Lights Out: A Dark Stalker Rom-Com

You’re sure you’ll be okay with Aly on your own?” Tyler asked from the kitchen. “I can stay if you need me to.”

How bad had I gotten that my roommate considered taking time off work to babysit me while I had company over?

I paused in the middle of setting up my laptop on our living room coffee table and turned to him. “I’ll be fine as long as you’re sure she’s not into true crime.”

Tyler scoffed, crossing his arms as he leaned back against the counter. “She’s not,” he said. “She sees too much of it at work and doesn’t understand people’s obsession with it. And come on, man. You really think I’d bring a murderino home?”

I frowned. He screened his dates for me? “I didn’t realize you were so selective.”

Tyler shrugged. “Why do you think you never met Eric last year? He was a My Favorite Murder fanboy, and they’d just covered your dad.”

This was why Tyler was my best friend, despite all his douchey tendencies. He did the right thing when it mattered without me asking him to.

“So I’ve been avoiding all your hookups for no reason?” I said.

He flashed an unapologetic smile. “Yup.”

“And you didn’t feel like telling me about this until now because?”

“Because I didn’t want the competition if anyone got a good look at you. The last thing we need is another –”

I pointed at him. “Do not say another Cara McKinley situation.”

Tyler’s college girlfriend had been a real piece of work, doing her damnedest to come between us, but not in the way he thought. Cara had abuser written all over her. I’d seen the signs early and tried to warn Tyler, but he wouldn’t listen.

Her behavior was straight out of my father’s playbook. She tried to separate Tyler from me and everyone else in his life. I lost count of the times I watched her blatantly lie to manipulate my roommate, always making herself out to be the victim, and she constantly rewrote events and gaslighted Tyler when he tried to correct her. I talked to him several times while they were dating, pointing her behavior out, but he refused to see it, too blinded by the way she love-bombed him.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I’d found Cara rifling through Tyler’s things one day while he was gone and cornered her, staring unblinking into her eyes and smiling with all my teeth while I told her who my dad was and that if she didn’t leave my roommate alone, I would make my father’s crimes look like child’s play.

She’d run from the dorm. She also told everyone what I’d done and reported me to campus security, letting my secret out of the bag, which eventually led to Tyler and I bailing on that school.

I had no regrets, even though Tyler was still convinced I’d driven Cara away because she hit on me or something.

I shook my head at my roommate. “It sounds like you might be the one who doesn’t want me left alone with Aly.”

He pushed off the counter. “Are you kidding? If I thought something might happen between you two, I’d line the front hall with rose petals, fill this place with candles, and blast some Marvin Gaye. You need to get laid, man. You’ve been spending way too much time alone in your room, and at the rate you’re going, you’re either going to get carpal tunnel or early-onset arthritis in your wrist.”

I went stock-still. He didn’t have a problem with me seeing Aly? Excitement coursed through my veins. That was one less hurdle I had to jump, one less obstacle to overcome on the road to making her mine.

The second half of Tyler’s statement hit me on delay because of my distraction, and I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m not sitting in my bedroom whacking it 24/7.”

Wait, why was I arguing? It was better he thought I’d turned into a serial masturbator than learn the truth about how I’d been spending my days lately.

“I’ve just been working a lot,” I lied.

He eyed me. “If you say so.”

“Don’t you have a date?” I asked. He needed to leave. Now. Aly was probably already on her way here.

Tyler checked his watch. “Shit. Sarah’s gonna kill me if I’m late again.”

The tightness in my chest eased as he raced into his room. If I had any hope of keeping Aly from figuring out who I was, Tyler couldn’t be here.

I drummed my fingers against the coffee table as I listened to him getting ready.

Come on, come on. Your hair looks fine. Stop fixing it in the mirror.

The fact that I knew what he was doing without needing to see him probably meant we’d been living together too long.

A few minutes later, he returned, wearing a stylish black peacoat with the collar turned up, and stopped in the middle of our living space. A crease appeared between his brows as he looked me over. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

“Get the fuck out,” I said, the words a little harsher than I intended. I was running out of time.

