Page 10 of Accidentally Amy

“IfIsaw her at the gym,” AJ said, grinning, “I’d be super insanely nice to her, like, ‘Heyyyy, Skye, how are you,’ with the smile of a horror movie clown, just to make her paranoid.”

“Your man is terrifying.” Kylie pointed at him and said to Chloe, “Sociopathic.”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of hot.” Chloe reached out a hand to squeeze AJ’s face like he was a toddler. “See?”

“I donot.”

The night devolved into watching football and playing sports trivia, which meant that (as always) our table gotloud.AJ and I ganged up on Jason for his stupid answers even though our team managed to dominate the competition, while Kylie and Chloe found another table to root for and yelled their asses off when we got beat.

So kind of a typical Monday night.

I’d managed to completely forget about the whole Amy/Isabella thing until I got home and fed the cats.

When you call tonight, make sure you have the kitties nearby so I can hear their little meows.

The minute I opened the cabinet and reached for the cat food, my brain reminded me that in another universe, one where she wasn’t a liar and on the Ellis payroll, I might be calling her at that very moment.

Chapter Five

Izzy

“Iz, your cat’s in my apartment,” Josh yelled from upstairs as I checked my mailbox.

“Seriously?” I sighed and wondered who’d been in my apartment since I left that morning. I looked over at my door and yep—it was ajar.

Thank God the general entrance to the building required a key.

My grandparents owned the building as their investment property. An older building, it sat in the middle of a midcentury middle-class neighborhood, offering four one-bedroom units. But instead of their leasing the apartments to college students and young professionals to make a pretty penny on premium rent, all four units in the building were leased at a discounted rate to Millie and Burt’s grandchildren.

I was grateful for the sweet deal on rent, as well as the landlords who adored me, but it came with a few less-than-idealcaveats. First, I’d lost count of the number of times I’d come home to find my grandpa tinkering in my apartment or my grandma “tidying things up a bit.”

Also, to make things “easier for everyone,” my grandparents had given each of us a copy of the master key so they didn’t have to mess around with individual locks.

Sometimes it felt like I lived in a big house with my cousins instead of my own private apartment.

My younger cousin, Emily, beautiful and funny and right across the hall, could often be found letting herself into my apartment, borrowing my clothes and leaving notes that said things like “I have your black shoes—will return later.”

Daphne, my other cousin, lived upstairs and was generally a quiet person aside from the occasional cosplay party she hosted for her fellow LARPers. Did she sometimes let herself into my place when she was out of food and didn’t feel like going to the store?

Yes, yes she did.

But did she replace the food she borrowed?

No, no she did not.

Josh was the best building-mate cousin out of the trio. He was an IT workaholic, so I rarely saw him at all aside from the occasional laundry room run-in, and he only got into my stuff when he ran out of beer and didn’t want to go to the store.

I ran up the stairs and retrieved the Darkling, apologizing to Josh for the black fur deposits my cat had left on his fancy white sofa.

“It’s cool,” he said in a huge cloud of smoke, because my favorite cousin was also a total vape hound.

By the time I finally got inside my apartment and kicked off my shoes, I was ready for alotof inactivity.

Because my day, in and of itself, had been a LOT.

I changed into my pajamas (yes, at 6:10 p.m.), grabbed a Diet Coke, and went into the living room, where the McDonald’s bag I’d snagged on the way home was now soggy and grease-stained in the bottom of my purse.

I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, needing escape as I pulled out my dinner. The Darkling walked back and forth on the back of the couch, stepping on my neck and being his usual dickish self, and I couldn’t help but sigh yet again.

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