Page 55 of The Keeper

She was trying to distract me.

“What was that for?” I asked when we broke apart to catch our breaths.

Piper plucked an invisible piece of lint off my T-shirt. “Nothing. I just... I’m sorry about earlier. I overreacted.”

“Hey, you don’t need to apologize,” I said, hooking my fingers beneath her chin and guiding her face back up to mine. “I’m the one who fucked up.”

Her green eyes searched mine, almost as if we were playing a mental game of chicken. “Let’s just forget it and enjoy the rest of our evening. Since Avery went down early, maybe we could watch a movie—what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

I brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead and shook my head. “Nothing. Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you and Avery in my life.”

Piper’s eyes softened at my words, but I could still see the tension in her shoulders. “I’m lucky to have you, too,” she said, brushing her lips over mine in a brief kiss.

I wanted so badly to believe her, to ignore the gnawing doubt eating away at me. But the lies she’d told played on a loop in my mind.

I forced a smile, trying to hide the turmoil churning in my gut. “You know you can tell me anything, right? No matter what it is.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here we both were, harboring secrets and telling lies. What a fucking pair we made.

I’d promised to stay out of her work life, and I would. I’d play along with her lies and half-truths. Let her think she had me fooled.

For now, at least.

After dinner, Piper curled into my side on the couch, her head resting on my chest. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo. For a moment, I could almost pretend everything was normal between us.

But as the movie played, my mind kept drifting back to the damn note. Who else knew such intimate details about Piper? Who else was trying to take care of her in ways that should have been reserved for me?

EIGHTEEN

PIPER

Ivy & Piper’s Guide to Life Rule Number Seventeen:

Always share your location.

The bakery was silent except for the steady thump of my fists against the stainless steel worktable. With every resounding smack, puffs of flour rose, swirling through the air like tiny snowflakes. They clung to my sweaty face and coated every surface in a powdery white layer.

Early morning shifts like this one were usually my favorite. I liked the stillness and having the entire bakery to myself, at least for a few hours.

There was a sort of alchemy to turning flour, sugar, and yeast into elaborate pastries and sweetbreads. One I’d mastered over the years. Maybe that was why I’d always been drawn to baking—it was the one aspect of my life that offered consistency and guaranteed results.

But this time, the rhythmic push and pull against the dough wasn’t enough to silence my mind. It had been almost a week since I’d discovered the note in my locker. It wasn’t the first time an anonymous person had left me gifts, but it was the first time they’d left a message.

Someone wanted me to know they were watching me, cataloging my habits down to my menstrual cycle. The invasion of privacy made my skin crawl, and no matter how hard I tried to shake off the paranoia, it stuck to me like the flour dusting my arms.

Thinking about it made my stomach churn. I’d lied to Dane when he asked about it, afraid he’d overreact. Initially, I planned to tell him everything, but after his run-in with my boss, I was afraid he’d force me to quit my job or, worse, go after Derek even though his handwriting and the writing on the note were completely different.

Lying had seemed like the lesser of two evils at the time, but now, the distance between us had grown into a living, breathing thing.

From the outside, everything looked perfect. I came home to a clean house. He cooked dinner every night and had taken over bath and bedtime duty with Avery, but the heat between us had gone ice cold. I often found him watching me with guarded eyes, almost like he was waiting for me to crack, to confess.

At night, he’d taken to sleeping on the couch, if he slept at all. More often than not, he’d disappear after dinner on his motorcycle, citing club business in a way that wasn’t open for discussion.

The weight of my lie pressed down on me, making it hard to breathe. I wanted to come clean and bridge the gap between us, but every time I opened my mouth, the words died on my tongue.

I was already losing him. What would he do when he found out I lied? That I’d kept something so important from him?

He’d leave. This time for good.

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