He sent me a flat look. “Fine, but call me if shit goes sideways.”

I waved him off, and he stalked out of the loft, looking pissy. I’d have to find some way to apologize later.

The second the door closed behind him, I leaped from the couch and turned off the heat before racing around to open every window in the apartment. I’d kept my injured hand hidden from Tyler, but that wouldn’t work with Aly because I needed both of them to type. I bet I was already on her list of suspects – I was an obvious add because she’d met me and I was good with computers – so I’d have to be crafty if I wanted to ease her suspicions. To that end, I’d spent the past hour gleefully developing a plan.

Who knew stalking and games of deception were so much goddamn fun?

Uh, your dad? my brain helpfully supplied.

I stopped dead in my tracks and cringed. I needed to find some way to muzzle my subconscious. It kept popping up at the most inopportune moments to point out flaws in my logic or draw comparisons between me and the monster who’d contributed half my DNA.

So what if I shared a few traits with the man? As long as they weren’t the bad ones, did it matter? After all, I’d also inherited my mom’s propensity to overthink things, and that had been giving me more grief lately than any of the shit I got from Dad.

I shook my head and returned to the thermostat, watching the temperature drop into the low sixties. As soon as it hit fifty-five, I closed the windows again. There. That should do the trick. Cold enough to require layers but not so bad that Aly would start shivering.

Our thermostat was in the entryway where she might see it and notice I’d turned it off, so I hefted a canvas print of my mom, stepdad, and me from my visit with them this summer that Mom had sent me and hung it over the thermostat to hide it from sight. Not my best work, but it would have to do for now.

The loft was a large rectangle, and the door to my room was right off the entry hall. From there, the space opened up, with the kitchen to the left and the living room to the right, banked by massive windows dating back to when this building was an industrial factory. Tyler’s room was on the opposite side as mine, and you’d think that would mean I didn’t hear what went on inside it because we were so separated. Unfortunately, the big open space between us acted like some sort of sexual echo chamber, the exposed brickwork and overhead ducts carrying every moan and grunt straight to my room.

Three nights ago, I looked up from my computer screen and said, “Wait for it. Waaait for it. Now,” right before Tyler let out an almighty groan, and the apartment went silent.

I shuddered at the memory, wishing I could unlearn the warning sounds my roommate made before he came.

We’d definitely been living together too long.

I dropped my focus to the floor and searched for anything I missed while cleaning earlier. Tyler liked to leave his socks lying around, but he’d been doing it less and less. He complained the other day that he was running out of them and the dryer must be eating them somehow. It wasn’t. I was throwing them away to try and break his bad habit.

Mean? Maybe. But according to the whiteboard hanging by my desk, it had been five days since the last sock was left on the living room floor – a new record! – so I wasn’t about to stop.

I paced into my room and grabbed a sweatshirt and fingerless gloves. I’d already intended to wear the latter to hide the tattoos on my hands, but with my stitches, they were doubly necessary now.

Two phones lay side by side on my bed. I made sure the burner I texted Aly from was switched to silent and left it behind as I grabbed my real one and strode out of the room. Just in case Aly felt snoopy when she arrived, I locked my door behind me.

I was as prepared as I could possibly be, so why was I freaking out? I was excited, yeah, and looking forward to playing more games with Aly, but I was also nervous. Was it because a girl I liked was coming over to see me for the first time, and I wanted everything to go perfectly?

No.

Yes?

I mulled that over. Yes, it was. Because, apparently, I was turning back into a teenage boy over Aly, and the fact that I got hard any time I thought of her further confirmed that fact.

I’d pulled on a t-shirt that was a size too big earlier because it fell low enough to hide the obvious outline of my erection pressing against my jeans. I’d been turned on most of the day because every time I paused for more than half a second, my thoughts went back to last night and the memory of Aly bobbing up and down in my lap as she worshiped my dick.

Goddamn, the woman gave good head, and that was after telling me it was a bad angle for it. What would she be capable of if I laid myself before her and let her do her worst?

Probably spoil me for all other women. Not that I’d complain.

My phone chimed in my hand.

Deep breath. This was it.

