Page 9 of Messy AF
He chuckled, the sound quiet but unselfconscious. “No, but you have to be bored just sitting there watching me work.”
On the contrary, I didn’t find it boring at all. I loved the expressions he made while he edited, like the faint smiles or the way he crinkled his nose sometimes.
“Don’t worry about me. If I get bored, I can find something to do.”
“Yeah, I know, but you—”
He cut off abruptly, and we both turned to look at the front door when the bell rang.
“Are you expecting someone?” I asked. “A delivery?” Given the crappy weather, it seemed like a strange time for a social visit or an aggressive sales pitch.
His brow creased, and he shook his head. “No.”
Three sharp knocks sounded from the front of the cottage. I mirrored Tobi’s frown.
“Whoever it is, they really want to talk to you.” I glanced toward the door again. “Do you want me to answer?”
He considered the question for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I guess we should see who it is.”
Another knock—impatient, insistent—echoed through the room.
More annoyed than curious now, I shoved up from the cushions and flashed across the room to the door. The security monitor on the wall showed a male about my height but leaner, dressed in a sodden raincoat with the hood pulled low over his eyes.
I hesitated with my hand on the knob and glanced back at Tobi. He didn’t appear alarmed, and while I trusted that I could handle any potential threat, I didn’t want to upset him.
Muscles tensed, I unlocked the door and pulled it open, stepping forward at the same time to fill the frame. The chilled wind from the storm rushed in, heavy with the scent of rain and wet earth.
“Can I help you?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the downpour.
The visitor hesitated, then pushed back his hood, revealing a youthful but haggard face, with purple shadows sweeping beneath deep-set eyes the color of burnt toast. He studied me for a long time, his scent drenched with anger and something almost wild.
“Where’s Tobi?”
“Who wants to know?”
Ignoring me, he lifted his head to shout over my shoulder. “Tobi? Tobi, are you in there?”
I recoiled, my ears ringing with the volume of his voice, but I didn’t retreat, not even when I heard Tobi call back from the living room.
“Peter?”
Still blocking the stranger’s entrance into the house, I glanced over my shoulder. “You know him?”
Tobi stared back with a furrowed brow but nodded. “Yeah, he’s my neighbor.”
Well, damn.
Peter pressed forward again, rainwater dripping from his sleeves, gaze shifting uneasily between me and Tobi. “Sorry,” he muttered begrudgingly. “I saw a strange car in the driveway. I was…worried.”
I forced a polite smile, though everything about him made my skin prickle. “Everything’s fine.” I didn’t know how much Tobi had told him about his condition, if anything, so I kept my response vague. “I’m just helping him out for a little while.”
“I want to talk to him.”
My hand twitched at his flagrant entitlement. “I don’t really think that’s up to you.”
“Peter, what’s going on?”
Distracted by the asshole on the porch, I didn’t realize Tobi had joined us in the entryway until I heard his voice from directly behind me. Frustrated with myself, I kept one eye on Peter as I angled away from the door to wrap my arm around Tobi’s waist, pulling him tight against my side.
