Page 58 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

Her only response is a few key clicks. Then the chair squeaks start again.

“If this is too much for you, too personal, I can do it,” she says. “I’m ready to do it.”

Kill, she means. And that’s the only way this situation could get worse.

“I’m fine.” I pour steel into my voice to convince her almost as much as I’m working to convince myself. “I’ll review the files while Hugo sleeps, and then we’ll make plans.”

She’s quiet for a beat. “I almost didn’t tell you.”

“Come on,” I say with a shaky laugh. “We’re both stronger than that.”

“We really are.” Her voice is tight with the same emotion. “Love you.”

“Love you. Talk later.”

After we hang up, I tug the blanket even tighter around me and breathe in the cold night air. Hugo’s yard is a thing of beauty, of course. Pretty evergreens, more rosebushes, those lacy little ferns. He’s got paving stones set in the grass to make a checkerboard pattern alongside a firepit. It puts my grass-and-solo-tree backyard to shame. I should ask if he wants to roast marshmallows sometime.

Actually, no. I’m not the person who roasts marshmallows with the nice, nerdy guy next door. I’m the person who accidentally spends two years fucking a woman-hating sociopath who filmed me without my consent and shared it with his pack of woman-hating sociopathic friends. So I’m going to stand up, walk back inside, and make sure things go back to the way they were between me and Hugo before we started… whatever this is.

High walls. Short conversations. Arm’s length. That’s what the fuck I need to do. Because clearly, my picker is broken. I can’t trust my judgment, and I certainly can’t trust men.

I walk back into Hugo’s cozy house, prepared to grab my stuff and run, but he greets me with bleary eyes and a loopy smile.

“Hiiiiii.” He sits up in another of those boneless, fluid motions that make my mouth go dry, and he pushes his hair off his forehead to look at me with wonder. “You’re still here.”

He’s so delighted to see me. So open, so full of affection and gratitude. And I’ve just been gutted and turned inside out.

I’m raw, and he’s soft. I’m battered, and so is he. So I sit down next to him. I let him put his head back in my lap when he stretches out again. I run a finger from the center of his forehead to the top of his upper lip.

“I’m glad you didn’t hurt your nose.”

He cracks an eye to look at me. “You like my nose?”

“I do.” So, so much.

My disobedient finger falls to the corner of his mouth, which lifts into a smile before he scoots closer to wrap himself around me like an octopus. “Even though I take up too much space?”

God, my heart.

“You were right,” I manage to say after clearing my throat. “I’m getting used to it.”

I wasn’t supposed to. I shouldn’t let myself. But when he makes a contented noise and sinks deeper into my lap, I don’t object. I let him. I let myself have more of him, just for tonight.

“Hey, Hugo? What are the plants in your backyard? The ones next to the roses.”

“Oh, that?” He glances up at me through slitted lids. “That’s just something I like watching grow.”

God, this man and his hobbies. “And as your tenant, I don’t get those little leafy boys too?”

Little leafy boys. Funny, that’s what I said about the plant cutting left next to Aaron McEwan’s body. I can’t believe I didn’t think to ask Hugo if he recognized it. Then again, if that’s Gomez’s calling card, the less I officially know, the better.

“Do you want me to plant some for you?”

Hugo looks up at me with a gorgeous, hopeful smile, and god, was there really a time I didn’t think this man was unbelievably attractive?

“I do.”

“Okay. I will.” He snuggles into my lap again, and I gently stroke his hair.