I glanced down, and sure enough, the text was from Aly. She’d just pulled in and was on her way up.

I tugged on my gloves and sweatshirt and went to wait for her by the door. My fingers drummed against my thigh impatiently, and I couldn’t stop tapping my foot. I’d gone for a run earlier to work out some of my nervous energy, but even though I’d pushed myself to the point of exhaustion, it hadn’t been enough. I was keyed up, hyperaware, and hard as a fucking rock.

Aly was about to be within touching distance, and I couldn’t lay a finger on her. This was going to be torture. The only thing that would get me through it was the knowledge that I’d more than make up for it later. Despite what I’d texted her earlier, I still planned on making her come. After a little light punishment for the stabbing, of course. I just hoped I’d done enough to earn her trust last night and that she didn’t run straight for a gun when she found me sitting in her room covered in blood while holding a knife.

A knock sounded from the door. I took a deep breath, bracing myself, and opened it.

Aly stood in the hall, dressed in a fresh set of scrubs and the same jacket from last night. Her dark hair was pulled back into a long braid, and she had the barest hint of makeup on.

She was looking straight ahead when I pulled the door open, so her eyes landed on my chest. I held myself perfectly still as they widened a little and slowly climbed up, glancing over the breadth of my shoulders, lingering on my jaw, before finally rising to meet mine. Her pupils dilated the barest fraction, and a hint of color stole into her cheeks.

Was Aly turned on right now? Did she find me attractive?

I felt both elated and slightly betrayed. Well, this was a weird feeling. I was jealous of myself. Why? It wasn’t like the masked version of me had any claim on her. She was a red-blooded woman with eyes in her head. She was allowed to be attracted to whomever she wanted. I should look at this as a good thing. When she eventually figured out who I was, it would be a bonus if she had the hots for me.

I smiled, reveling in the flush darkening her face. Oh, yeah, she was attracted to me.

“Aly, right?” I asked, extending my right hand toward her, which just so happened to be my injured one. I needed to work my way off her suspect list, and this was a great way to start.

She dropped her gaze to it and frowned, noting the gloves. “Yeah, thanks again for helping me.”

Her eyes narrowed as she slipped her hand into mine, and I braced myself before we shook. If I knew anything about her, and I knew a lot thanks to how much I’d watched her, she was about to take the bait.

Right on cue, her fingers tightened around mine on the first pump upward, and by the time we came back down again, she was squeezing me much harder than necessary.

My hand burned like a sonofabitch, pain racing up my arm. A whimper built in the back of my throat, but there was no way I was letting it out because she would either realize she’d hurt me or recognize the pitiful sound from earlier.

I grinned through the pain. “Quite the grip you got there. Trying to intimidate me into keeping my mouth shut about all this?”

Her eyes flashed wide with the realization that if I wasn’t her masked stalker, she was choking off the blood flow of an innocent man. She let me go and took a harried step back. “Sorry, no, I just…”

I raised a brow, waiting for her to finish the sentence.

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Was Aly flustered? Oh, this was too good. My dark, devious heart sang at the sight of her searching for a way to excuse her behavior. I was going to torment the fuck out of this woman, and it was going to be so much fun.

“Just…sorry,” she finished lamely, looking away.

I briefly took pity on her and stepped aside, holding the door wide. “Come on in.”

“Thank you,” she said, skirting past me.

“Sorry if it’s chilly. The heat kicked off a while ago and won’t come back on. I called the building’s super, and he said he’s on it.”

Her gaze dropped to my gloves. “Oh, so that’s why you’re wearing those.”

“Yup. If you get cold, we have more pairs lying around.”

She smiled, still looking embarrassed about her imitation of a boa constrictor. “I’ll let you know. Thanks.”

I closed the door behind her and strode toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Just half-and-half, right?”

She was quiet, likely wondering how I knew how she took her caffeinated beverage of choice. From watching her, duh, but I’d known it for even longer, and that little nugget of truth would probably throw her off just as much.

