Page 75 of The Plus One Contract

“I’m glad you texted.”

I press the phone tighter to my ear, a smile blooming despite myself. “Me too.”

Neither of us says goodnight.

We just… keep talking.

About nothing. Everything. Somehow, we spend ten minutes debating whether pancakes or waffles would win in a street fight. He said pancakes were more “emotionally stable.” I told him that was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard, and also… correct.

I’m mid-sentence, halfway through a riveting story about why vending machines in airports are always out of M&Ms, when I notice the faint glow of headlights filtering through the narrow front windows by the door.

I glance toward the hallway.

Ignore it.

Keep talking.

But then a shadow flickers across the glass.

My stomach drops.

My voice lowers to a whisper. “Nathan?”

“Yeah?”

“I might die tonight.”

There’s a pause on the line. “Excuse me?”

“If I do,” I whisper, sliding off my stool and tiptoeing toward the butcher block, “tell the cops the guy was about six-three, broad shoulders, mysterious aura. Possibly wearing a leather jacket.”

“Sienna.”

“I knew I should have taken those self-defense classes. God, this is how it ends. In bunny slippers.”

“Sienna,” he says again, still amused, still not taking me seriously.

“I’m grabbing a knife.”

“Please don’t.”

“I have to. If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting. I will not be tomorrow’s cautionary true crime podcast.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then, very calmly, he says, “Open the damn door.”

I freeze.

Wait.

Hold on.

I creep closer, peeking through the peephole, and nearly drop the knife.

Because there he is.

Tall. Tired. Smirking.

Still on the phone.

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