Page 10 of Messy AF
“What are you doing?” I demanded, my tone sharper than I had intended.
“I walked like twenty feet.” He rolled his eyes, but he leaned into me rather than trying to pull away. “Besides, I knew you’d catch me if I fell.”
When he said things like that, or gave me that sweet smile, I was the one in danger of falling.
“Hey, Tobi,” Peter interjected, clearly tired of being ignored.
“Hey,” Tobi echoed, though he didn’t sound exactly welcoming. “What are you doing out in the rain?”
Peter hesitated, his jaw working as if chewing back what he really intended to say. “I wanted to make sure you were—” His gaze flickered to me, his eyes cold. “—safe.”
“Everything is fine,” I repeated, a hint of a growl in my voice.
Peter didn’t acknowledge me, though, his attention fixed on Tobi with a kind of intensity that set my teeth on edge.
Tobi glanced between us, confusion clouding his expression. “Why wouldn’t I be safe?”
The rain battered the roof in a steady percussion, filling the silence that followed his question. I watched Peter’s fists clench at his sides, a small, seemingly involuntary action. His so-calledconcernfelt edged with something too personal for a simple neighborly call.
It hung in the air, uneasy and unspoken, but no less tangible. The bitter scent of anger still saturated the front step, touched with that wild undertone I now recognized as possessiveness.
“I heard raised voices,” Peter said, a brittleness to his words. “Just checking to make sure everything is okay.”
Tobi shifted his weight, his shoulders tensing as he leaned more heavily against my side. I didn’t notice anything in his scent that would suggest he felt threatened or uneasy, but his body language said he had detected the lie.
“I don’t know what you heard, but it wasn’t us.” He said it softly, but with a sharpness that dared Peter to refute him.
My pulse thrummed at the way he had included me in the statement, subconsciously drawing his line in the sand and declaring on which side he stood. I could tell from the spark of fury in Peter’s eyes that he had heard it as well.
“As you can see, Tobi is perfectly fine,” I said in a tone that didn’t invite argument. “You should go.” I leaned forward, forcing him back a step, and glanced up at the sky. “This storm is getting nasty.”
Peter’s upper lip curled, and a quiet growl rumbled in his throat, barely audible over the driving rain. Then his eyes slid to the side, his gaze lingering on the arm I still had wrapped around Tobi’s waist.
“Yeah. Sure.” He cast one last look at Tobi before retreating down the stairs. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
He hesitated on the last step as if wanting to say more. Then he ducked his head against the rain and strode off down the driveway.
I waited, watching until he had disappeared around the corner before closing the door and reengaging the locks.
“Well, that was weird,” Toby said with a shaky laugh.
“How do you know him?”
I had no right to information about their relationship, but I didn’t ask out of jealousy. Well, notonlyjealousy. Peter worried me.
“Like I said, he’s my neighbor.” For once Tobi didn’t fuss as I helped him across the room to the sofa. “Why do you ask?”
Instead of his usual place in the corner, he chose the cushion next to me, sitting so closely I could feel the warmth pouring off him.
“Just a neighbor?”
His eyebrows drew together, and his lips puckered in a cute pout. “Yeah. We have pizza and beer together sometimes, but we’ve never dated, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Clearly, Peter had read a lot more into those casual hangouts than Tobi had. “Are you aware that he’s a shifter?”
His eyes flared briefly, but a heartbeat later, the expression cleared, and he shrugged. “No, but I don’t really see why it matters.”
It mattered because shifters had a reputation for being dangerously territorial, and they didn’t give up easily once they decided something—or someone—belonged to them.