I turned and grinned at her, wide enough to make my dimples pop. Her gaze dropped to them and lost focus for a second, and I was grateful my oversized shirt and sweatshirt hid the way my dick responded. I knew what I looked like, knew the effect I had on people. Up until now, I’d always resented how handsome I was because it reminded me of how easy it must have been for Dad to lure his victims.

For the first time in a long time, I was grateful for my looks because the girl of my dreams seemed rattled by them, caught off guard because she hadn’t gotten a good look at me the first time we met and didn’t know what to do about the fact that Tyler’s roommate looked like he could get cast in the next Superman movie.

“I remember how you liked it from when you stayed over,” I said, adding a wink to see if I could get her to blush again.

Sure enough, the pink fading from her cheeks came rushing back. “How I liked it?” she asked, having picked up on the innuendo in my words. Her eyes flashed wide as they glanced toward Tyler’s room, and I saw the wheels turning in her mind, wondering how much I might have heard that night.

“Yeah, your coffee,” I said, tone innocent, expression anything but as I looked her over.

She sucked in a deep breath and turned away. “Yup!” she squeaked. “Half-and-half is fine, thank you. I’ll just go over here and sit down.”

Her ex-hookup’s roommate was flirting with her, and she did not know what to do about it. Inside, I was cackling. Maybe I could keep her so off balance that she forgot why she was here.

But I should have known better than that.

By the time the coffee finished brewing and I ambled over to her carrying our cups, she’d gotten control of herself, back to the no-nonsense, competent woman I watched almost every night. It must have only been her surprise that threw her off at first.

“Thank you again,” she said as I passed her coffee to her. “I know this is a strange request, asking you to hunt someone down for me, and I appreciate your help. Are you sure I can’t pay you?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “The challenge of it will be payment enough.”

It was my turn to get flustered as I stared into her wide brown eyes. Up close, there were lighter hints of amber and topaz hiding amongst the deeper tones. Her eyebrows were thick, a shade or two darker than her hair, arching in the middle like one of the beauties out of a Renaissance painting.

Whatever you do, do not look at her mouth, I told myself.

I used the excuse of sipping my coffee to tear my gaze away before I gave in to that temptation. Looking at Aly’s mouth was dangerous because it would remind me of what that mouth had so recently done to me, and my dick was already hard enough as it was.

I set my coffee on a coaster and opened my laptop. The screen came to life, displaying the emblem of the company I worked for. I’d scrubbed this machine down earlier, removing any trace of Aly from it just in case I had to get up and pee, and she got curious and started clicking around.

“Why do you need to find this person?” I asked. “Tyler was kind of vague.”

“That’s my fault. I didn’t want to go into details with him,” she said.

I glanced over to see her watching my screen intently. I waited a beat, but she didn’t elaborate. Really, Aly? You won’t even tell the guy helping you find what you’re after? Fine. If she refused to be upfront about it, I’d have to wheedle it out of her some other way.

“Okay then,” I said. “Do you at least have a starting point? A name or an address?”

She took a deep breath and pulled out her phone. “Please don’t judge me for what I am about to show you.”

I watched her unlock the screen, noting her passcode – because of course I did – and waited as she pulled up her social media app, found my profile, and then showed it to me.

I looked from it to her and back again. “You want me to find this guy for you?”

She nodded.

“You’re not some rabid fangirl trying to find out where he lives, right? Because stalking is a crime, Aly.” My tone was dead-ass serious, and it took every ounce of willpower to keep the rabid glee from my expression.

Her cheeks heated again, but it looked like it was from temper instead of lust. “I know it’s a crime. It’s someone else who has the boundary issues,” she muttered.

Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.

“Oh?” I said.

“It’s a long and insane-sounding story, and I don’t want to get into it with a near-stranger.”

Ouch.

She lifted her gaze to mine and had the good manners to appear apologetic. “No offense.”

“None taken,” I told her. “I’m just a little worried this ends with me getting charged as an unwitting accomplice in someone’s murder.”

She snorted. “It’s my murder you should be more concerned about.”

Was she serious? She still thought I might hurt her? Fuck, I hadn’t done enough to reassure her after all. Maybe I needed to change tonight’s plan around and give her the power again. She seemed to like having it last night.

