Dad: Lunch today?
Me: Free soon. Tell me where.
My dad sends me the website link to some little café that seems to be part Korean and part French bakery. The food looks fine, and the drinks look good, so I shoot him a thumbs-up before setting my phone down and tearing into the first package he had delivered last night.
It’s the doorbell. He bought the wireless kind with a flashing light and a loud chime that’ll stick on the wall beside the door. The next is the alarm clock, which will take two seconds for me to install in his room. He’s probably going to regret that one, but the fact that he did it at all is enough.
No. It’s more than enough. Yes, he might have done this for anyone who needed it, but he was choosing me specifically.
Me, who was an asshole most of the time.
Me, who was not kind when we first met.
Me, who hadn’t given him a reason in the beginning to have faith that this could be something.
I swallow that feeling down and pull the last package out of the box. It’s two smoke alarms that flash, but those will take some work beyond just peel-and-stick adhesive, so I set those aside and reach for the alarm.
My phone screen flashes, and I see it’s a FaceTime from Quinn. I haven’t heard from him since he left, so my heart leaps in excitement. I have a lot to tell him.
‘So you didn’t get murdered?’ I ask when his face appears.
He rolls his eyes. ‘You wish.’
‘Never. How’s work?’ I move into the bedroom so I can talk to him and install the alarm.
‘Weird. The job is almost done, but I’ve been getting strange emails.’
My hackles rise, especially thinking about Denver and his stalker. This small town is changing. Maybe not for the worst, but I’m not sure if it’s for the best either. ‘What kind of emails?’
‘The last one was coordinates to my house,’ Quinn tells me as I balance the phone on the nightstand so I can plug in the alarm.
It takes me a second to process what he told me, and then I sit up straight. ‘Are you serious?’
He shrugs. ‘I didn’t know what they were at first. I don’t know how to read those. I sent them to Thorne, and he told me.’
My heart pounds, and I take a breath and distract myself bysliding the buzzer under the sheets below my pillow. Which feels weird to say that I have a pillow at Dex’s.
But I do.
And apparently, that’s what Quinn notices. He makes a noise loud enough for me to hear it, and I look back at him.
‘Where are you?’
I feel my ears heat. ‘Somewhere.’
He gives me a flat look and a quirked brow.
With a huff, I turn and sit on the floor, snatching my phone back up from the nightstand. ‘I’m at Dex’s house, installing an alarm under the pillow for me in the mornings.’
He blinks, then lifts one hand, pointing his finger to his mouth and flicking it away. ‘You and Dex? PAH!’
‘Fuck you.’
He bursts into laughter. ‘True-biz? More than fucking?’
I shrug. ‘I called him boyfriend. He accepted.’
Quinn shakes his head, but he doesn’t look upset or disappointed. He’s certainly not judging me how I judged Robbie with Thom. I don’t deserve how supportive he seems.
