Page 115 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

Pell perks up. “There’s more pie?” He stands too, pocketing the ball and wandering into the house after her.

Before the back door shuts behind them, Pell asks something I don’t catch, and Quinn replies with a hearty, “Go fuck yourself.” Then it’s just me and Cosmo alone in the now-quiet yard.

I whistle for him, but there’s no answering jingle of his collar.

“Cosmo!” I call. But again, no jingle, no bark, and no dog.

I stand, concerned.

“Cosmo!” I call again, adding the whistle for good measure. I need to install more lights back here. Not only can I apparently misplace my dog, but there are too many spots where someone could lie in wait to⁠—

“Looking for this?”

I give a short, high shriek and spin to see Rue standing a few feet away, holding my unapologetic dog.

No, not Rue.

“Hello, Felicity,” I say.

She gives me an impressed look. “Took you less time than our first meeting.”

“I’m onto you now.”

I did my research. Legit, public records-based research. School records, newspaper clippings, real estate transactions. All very respectful of boundaries.

But even if I never learned about the Alsop twins, even if I thought the sweet face in front of me was the only one of its kind in the universe, I’d still know it wasn’t Rue. Everything about Felicity is a little softer than her sister: her hair in a loose bun, her mouth in a relaxed pout, her posture less watchful and ready. This beautiful woman may be a match to my neighbor down to her cellular level, but she isn’t mine.

“Your dog wandered into my sister’s yard,” Felicity tells me. “He found a gap in the fence.”

“Smart boy,” I say. “Thanks for returning him.”

She hands him over, then steps back to eyeball me.

“I told her there was a hot guy under all of that Dr. Bore nonsense.” She says it like she’s annoyed that I’m in jeans and a regular V-neck sweater, but all I care about is the opening she just gave me.

“How is she?” I practically trip over myself to ask. “Is she sleeping all right? When she’s restless, she sometimes comes downstairs for a snack.” On reflex, my fingers twitch toward the phone in my pocket so I can check if she’s smiling or crying. “But I don’t know if she’s running low on…”

The scorn on Felicity’s face shuts me up.

“Forgot your cameras are gone, didn’t you?” She stomps forward to snatch Cosmo from my arms. “I can’t believe she won’t let me kill you.”

“You want to kill me?” I shake my head because does not compute. “For wanting to make sure she’s okay?”

“No.” She looks at me like I’m the stupidest man in the world. “I want to kill you for what you did to her.”

Out of habit, my hand lifts to fiddle with my glasses, but I’m not wearing them tonight since it’s just me, Quinn, and Pell. “I care about her.”

Care about her. Would kill or die for her. Same thing.

“Greg probably would’ve said he cared about her too.” Felicity shrugs, thoroughly unimpressed by me. “We’ll never know, though. Rue already took care of him.”

Ah. Now I see her sister in her. Steel in her voice and winter in her eyes.

“It’s not the same,” I growl. “What he did to her is completely fucking different, and I wish I’d been the one to kill him for her.”

Felicity’s brows lift. “Wow. You really don’t get it, do you?”

Instead of elaborating, she turns to leave. I reach for her to ask what she means, but my hand barely makes contact before she drops her shoulder and rotates to face me, stepping clear of my reach. It all happens a quarter second faster than I expected, and she’s as composed as ever.