Really? My neck heats. “I just wanted to check.” Now I’m a compulsive, paranoid freak. “Crawlers may be up there, too.”
I realize that made absolutely no sense to anyone outside my brain.
Professor Xavier would have understood it.
Lo sets his hand on my waist and draws me to his body. “I’ll check the rafters with Ryke.”
“Crawlers are people,” I say lamely.
He just smiles. “I figured.”
I gasp. “You can read my mind now? Your superpower finally kicked in.”
“No,” he breathes, staring down at me. “I just know you too well.”
Oh. “Will you let me know when you get your superpower?”
He nods, and his fingers slide across the base of my neck. I love that he touches me so much more. “I have to warn you though, I may not have one.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “Sometimes I like the idea of just being mortal with you.”
Lo leans in to kiss me, but a loud clatter tears us apart. Brett tripped over a lamp on the ground, landing on his knees.
“Nice catch,” Lo says dryly. Brett didn’t drop his camera, but it’s strapped to his chest with some weird device that looks like a bulletproof vest, only plastic. I think Connor called it a steadicam.
Ryke passes by our room and stops when he notices Brett. He helps him to his feet and then enters. “Have you checked out the bathrooms?”
Daisy asked the same thing. They must know something that we don’t.
“Not yet,” Lo says, not as concerned as me now.
Daisy rises off my bed, and the four of us stand in more awkward silence.
We’re all living together.
This has never ever happened.
It’s new and weird and something the production company wanted so badly. It’s a big reason why we moved to this townhouse. The six months filming Princesses of Philly just got a lot more interesting.
Daisy breaks the quiet. “I’ve never lived with a guy before,” she exclaims, just putting it out there with more confidence than I would have. She’ll be in the same house as Lo, Connor, and Ryke. I’ve spent most of my time living with Lo, so it’s not so different for me.
Ryke and Lo share a look that I can’t decipher, and then Ryke says, “It should be similar to what you’re used to.”
“I doubt that.”
“Why?” he asks.
“I’m not used to six-foot-two guys sleeping two floors above me.” Daisy chose the basement, of all rooms. She said something about coming home late from modeling shoots and not wanting to wake up everyone. The stairs are creaky. And she’s nice. That combo led her to the darkest room.
I’d rather have her up here.
It smelled like cat pee in the basement, and since Sadie, Connor’s feline, is now living with us too—she could have been the culprit and already chosen her first target.
Sadie is a born criminal.
“I’m six-foot-three,” Ryke corrects with hardened brows.
Daisy shrugs. “Same thing.”
“No,” Ryke says a single word.
Daisy tries not to smile. “I’ve also never shared a shower with a guy before.”
Lo and I frown together. He beats me to the question. “Don’t you have your own shower downstairs?”
Daisy’s smile fades, and she exchanges a look with Ryke. Okay, everyone is sharing looks without me. I feel like the kid picked last for dodge ball.
“You don’t have a shower?” I say, trying to find the answer here.
“Um, maybe you both should come check out the bathrooms,” Daisy says, having to step over a box and squeeze past Brett to reach the door.
We follow her.
“Is the shower gross?” I wonder.
Lo clutches my hand as we walk. “Maybe they found mold or something.”
Good theory. “Maybe a turtle had babies in the bathtub.”
Lo considers this and then says, “And the shower is definitely full of snakes.”
“Monkeys,” I add. “There’s a monkey nest in the cabinet.” I picture Jumanji, a full out zoo inside the bathroom with ivy and deadly plants. Killer bees come next.
“Monkeys don’t have nests,” Lo says. Where do monkeys live then?
“You two are fucking weird,” Ryke says. Our imaginations are vast. It doesn’t help that we love comic books more than reality.
Ryke and Daisy abruptly stop in the middle of the long narrow hallway. I almost bump into Ryke’s chest, and when I take a step back, I knock into Brett’s camera.