Page 10 of Guarded Knight

I roll my eyes, but the corner of my mouth lifts, and I take the note out with a feigned huff.

It’s short. Just Gabriel, in a few straight-shooting lines.

Fridge is stocked. Spare key is in the drawer.

Call if you need anything.

Or even if you don’t.

—G

My knees go wobbly, and I read it twice.

Why is he always so goddamn good? It’d be so much easier to forget how great he is if he’d stop being… well…great. My brother’s loyal friend, my mom’s surrogate son, my father’s fix-it buddy. He was always there to support, to catch me if I fell.

Freya peeks over my shoulder. “Ooh. What does he mean byeven if you don’t?”

“Hey!” I flatten the note to my chest. “You’re sneaky,” I tease, as if I wouldn’t eventually share it with her. “He’s polite.”

Freya smirks. “I expected some hard-as-nails robo-man from the way you talked about him in the truck. He’s soft for you.”

He was. At least he used to be.

“And you?” She arches an eyebrow under her curls. “Are you soft for this Gabriel, too?”

“Maybe I downplayed how close we were. But that was then and this is now.”

“So you had a crush on your brother’s best friend? Cuuuuuute…” She sings it out like Beyoncé belting a high note.

I try so hard to act casual, more for myself than for Freya. I could tell her everything, that I once thought this man was crafted just for me, but I don’t want to open Pandora’s box. “Not cute, I’m afraid. The boy kissed and ran, so we turned out to be a cliché instead of a damn good trope.”

I slide the note into a drawer, but he’s already here. Not physically, but in the stillness. In the way the air tells me it’s okay to breathe again because I’m safe. In the way this place was made ready by someone who knows me better than I want him to.

I haven’t even seen him yet, and he’s already in every room I walk into.

3

The bellover the shop door jingles as my dad disappears into the back room, humming something that probably came from a telenovela soundtrack.

A few customers are milling around, locals browsing the front shelves, pretending they’re not curious about the signannouncing Dad and Penelope’s spicy book club taped to every available wall.

When my brothers first told me Dad started a romance book club, I thought they were screwing with me. I didn’t even bother responding to the text. Then, a week later, I got a photo from my brother, Santi, with him, my dad and my twin brothers, Rio and Enzo, all crammed into Pages and Perks, holding up a book with a half-naked dude in a kilt on the cover like it was just another Tuesday.

The caption read:Your shift next. Families who read smut together stay together.

I thought it was a little twisted at the time, but somehow, this place, this club, has settled my dad into Echo Valley.

I hover near a display stacked with books by Lola Pen, pick up one of them featuring an alien with abs and glowing blue… other parts. I’m not sure everything hanging out of the kilt are legs.

I put it back down on the stack then glance at the front window. Lara should be rolling in any time now.

Dad reemerges carrying a pitcher of something that smells like sangria laced with sin.

“Careful,hijo,” he says, “The ladies around here are thirsty. For wine…” he winks, “and gossip.” He sets the pitcher beside a plate of pastries and claps me on the shoulder. “Are you staying for the meeting or just lurking until Lara arrives?”

I tried and failed to bake the cookies on my own. I knew asking my dad for help would get his wheels turning in the wrong direction.

“I’m not lurking.”