“Rayner.”
The problem doesn’t say anything. He just keeps looking at me, and I don’t want to feel like his name sounds familiar. So I’m not going to go there right now.
And now they have names.
This is worse. Categories I could manage. A trap is a thing you avoid. Trouble is a thing you don’t make eye contact with. A problem is a thing you solve later, or ideally never. But Brock and Gunnar and Rayner are people, and people you have to be normal around, and these particular people are apparently going to be in my living room for the—
“Where the fuck is Leif?”
Gunnar. Out of nowhere. Already scanning the room like there’s a fourth man folded up behind my bookshelf.
Erik blinks. “Leif?”
“Yeah. Leif.” Gunnar says it slower the second time, like Erik’s the one being weird.
Four.
There were four.
I fucking knew it. Dammit.
His name is Leif, and he was here, and now he isn’t. And I am officially not going crazy. At least about that.
The rest of this hot mess in my living room? Jury is still out.
“He’s probably gathering intel,” Brock says.
He says it way too casually. It’s entirely unhelpful.
“…Gathering what,” I say.
“Intel.”
“On what?”
“New place.” Brock shrugs one shoulder. “New city.”
“New environment,” Erik adds. Like that was the missing piece. Likeenvironmentwas the word that was finally going to make this land.
Gunnar groans into his coffee. “Of course he is.”
So that’s settled, then. They are a group project. Every single one of them got the assignment sheet and the rubric and the meeting times, and I’m the one who wandered in on presentation day very unprepared.
“What intel,” I try.
“About the area.”
“What about the area?”
“It’s new to us.”
Erik clears his throat.
“It’s late,” he says. “You can all stay at my place.”
And just like that I relax. I was prepared for Erik. The pull-out speaks for itself. I am not, however, prepared for fantasy land all night.
I feel my shoulders actually come down. Across the hall. A whole separate door. Just one. Wonderful. Excellent plan, full marks, finally a man with a functioning—