“Are you joking?” I asked because that’s what a non-involved, concerned person would do. “You think this guy is going to kill you?”

She blew out a breath. “No. I mean, I hope not.” She dropped her head into her hands. “Fuck, I’m making this sound so much worse than it is.” She lifted back up and looked at me imploringly, and I decided I would give her anything she asked for at that moment. My help. My undying loyalty. The password to my investment account and all the money inside it.

“If I thought I was truly in danger, I would have gone to the cops,” she said. “This guy has just been messing with me a little, in a mostly harmless way, and I’d like to get back at him.”

I continued to play the role of a concerned bystander. “I don’t know. This seems like something the authorities should handle.”

She shook her head. “No. I want to do this my way. Will you help me or not?” She placed her hand over mine, my right one, I noted, and squeezed again. “I totally understand if you’re too freaked out, though.”

Ow, ow, ow.

I kept my face stoic as I answered her. “I’ll help. But please go to the police if things escalate or you feel unsafe.”

She grinned up at me, squeezed once more, even harder this time, clearly watching me for any sign of pain, and then let go. “I will. Thank you.”

She seemed almost disappointed that I didn’t flinch as I nodded and turned back to my laptop. Did she want it to be me?

Did she think I’d make it so easy for her?

I made a show of pulling up my social media profile on a browser and locked it to the left side of my screen. Next, I opened a coding program, locked it to the right, copied and pasted my user name into a line of code, and hit enter. Numbers and letters started flying over the right side of the screen while the program got to work.

It looked impressive as hell, like something out of a spy movie, but in reality, it did fuck-all. I wasn’t really going to sit there and track myself down, nor had I replaced my fall guy with someone closer. If Aly was serious about looking for payback, that might mean breaking into someone’s house, and I would never send her to a stranger’s address if that were the case.

I’d have to find some way to run down the clock, tell her that her hacker was very good – I mean, he was, not to blow my skirt up or anything – and he’d done too much work covering his tracks for me to find him without risking getting caught and hacked myself.

“That’s it?” Aly asked. “You just put it in there, and the program does it all for you?”

“I wish it were that easy, but no,” I said. “This is just to figure out what IP address he used to create his account.”

From there, I went into detail about how much work it would realistically take to track someone down. Her face fell as I talked. Good. Hopefully, she was second-guessing her harebrained idea.

“So you’re not going to have an answer for me by the time I have to leave,” she checked her watch, “in twenty minutes?”

“Nope. Sorry,” I said. “What’s it like being a trauma nurse?” I tacked on. Because I couldn’t help myself. This was the first time I’d spoken to Aly, and despite how often I watched her, I was still ravenous for information. There was only so much knowledge you could gain through a camera. I had memorized her expressions and learned how to read her moods, but I didn’t know what made her tick, didn’t know how she truly felt about all the things I’d seen her go through.

“Oh,” she said, looking slightly taken aback by the sudden topic shift. “It’s…I don’t exactly know how to describe it. Good isn’t the right word. Rewarding might be better.”

I glanced down at her lips, unable to help myself. Less than a day ago, they had parted around my cock. Less than a day ago, I had come inside that sweet mouth.

I jerked my gaze up and refocused on her words before I did something stupid.

“It’s incredibly challenging at times,” she said. “The lows are really low, but the highs are equally high. Nothing compares to the thrill of saving someone’s life.”

I nodded. “I bet. What made you want to get into it?”

She met my eyes before shifting to watch the letters flashing over my screen. “My mom, but I don’t want to talk about it. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I said. Shit, I’d touched a nerve. I needed to get us back on safer ground. “More coffee?” She drank at least a pot a night, and her cup looked like it needed to be topped off.

She held it out to me. “Yes, please.”

I went to the kitchen and poured us more. Aly was typing on her phone when I turned back around, and I watched as she hit a final button and then looked toward my phone, which sat next to my laptop, as if waiting for something. Did she just text me? The masked me?

If so, she would get a vague, slightly teasing response in three, two, one…

Her phone chimed, and she looked disappointed for half a second until she read the text and grinned, shaking her head like she was amused and didn’t want to be. I knew the expression well. She’d worn it almost constantly last night.

