He’s barely aboyfriend.
Tell him that before you consider boning the stranger in Barnaby’s apartment.
“Can I help you?” he asks, his voice curt, and deep, and gravelly, and sexy, and?—
Ella, focus on the pen.
“I need to talk to Barnaby,” I say.
The stranger rests his hand against the doorframe, looking fucking edible, despite the fact he also looks like he’d very much like to kill me. “He isn’t available.”
“Well, tell him he can Discord with his hacker friends later; I need something from his?—”
The door slams shut in my face.
My mouth drops open. What atotalasshole. What a total, complete, utterasshole.
Kill him, Ella!
I start hammering on the door again. The beautiful stranger yanks it back open. “What?”
“Don’t you ‘what’ me, you sanctimonious asshole; I told you I need to speak to Barnaby, and I know he’s in there!”
He slams the door shutagain—but not before giving me the finger.
“Is he for fucking real?” I whisper to the empty hall.
I think he is.
I kick the door. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. This time, when he answers, I duck under his arm and dart into the apartment.
“What the fuck?” he shouts, but I ignore him, hearing the slam of the door and his footsteps following, but I ignore both and focus on the balcony. I yank open the sliding glass door, grab my precious pen, and brandish it like it’s goddamn Excalibur.
Good work, Ella. Now use the pen to kill the beautiful stranger.
I walk back into the living room and freeze.
My gaze travels across the apartment that’s a similar layout to my own. And it’s … spotless. I’ve seen this room through the doorway several times, and it never looks like this. The usual boxes Barnaby keeps from all his gadgets are gone. There’s no trash, no dirty dishes, no litter on the floor. The only things that assure me that I’m in Barnaby’s apartment are the posters on the walls and the ugly-ass green couch that he’d once offered to “bone” me on.
Ugh, he really is the worst.
“Get the fuck out!” The beautiful stranger gestures at the still-open door.
Wait. Hadn’t I heard him close it?
“Get the fuck out before I throw you out.”
“You’re really rude!” I say, hands on my hips.
“You just broke in. You’re lucky I don’t call the cops!”
I roll my eyes. “Dramatic much? What am I gonna do? Murder you? I just needed my pen!”
“Your pen?”
I brandish the pen at him. “Yes, genius. My pen.”
It’s then I notice a German Shepherd sitting by the closed bedroom door, ears up. It’s completely still. So still, in fact, that I wonder whether it’s a cardboard cut-out.
