“Enjoy.”The officer gave me a wave and walked away.
“Enjoy?”I glanced at Timothy, then at the retreating back of the officer.
“He subscribes.Big fan.Super awkward,” Timothy said, standing on the walkway.“I’m always wondering who’s seen me naked.”
I winced.“I never expected you to be dealing with that.”
“Mmm…” He nodded.“You didn’t give me the tracker so you could find me, did you?”
“Why don’t you come in?”This wasn’t a conversation for outside, where people might overhear.
He walked past me into the apartment.His head tilted up to take in the mezzanine bedroom level.“This is really nice.”
“I only have it because of theScream and Steammoney, which is half yours.”
He licked his lower lip.“They taught me to magic myself the ability to read your letters.I thought I was going to melt my brain.Do you know how hard it is not to think about melting your brain?Or the floor swallowing you?Or a hundred other stupid things that I never realized I do?It’s terrifying.”
He was listing the reasons why children were so dangerous to my world, and why he needed to wear the cuffs.
“I’m a Bridge Guardian.I had to give you a tracker when it was clear you had a connection to my world, even though I didn’t want to.”And even though I didn’t want to tell him the rest, it was better to get it over with.“I thought about telling you what would happen, but I didn’t want to scare you.”
His eyebrows lifted.“You don’t think three monsters turning up to arrest me was scary?”
I glanced at my toe claws.“I was more worried about how you’d feel about being here.”With me.
There was a chance that tomorrow he’d want to leave.
“Still conflicted.I didn’t have a choice.I didn’t plan on being a sorcerer or a freaking porn star.I was meant to be an engineer and build things…buildings.”
I frowned.“You can still do that if you want.”
“I don’t know what I want.It’s a lot to take in.”He turned, scanning my apartment.“And everyone knows you fucked me.That was meant to be private, not for your channel.”
“Yeah…about that…” I stared out at the city lights, knowing that I needed to tell him everything, even if it was hard.“My brother hacked my storage and leaked those videos.”
“What?How did he even find out about them?”Timothy scrubbed his hands over his face.
“He wanted dirt to force me to become a streamer…not realizing I already was, then he wanted a fifty percent cut.I refused.He uploaded them and linked them back to my account.Which lost me, us, followers, but we gained others.I think everyone loves you more now.They are certainly making loads of suggestions for future videos.”And offering themselves up.
No one was touching Timothy except me.
He took a step back.“Okay, this is way more fucked up than I realized.”
“Things got messy.”And I wasn’t sure how to start cleaning up.“Why don’t I show you around?”There wasn’t much to show, but at least I’d be doing something.“This is the living area and kitchen.There’s not much furniture because I haven’t had time to buy more.There is a partition that turns that area into a separate bedroom or office, and upstairs is the main bedroom and bathroom.”
“It’s spacious.”
“It is.”All I’d wanted was my own space; now I wanted to share it with him.
He glanced at the stairs.“Do you want to show me upstairs, or are you expecting me to sleep down here?”
My heart gave a hopeful leap.Was he planning to stay?“I wasn’t sure what you’d want.”
He sighed.“Neither was I.I’ve been scared and angry and confused since I arrived.Then I remembered that this wasn’t the plan.”He smiled.“I only wanted you to stop banging around the house.”
“Then I started banging you.”
His cheeks turn pink.“I’m hoping that you want to do more of that.”