She fired off another text as I returned to the living room with our cups, grinning even wider when the next reply came through.

The auto-response program I’d loaded onto my burner was pretty sophisticated. It could carry on an entire smartass/flirtatious conversation with her in my absence, though I hoped she didn’t keep this up for long. The program was good, but it wasn’t perfect, and she looked like she had finally stopped suspecting me. Josh me. After all, I couldn’t be her masked admirer if he was texting her back, could I?

“Thank you,” she said, setting her phone down to take her coffee. She looked more relaxed than a moment ago, like her back was no longer up now that she didn’t suspect me.

Mwah ha ha ha ha.

My evil plan was working. Step one: get Aly to drop her guard. Step two: fuck her on this couch.

Oh, wait, no. I’d skipped a few steps somewhere.

But, god, the temptation was strong. Relaxed Aly was almost as hot as feisty Aly, and I had to stop myself from staring at her instead of pretending I was watching my fake hacking program work its magic.

Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to suffer such compunction, and I could feel her gaze like a physical touch as she watched me watch the screen. I’d been worried earlier that my need for her might be tied to our shared kink, and without a mask between us, the excitement would dull. I should have known better. I wanted her just as much now as last night, and from the way she stared at me so intently, I was beginning to think it went both ways.

Keep it up, baby, I thought, and see if I don’t out myself right now just so I can give into this driving need to yank your scrub pants down and –

“What’s it like being a computer programmer?” she asked.

I cleared my throat and shifted my hips, trying to ease my erection sideways so it wasn’t digging straight into my fly. Was she making small talk, or did she really want to know?

I took a sip of coffee and sat back, risking a glance at her. She looked genuinely interested.

“It’s a little like how you described nursing. Challenging but rewarding, if in different ways.”

“What made you want to get into it?”

I reluctantly pulled my gaze from her – I’d been staring at her mouth again and almost missed the question. The second it registered, my stomach plummeted. I was already playing enough games with her, and I didn’t want to start piling lies on top of them, so I settled for a half-truth instead.

“My dad wasn’t a good man. He tried to find us when Mom and I left him. Learning how to hide us from him online was the reason I first started coding.”

“Oh, wow,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be. It’s in the past. We’re free from him now.” The whole world was, thanks to his state-sanctioned execution. “Lighter topic,” I said. “If you were locked in a room full of spiders, would you rather have the lights on or off?”

Aly leaned toward me until I had no choice but to look at her again. “That’s lighter?” she asked, brows lifted in concern.

Her eyes were so pretty this close. “Than my dad? Yeah.”

She sat back. “Lights on, I guess. So I could see the spiders coming. You?”

I nodded. “Same.”

“Would you rather be trapped alone in outer space or at the bottom of the ocean?” she asked.

“Those are both terrible. Outer space.”

“Same. But why?”

I grinned. “I’m banking on the chance of an alien rescue.”

She smiled back, her gaze dipping toward my dimples again and going slightly unfocused.

My heart started beating so hard that it rattled my ribcage. When was the last time I’d done this? Sat and talked with a woman? I couldn’t remember ever being so at ease around one, at least not as an adult. Part of me was always wound up, waiting for them to find out who I was and for that knowledge to ruin everything. Maybe I should have felt that with Aly, but Tyler wasn’t a liar, and if he said she avoided true crime like the plague, he meant it.

“Would you rather change sexes every time you sneeze or not know the difference between a baby and a muffin?” I asked.

She laughed, throwing her head back and almost spilling her drink. “That second part is twisted. I’ll take changing sexes. Sounds fun.”

I nodded. “Same.”

A mischievous look crept into her expression, and her gaze dropped to my lap.

I glanced down, but the hem of my sweatshirt still hid what was happening beneath it.

She lifted her eyes to mine, her gaze searing. “Would you rather ejaculate one tadpole-sized sperm every time you come or a hundred regular-sized ones that can all talk?”

I sucked in a breath full of coffee and immediately started choking. Aly patted me on the back while I leaned forward, hacking as my lungs tried to expel the liquid invasion.

