What If You & Me (Say Everything #2) - Roni Loren Page 0,2
it any other way.
Despite Andi knowing everything that would happen in the movie, her heartbeat picked up speed as Drew’s character began screaming and crying. How many times could she watch a movie and hope that this time the person would escape and not get killed? It was one of the beauties of horror movies. There was often such a strong undercurrent of hope. Sometimes it was rewarded—the final girl escapes, the monster is defeated. Sometimes it wasn’t. But the very presence of that beating heart of hope got her every time.
Drew upped her screaming game on-screen, and Andi’s speakers vibrated with the shrillness of it. She reached for the remote, planning to turn it down a little. She didn’t want to be a total dick. But before she could get her finger on the button, a thunderous boom echoed through the room.
She startled, a yelp escaping her, and nearly knocked over her tea. The loud sound repeated, and it took a second for her to realize it was coming from the door she’d just checked. Boom! Boom! Boom!
The afghan was clutched tight in her fist, and the movie still blasted, screams filling the living room. Her heartbeat thumped in her ears, and she stared at the door like it was going to splinter and the movie’s Ghostface was going to walk right in and disembowel her with his knife.
Andi’s logical brain registered this probably wasn’t the case, but that part was a distant whisper at the moment. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t turn off the TV. She was frozen in place.
The thunderous knocking started again. “Fire department. Open up!”
The words fire department penetrated her fear fog. Fire. Fire? That didn’t make any sense. Why the hell would the fire department be banging on her door in the middle of the night? Maybe something had happened in the neighborhood. Or maybe they had the wrong house.
Thinking it through helped a little. Finally, she was able to unfurl her fingers from the afghan and grab the remote to hit Pause. The silence that followed was almost as unsettling as the banging. The pounding on the door started again with an added threat to break down the door if no one responded. That got her moving. She hurried to her feet, headed to the door, and peered through the peephole. All she could see was a T-shirt clad shoulder as the man apparently leaned over to try to see through her front window.
A T-shirt, not a firefighter’s uniform. She cleared her throat and called out, “How do I know you’re a firefighter?”
Whoever it was stepped back and pointed to an NOFD insignia on his T-shirt, just visible in the peephole’s view. “Hill Dawson,” the man called out. “Your neighbor. Everything okay in there?”
Her neighbor? She reached for the pepper spray she kept in the drawer of her small entryway table, turned the latch on the lock, and opened the door, ready to spray if needed. Underneath the porch light, the outline of a man came into view. A very tall, broad-shouldered man. The werewolf. Complete with dark messy hair, a trimmed beard, and a scowl. He was equal parts gorgeous and intimidating—not unlike a real wolf—and her body tensed as though it couldn’t decide whether she should run like hell or rush forward and volunteer to play villager.
His brown eyes met hers, his searching look sending hot awareness through her, but then his gaze scanned downward. Only then did she remember she was standing there braless in a thin tank top and a pair of Wonder Woman pajama pants with a very formidable stranger on her doorstep. That snapped her out of her ridiculous staring. Who cared that he was attractive? He could still be there to hurt her. She crossed her arms over her chest and tipped up her chin, trying to look tough. “What’s going on?”
“So, you’re okay?” he asked, brows knit, his voice a deep rumble. His gaze flicked to the pink canister of mace still clutched in her fist. “I heard screaming. A lot of it.”
“Screaming?” She frowned.
He shifted, and her attention jumped to his right hand, the one hanging loosely at his side. The one holding a baseball bat. She stiffened, her mouth going dry and her mind racing past suspicion and into worst-case-scenario territory. What if he wasn’t a firefighter? What if he wasn’t her neighbor? What if he was there to rob/rape/murder/dismember her and wear her head as a hat?