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“She doesn’t half-hate me,” I mutter.

He smirks. “Oh, right. She only hates you horizontally.”

I grit my teeth and grab my jacket.

This is going to be a nightmare.

The door clicks open behind us, and I barely have time to turn around.

Lo steps in, arms full of takeout containers, and the second her eyes land on us—onme—she freezes just inside the threshold, wind still clinging to her, snowflakes melting in her braid. Cheeks flushed from the cold.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” she asks, shocked.

“Riley offered her place, so Sydney and Boone could … chill,” I explain. “Jackson and?—”

“Okay,” she interrupts, “but you’re not in Riley’s place.”

“Let me take that from you,” Skinner offers, and a growl comes from her. His hands go up, and he steps back.

“Yeah, they said they’d be back tomorrow, and they’d get her place in order.”

She huffs. “And no one ran it by me?”

“I mean, to be fair, no one asked us, either,” Skinner says, eyeballing the tray. “But I know something that could make it?—”

“There are rules.” She kicks the door shut behind her and heads straight past me and Skinner, jaw tight, boots tracking in half-melted snow, not saying a word. She dumps the containers on the counter and doesn’t even look at us.

Skinner whistles low. “Welcome home?”

Lo doesn’t answer. Instead, she yanks open the drawer by the sink, grabs a pen that clearly doesn’t work, scratches at it with a snarl, then snatches another and marches to the kitchen island like she’s about to draw battle lines.

The fact I’m unaffected isn’t shocking. Since that almost kiss, she’s had a really bitter attitude. I mean, so did I when I thought she and Hart had a thing, but this Lo is kind of cute.

She slaps a half-used notebook on the counter, flips past a grocery list, a floor cleaning schedule, something that looks like a brewery supply order until she finds a blank page. And starts writing. Hard. Like she wants the ink to cut through the wood beneath it.

HOUSE RULES

She underlines it … twice.

She doesn’t look at us when she starts reading them off.

“Number one: You use the bathroom down here, and if you have to shower here, the only one is in my room. If I’m in there, you’re not. And you absolutely do not shit in my bathroom.”

“Got it.” Skinner chokes on a laugh.

Me? I watch her write.

“Number two: If you cook, you clean. And don’t touch my cast iron.” She underlines that. A lot. Like maybe there’s a story behind it.

“Number three: No sex.” Her eyes flick up, right at me, and then to Skinner. “You bring a hookup to my place, and I will verbally castrate you.”

Skinner raises both brows and holds up his hands. “Would never.”

Lo ignores him.

“Number four: You pick up after yourselves. This isn’t a frat house, or a locker room; it’s my house.”

She hesitates then writes the fifth one slower.