“Sorry,” she said. “Should have waited until you swallowed. I’ve caught a lot of people off guard with that one.”

“That is a truly impossible question,” I wheezed.

She quit patting me and rubbed her hand over my back instead, and I decided to stay right where I was until she felt like stopping. “I know. Because on the one hand, ow. On the other, you could never get rid of them.” She raised her voice to a much higher register, sounding like a munchkin. “Nooo. Don’t flush us, Josh. We’re aliiive.”

Aly had left my house almost eight hours ago, and I was desperate to see her in person again. I’d declared her the winner of our impromptu game of Would You Rather after she made me nearly choke to death again with a question about crying tiny rocks or sweating pickle juice.

My computer screen showed me that she was busy at work, still dealing with the fallout of the mass shooting. Another one of the victims had succumbed to their wounds during the day, and the news organizations and local politicians were both working overtime to either bring attention to or away from the event, depending on their affiliations.

Mom had called me in a blind panic earlier. She didn’t watch the news these days, not that anyone could blame her for that, given her past, but someone had told her about the tragedy, and she hadn’t heard from me, so her mind went straight to the worst-case scenario.

The half-sob she let out when I picked up the phone stabbed into my heart, and I resolved to call her and Rob, my stepdad, more often.

We caught up after she calmed down, and when she asked if I was seeing anyone, a hopeful tone in her voice, I caved and told her a little about Aly. Not much – Mom would probably have me committed as a precaution if she knew the truth about my behavior – but that I was seeing someone and it was still new and that she was a trauma nurse who was helping the victims of the shooting.

“She sounds like a good woman,” Mom said. “And you must really like her. I can’t remember the last time you told me about someone.”

Yes, she could, but neither of us liked to think about how that relationship ended. My high school girlfriend had gone missing for five days the summer after graduation. I was arrested on day two and sat in a jail cell until she showed back up at her parents’ house. She’d taken an impromptu road trip with her best friend and didn’t bother telling anyone.

The cops let me out with an apology, but Mom still wrote a furious op-ed in the paper afterward, packed us up, and moved us. Again.

Here was hoping my relationship with Aly ended on a nicer note. Or better yet, didn’t end at all.

I refocused my attention on my computer screen. Aly stood by the nurses’ station, laughing with her co-workers. It was good to see that they could still laugh even under such duress. Hell, it was probably the coping mechanism they clung to the hardest.

I’d made the mistake of tapping into the ambulance bay cameras when they’d started wheeling victims in the other night, and it was the final nail in the coffin confirming that Dad and I were different in one critical way: real-life blood and death freaked me out. I’d taken one look at the most critically injured victim and started gagging. And what had Aly done? Climbed right on top of the gurney and replaced the exhausted EMT who’d been pumping their chest to keep their heart going.

She was a goddamn rockstar, and I hoped her patients told her that at least once an hour.

I blinked as I watched her wave goodbye to someone and turn to walk up the hall. The blink must have lasted a full minute because she was gone from the camera when I finally opened my eyes again. Fuck, I was tired. I meant to take a longer nap after she’d left the apartment earlier, but I’d woken up after a few short hours, the need to see her dragging me back to my computer desk.

I’d make another pot of coffee in a minute. That would keep me going. At least until Aly got off work. Then, the excitement and adrenaline would take over, and I’d be wide awake again.

I leaned back in my chair and let my mind wander to everything I had planned for Aly later. My eyes fluttered shut, the better to imagine her laid out beneath me, arms overhead, tits bouncing.

God, what a beautiful sight.

A blaring alarm snapped me out of it. Shit, was something happening at the hospital again?

I jerked forward in my seat, horrified that my room was several shades brighter than when I closed my eyes. Because the sun was rising.

I must have fallen asleep.

The alarm was coming from my phone. Aly’s front door camera was noting a lot of activity. I yanked my phone closer and saw her getting out of her car. In her driveway.

She was home already, and I wasn’t there waiting for her.

God-fucking-damn it!

I shoved away from my computer, grabbed my backpack full of supplies, snagged my car keys, and ran out the door.