I still wasn’t understanding what he was saying. He seemed to grasp that, so he pointed toward my bedroom window. On a grumble, I swung my legs out of bed and went to the window. Sure enough, when I peered through the blinds, I found a white wonderland of tissue paper spread from one end of my front yard to the other. The ancient weeping willow, which had been the major selling point when I bought this house, had taken the brunt of the damage.
“Huh,” I said as I scratched my cheek.
“Have you pissed off any teenagers lately?” He took another sip of coffee.
“Not last time I checked.” I cocked my head. Somebody had gone to town with the toilet paper. “This is so weird.” I allowed the blinds to fall shut and looked at him over my shoulder. “Why would somebody toilet paper my yard?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Why did you toilet paper people’s yards when you were a teenager?”
“I never did that.”
“Never?” he scoffed, clearly doubting me.
“You’ve met my father. Under what circumstances do you think he would have allowed me to go out in the dead of night to do something like this?” I gestured toward the window.
“Fair point.” He was quiet a beat. “It’s probably just teens in the neighborhood.”
That was possible. Still, for some reason, niggling worry filled my stomach.
“Unless you’ve ticked off an adult,” he clarified. “Didn’t something go down between you and that guy at the event last night?”
I was surprised he was even aware of that. He’d been too busy partying it up with the readers to pay too much attention tome. “It wasn’t a thing. Bree is just uncomfortable around him. I helped her out of a sticky situation.”
“Yes, and then you kept yourself glued to her side for the rest of the evening.” The way his smile spread even as he sipped his coffee told me he was enjoying making me uncomfortable.
“I wouldn’t say that.” I averted my eyes. “I can’t believe I slept so late.” That seemed like a safe conversational topic to shift to.
“You stayed up writing, didn’t you?”
“I did. How did you know that?”
His smirk was back. “I had to go to the bathroom around two o’clock, and I heard you typing away on your laptop.”
“Oh.” I pursed my lips.
“You seem to be pretty inspired these days.”
I shrugged. “I think I’m just finally over my writer’s block.”
“It takes inspiration to write after a night at the bar. Have you considered who is inspiring you?”
And there it was. Nathan wasn’t subtle. He was poking at my relationship with Bree.
“Don’t take this to a weird place,” I warned.
“I’m not.” He was guileless. “I’m simply pointing out that ever since Bree moved here, things have been getting easier for you.”
I snorted. “Easier? I wouldn’t call anything in my life easy.”
“You’re writing again.”
“It was time for me to start writing again.”
“You’re writing a lot,” he insisted. “I think you’re working on more than one project.”
I looked at the floor. “I should get showered so we can go out and clean up the mess.”
“We?” Nathan chuckled. “It’s not my house that was toilet papered.”
