“Please go enjoy yourselves. There’s food over there, and my gramps made a whole basket of his aloe vera gel for the guests to take home,” Sam added.
“And please take as many as you want.Please,” Lana empathized. “The house is currently drowning in aloe vera gel.”
I laughed.
“Laugh all you want, but she’s not joking. Gramps takes his aloe veraveryseriously,” Sam said grimly. “Just look over there. He’s been talking my poor landlady’s ear off about his aloe vera plant for the past twenty minutes.”
I looked in the direction he’d pointed to see Russell animatedly chatting with Annabelle Jackson. Based on her rosy cheeks and the way she kept touching Russell on the shoulder, I would say she did not mind being kept there with him one bit.
“Look who it is! It’s great seeing you outside of the kitchen for once.” Dan Yao wandered over to our little group with Clay and Ryker in tow.
“Um, yeah. It’s good to see you kids here too,” Hector replied awkwardly.
Dan laughed. “Aw, c’mon. You’re not that much older to be calling us ‘kids.’”
“You could probably bench-press any of us here,” Ryker piped up, eyes flicking appreciatively toHector’s thick arms. Random comment, but not untrue. Hector’s arms were thicker than my legs, and they felt divine wrapped around me.
“Why, Ryker West, are you flirting with another guy right in front of me? Your dear fiancé?” Sam said with a sassy hand on his hip.
Ryker sputtered as he tried to reassure his lover. His friends laughed, and I couldn’t help the smile that played on my lips. I noticed the corners of Hector’s lips curved upward too.
“Oh, no. Who’s bullying my sweet boy here? Who do I have to beat up?” Jones came up and swung an arm around Ryker’s shoulders.
Clay pointed at Sam, which only had Jones holding his hands up in surrender. “You’re on your own there, buddy,” he said, which caused even more laughter in the group. Jones’ boyfriend, Ryan, arrived seconds later and shook his head at Jones’ antics.
They teased each other for a second, then pulled Hector into a conversation, taking him for a beer. Lana broke off from our group to make the rounds with her baby.
Clay lingered behind and pulled me to the back of the crowd. Hector glanced back when he saw I wasn’t by his side anymore, but I waved him off.
“How has everything been? Any updates?” he asked when we were out of hearing range.
I glanced at Hector to make sure he wasn’t payingattention to us. Ryker had handed him a beer, and Dan was waving his hands around as he told a story.
I shook my head. “No new notes. Not since the one I found in my room.”
Clay furrowed his brow, and I could see him going into cop mode. “Just because nothing has happened in a couple weeks, doesn’t mean the danger is over. You can’t let your guard down.”
“I know. I’m not,” I replied.
Clay studied me, then nodded to Hector. “You still haven’t told him anything?”
“This is my problem. I can handle it myself,” I said with a one-armed shrug. I knew Hector had every right to know. He should be aware of someone breaking into his home. But this was a problem I’d created, so I needed to be the one who fixed it. I was already double-checking that all windows and doors were tightly locked, and I planned on bringing up more security measures to Hector later. Once I figured out how to bring the topic up without sounding suspicious.
“But—”
“I don’t want him to worry, okay?”
Hector already thought I was too young for him. I didn’t want him to think I was immature too. That I couldn’t take care of myself.
I understood where Clay was coming from. Having a stalker wasn’t a game—especially when said stalker had somehow snuck into my room to leave a note—but Ididn’t want to involve Hector. Not now. Not ever if I could help it.
Despite being so forward in my advances toward Hector, there was a part of me that felt like I needed to prove myself to him. That part of me didn’t want me to be a burden to him. He’d done so much to take care of me since I’d moved here, but I wanted to prove that I wasn’t someone who only needed to be taken care of. I wanted to do the same for him.
Which meant I needed to fix this stalker problem as soon as possible so that I could get back to my life and pursue Hector until he finally admitted out loud that he had feelings for me too.
Chapter Three
HECTOR
