“She’s one of the good ones,” he said simply. “Just ... don’t give her a reason to dead bolt the door.”
My grip tightened slightly around the bottle. “I won’t.”
He studied me a beat longer, then gave a single, satisfied nod and tipped his beer toward mine. “Good. Because Hayes wouldn’t be the only one to beat your ass.”
“Yeah.” I smirked. “That tracks.”
He raised a brow like that wasn’t the answer he expected, then turned to join Cal in heckling the opposing team. I sat back and let the noise of the bar blur around me. I didn’t need a warning.
Selene wasn’t someone you messed with. She was the type of woman you moved through fire for.
And I was already burning.
The night airsmelled like grill smoke and cut grass, a scent that made it feel like maybe this town wasn’t a city that tried too hard to impress you—it was content simply being what it was.
The duplex was quiet when I got home.
One of those split-down-the-middle jobs from the seventies—sloppy drywall surgery that took a perfectly good house and turned it into two crooked halves. You could still see the seams. A single front porch stretched across both units, the roofline sloping like it was tired of pretending it wasn’t one place. I’d been told the kitchens and living rooms mirrored each other downstairs. Upstairs was where the lines blurred. Our bedrooms were back-to-back. Same narrow dimensions. Same creaking floorboards. Same cheap-ass, hollow wall in between.
Selene Darling was twenty feet away from me at all times. Ten, if we were upstairs, and most nights I pretended like I didn’t know that.
But tonight? Tonight made it impossible.
I’d been in my place a week and already knew that Selene’s bedroom was the one directly opposite mine. I also knew she liked to shower at night, because if you followed the lines of the original crown molding, hiding under layers of thick paint, you could see exactly where the primary bedroom had been cut in two. My guess was her half had the bathroom of an original en suite space.
I kicked off my shoes by the door, peeled off my hoodie, and climbed the stairs two at a time. The house smelled like fresh paint and laundry soap—new-tenant scent. My mattress was calling to me, a few unopened boxes stacked in the corner. I hadn’t even bothered hanging anything on the walls. I told myself I didn’t need to settle in if I didn’t plan to stay long.
But I lingered anyway.
I slowed at the top of the stairs, fingers dragging across the drywall as I passed the spot where her room pressed against mine.
Then I heard it. Singing.
I wasn’t trying to listen, but when the house settled and was quiet, it was like the walls leaned in to whisper.
Soft, off-key singing floated through the walls. It was the kind of tenderness that made something in my chest seize up. A second voice joined in—smaller, higher, bubbling with laughter.
Winnie.
They were singing to each other. Warm and alive through the drywall.
My hand stilled on the doorframe. Not listening, not really. Just ... existing in it. I let the sound of them fill the hollow space in my chest like insulation.
They didn’t know I could hear them, and that was the part that got to me.
Selene’s voice floated out again, reading some kind of story. There was a haunted tone in it—ghostly, spooky, maybe even a little ridiculous—and Winnie kept interrupting, asking questions with zero patience. Selene answered with laughter tucked into her words, with more patience than I’d ever seen in anyone. It was a far cry from the absent-minded tuck-ins of a working mother who was doing her best. Most nights I fell asleep wondering whether I would even see my mother in the morning before she left for work.
That sweet sound of a loving mother making sure her child was safe and warm—it hadn’t been like that for me.
I sat on the edge of my bed, elbows on my knees, the lamp throwing amber light across the floor. I stayed there long after Selene’s gentle storytelling faded. After a few moments, Winnie’s voice quieted, followed by a soft hush.
It was hard to make out the rustling noises beyond the wall, and after a few minutes feeling like a total creep, I stopped trying. Instead, I took a shower in the bathroom down the hall and tried to scrub Selene Darling from my mind.
When I got back to the bedroom, I pulled on a pair of black boxer briefs and sat on the edge of my bed.
“No, I didn’t mean to sleep with him,” Selene hissed through the thin walls.
My attention was instantly piqued.
