“Amanda?” Isabella repeated. “Amanda, who? Is she from here?”
“Amanda Briggs, I think her name is,” Korbin said, and Isabella lowered her fork onto the plate to look between us.
“Blonde hair, blue eyes, about five foot six?”
“That’s the one,” Korbin said with a nod. “Do you know her?”
“Not really, but we went to high school together,” Isabella said with a shrug. “She was two years older than me, but she was kind of weird. I think people teased her in class.”
“What do you mean she was weird?” I asked, abandoning my own plate to focus my attention on Isabella. Korbin’s sister shrugged and picked up her fork again to take another bite.
“She didn’t talk much. Just kept to herself mostly.”
“Neither did I,” Korbin argued. “I kept to myself in school, too, but that didn’t make me a weirdo.”
“Are you sure?” I teased quietly, taking his hand under the table.
“Okay, so Amanda is one of those kids that you’d totally find shooting up their school one day after a mental breakdown,” Isabella said with another shrug. “That’s the kind of weird she is.”
“Isabella,” Nina hissed with a tsk. “That’s rude.”
“Sorry, Ma, but it’s true,” said Ian, dishing himself another serving of lasagna. “I remember Amanda too. She definitely was a little strange.”
“Shame on both of you,” Nina scolded. “That’s not how we talk about people we barely know.”
Korbin and I exchanged glances, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing: rude or not, knowing this about Amanda was relevant to our suspicions. She’d come off as reasonably normal, if not a little bit odd, in the beginning, but something was different now that we knew the whole story. She was hiding her true self, or else delving deep into it, and it was something we had to be aware of.
“Never mind all of that,” Nina said before we could respond. “Let’s change the subject. Korbin and Peyton, tell me what you’re thinking about the wedding.”
Next to me, Korbin tensed up, his body seizing into granite. “The wedding?” he repeated, glancing at me to save him. “There are no plans for a wedding, Ma. You just need to let us take it at our own pace.”
“Give me a break, Korbin,” said Isabella. She tore her gaze away from Korbin and looked at me. “You want to marry him, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do,” I said with a frown. “But—”
“No buts,” Isabella said, raising her hand in the air. She glared at Korbin. “You will not make her go through this again, brother. You marry this girl, and you do it quickly.”
I giggled, primarily out of sheer awkwardness than anything else, but part of me was cheering for her words. Ididwant to marry Korbin—I just didn’t know where to start.
We finished the rest of dinner fairly quickly, bidding Korbin’s family goodbye before heading back to the high rise. It had been a lovely time, but I was happy to be home with Korbin again, alone in our thoughts and each other’s company.
“Did you lock the door before we left?” Korbin asked, his hand turning the knob on the front door.
“Yes,” I said. “I always do.”
He didn’t say anything to this, but he didn’t have to. The door was unlocked. “Maybe—maybe I didn’t,” I murmured, stepping inside the house to stare at the door handle. “I thought I had. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he said, but there was tension in his tone. “Sometimes I forget to do it, too. No big deal.” He shut the door behind us, and I noticed that he locked both the deadbolt and the chain before turning around to face me. “I’m going to take a look around,” he said, quiet voice. “Keep your eyes open for anything that could be out of order.”
“Korbin, you don’t think--?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m going to check anyway.”
Feeling a sensation of fear crawl up my spine, I shrugged my coat off to hang it up and looked around as Korbin checked the loft, the bathroom, and any other small place that an intruder could have been hiding.
“It looks all clear,” he said after a moment, double-checking the door's locks. “Nothing to worry about.”
I giggled at this, but it was strained. “A month ago, we wouldn’t have even considered an unlocked door a break-in,” I told him. “I hate how on edge she’s making us feel.”
