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‘I’d like to come.’

Wouldn’t we all.

‘To the showcase, that is.’

Oh, right. That.

I grimace. ‘Are you sure? You don’t have to just because⁠—’

‘I want to,’ he interrupts, and quietly, more sheepish, ‘I’d like the opportunity to get to see you more… you know, maybe—’ He clears his throat. ‘Maybe outside of the store.’

‘Just outside? Not down the road or at the park or⁠—’

He pins me beneath the heaviness of his stare. ‘Miller, let me make myself clearer, since apparently you need me to. I like you. A lot. I’d like to see more of you. I don’t care where; I don’t care when. Just tell me where you’ll be, and I’ll be there.’

Night makes everything feel more dangerous. Even acknowledging someone else’s feelings. But I’ve finally worked up enough courage to say, ‘Fine. Come tomorrow.’

Hot Face stretches his hand between us and tucks that stray lock of hair behind my ear. He leans forward and brushes a kiss against my temple that barely touches. But it is somehow still enough to feel… off. No goosebumps. No shivers up my spine. And for the second time tonight I catch my thoughts drifting towards⁠—

‘That is a spectacular ass.’

I whip my head towards the nasally, high-pitched voice and see the bee-shifter’s grandmother admiring the fit of Hot Face’s jeans with a longing lip bite.

She’s not wrong. Hot Face is great in a lot of ways, including his toned ass.

It’s just… he’s not who I wanted to invite.

I’m collecting spare photo frames from around Walker’s bombshell of a room in the attic when I see a shadow scamper across the floor like a rat.

‘What happened to staying out of each other’s rooms?’

‘I think you pissed on that offer when you bombed my dates and had a deceased goat eat my undergarments.’

Walker scoffs and goes to sit at the piano stool.

A moment of silence. Two.

‘Undergarments?’ He tinkers with a couple notes.

‘Just trying to use inclusive language from your century.’

He dismisses the comment. ‘This is a perverse abuse of co-habitation.’

‘Free will and all that,’ I mutter and wave him off. ‘Are these all yours?’ I ask, flipping through the box of records.

‘Could you perhaps, exercise your autonomy when it’s less inconvenient to me?’

‘You’re quite evasive.’

‘The dead often are,’ he drawls.

‘So, these are all yours.’ Still flicking. Ooo. Walker’s a Britney fan – would not have guessed that.

‘Naturally.’ He’s begun tapping.

‘Don’t you mean, supernaturally?’ I waggle my brows.

‘Puns are the basest form of intelligence.’ I have my back to him now, but I can imagine his deadpan expression quite well.