Page 52 of Accidentally Amy

“But be careful what you wish for,” I charged forth with, refusing to let it get weird. “Perhaps I shall read aloud from my favorite novel or sing the entireHamiltonscore.”

“Why do these ideas not surprise me?”

“Because you can tell I’m artistic?”

“Because I can tell you like to irritate me.” Blake pulled into a parking garage in the center of the city, leaving me to assume he lived in the high-rise above it. When he parked, I got out of the car without a word, trying to act like I wasn’t crazy impressed by his address.

He gestured toward an elevator enclosure, and we walked in that direction. When he pressed the up button, I asked, “Can your cats have tuna?”

He looked over at me. “Why?”

“Just curious,” I said, pulling the pouch of StarKist out of my hoodie pocket. “Can they?”

“Yes,” he said. “But they already have food.”

“This will buy their insta-love for me, though,” I said.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open.

“Why?” I asked, watching as he stepped in after me and pushed the button for the ninth floor. “They don’t like tuna?”

“They don’t like people,” he said.

“Oh, well, I’m not people,” I replied, watching the doors close. Floor numbers started popping up on the display as the car went up. “All cats love me.”

“We’ll see,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pant pocket and unlocking the screen.

“Yes, wewill,” I muttered.

That made Blake look up from his phone. His eyes were a little squinty, like he was thinking as his eyes moved over my face. He asked, “Pepperoni or combo?”

“Pepperoni,” I said, looking down because sometimes his eye contact was a littletoodirect.

When the elevator reached the ninth floor, I followed Blake down a long hallway with ivy-patterned gray carpet. Modern sconces on midnight walls illuminated our way like fairy lights on a dusky garden path. He stopped in front of 964 and pulled his keys from his pocket.

“I like your door,” I said, then wanted to smack my hand over my mouth for sounding so dumb. But it was ridged withheavy wood panels and a huge brass knocker, like it was the entrance to a grand estate instead of an apartment.

“Thanks,” he said, unlocking the door and holding it open for me. “Is it weird to say that the minute I saw it, I knew I was going to lease this unit?”

“Super weird, actually,” I said, breezing past him and into his apartment. “It could’ve been a door made gorgeous on purpose, just to disguise that it’s actually a portal to hell.”

“Wood door—didn’t have to worry about that,” he said, and I felt the tiniest of shivers crawl up my back as he hovered somewhere behind me. I heard the door close, and tried to tell myself that it was no big deal, being alone with him in his apartment. “Hell’s portal would require fireproof metal.”

“I suppose,” I said, stepping over so he could lead. “Unless that’s what they want you to think.”

He stopped beside me. Gave me a questioning eyebrow and asked, “Who aretheyin this situation?”

I shrugged. “You know—them.”

He looked like he was going to smile, but instead he put his keys on the table just inside the door and said, “Hey. Goodyear.”

I turned and stared, looking for the cat. Blake walked farther into the apartment, and I followed on his heels, reaching into my hoodie pocket to open the tuna pouch.

“I’m home, buddy,” Blake said, and I shook my head from my spot behind him. The man was seriously a fearsome thing to behold as his deep voice called to the cat in sweet softness.

Silver bullets, maybe?Perhaps silver bullets were my only chance for survival.

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