelations.”
“I’m partial to salty myself.” Blitz ripped open a bag of chips with his teeth and dropped into my reading chair.
Vix carried in a case of energy drinks. “The sugar content in these is appalling, but apparently humans love them.”
Cole silently handed me a pizza box, his blue eyes somehow making the gesture seem profound.
Pierce began arranging bottles on my coffee table. “Figured we’d need provisions for the herd meeting.”
