Lanie came out of the steamy bathroom wearing a fluffy blue robe that I had never seen before. It wasn’t mine, and I’d never seen Cam wear it. Either it had been here before we’d moved in, or a late-night guest of Cam’s had, for some inexplicable reason, brought a robe over with her only to leave it behind. Either way, it had survived the shade attack on our apartment and looked relatively comfortable. On Lanie, it looked beyond soft and inviting.

  “Want me to patch you up or anything?” I stood frozen in the open doorway to my bedroom, unable to tear my eyes off the sliver of skin visible where the robe opened at the neck.

  “You wish,” she answered with a smirk.

  I opened my mouth to make a joke about her having seen me naked already, and turnabout being fair play, but instead, something far more serious slipped out. “Why did you message me?”

  “I was outnumbered, Max. They would have killed me.”

  “No, I mean, why did you message me instead of…” I trailed off, unable to bring myself to say Axel’s name.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess you were the first person I thought of when I realized everything was going tits up.”

  “Going ‘tit’s up’ is a bad thing, right?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, definitely. But seriously, Max…thank you. You saved me back there.”

  I shuffled on my feet, unsure how to take her tone and expression. She was staring into my eyes. Seeming to come to a decision, she took two quick steps across the hallway to close the distance between us, where she stood on her tiptoes to plant a lingering kiss on my cheek. A wave of heat washed over my body.

  I’d been waiting for a kiss from Lanie for a long time, though I’d imagined it with significantly more tongue. Lanie slowly pulled back, holding my gaze for several long seconds. I stared deep into her beautiful dark eyes and, seeing something there, angled my face downward for another kiss, one more like the one I’d been dreaming of.

  “Welcome back.” The voice stopped me inches away from Lanie’s soft, inviting mouth. I sighed as I saw Cam stumble past my open bedroom door to stand in the doorway to the kitchen. He wore boxers covered with four-leaf clovers and nothing else. “Do you know where that old bottle of whiskey is? The one your uncle gave us on St. Patty’s?”

  “Try the pantry. Top shelf,” I responded, unsure whether–or how–to introduce him to Lanie. She seemed content to let me take the lead on introductions.

  Cam stood with his eyes still half closed. He stretched and then scratched his naked belly. “Thanks, man. Woke up with a sore throat. Shot of whiskey fixes it every time.”

  Lanie’s head banged into my chest. I instinctively put an arm around her, feeling the tips of her wet hair brush my fingers as she shook with silent giggles. She didn’t back away from my loose embrace, making my heart soar.

  “It’s 3:00 in the morning,” I said to him. “You sure you want a shot of whiskey?”

  He turned, opening his eyes and seeming to notice Lanie for the first time. “Oh, hey,” he said, as if a middle-of-the-night introduction was completely normal. “What do you think?”

  “I’d go for the shot,” she said.

  Cam nodded solemnly and wandered into the pantry, deeper in the kitchen. A few seconds later, he shuffled back, holding a mostly full bottle of whiskey.

  Lanie shook off my arm and marched into the kitchen. She snatched the bottle out of Cam’s hands and peered at the label. “You aren’t going to pound a shot of Redbreast 27!”

  Cam shot me a beseeching look, silently begging for help. He obviously had no idea what to say to the gorgeous stranger lecturing him about whiskey etiquette while he was in his underwear.

  I took pity on my friend. “Maybe grab the Jim Beam instead. If you want something to kill whatever you have going on in your throat, Jim’s your best bet.”

  Cam shrugged and headed back into the pantry, returning with the quintessential white-labeled bottle and three small glasses, one of which he filled with Jim. He slid the remaining two glasses closer to where Lanie stood. “You guys enjoy the good stuff. I’ll drink this shit.”

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  Lanie had already opened the whiskey and was holding her nose above it, inhaling deeply. She smiled at me, then poured a finger of the Redbreast in each of the glasses. I couldn’t help but notice how close she stood to me when she brought me mine.

  Cam held his glass up as if to toast me, then tossed back his drink. He coughed and shook his head like a dog. “That will wake you up in the morning, boys!” Braveheart had always been one of his favorite movies. We’d probably watched it together upwards of 20 times, and both of us could quote most of the movie at this point.

  Cam set his glass back on the counter. When he looked up at us, his eyes were clearer and more alert. He looked Lanie up and down. “Ah. You must be the famous Lanie.” His expression grew panicked. “…or at least I sure hope you are, since I just called you that. Shit. You ARE Lanie, right?”

  Lanie snickered. “That would be me.” She turned to look up at me. “You told your roommate about me?” I gave her an embarrassed grin.

  She turned back to Cam. “And you are?”

  “Cam. His roommate. But you already knew that, I guess. Given I obviously live here and all.” Cam’s cheeks grew pinker with every rambling word.

  “What else has he told you about me?” she asked.

  I slid a step behind Lanie, subtly shaking my head at Cam. My shoulders slumped when he completely ignored me and continued talking. “Not that much, actually. Really, you’re part of that new club he’s in. You and that other guy are the ones who named that thing that came and tore up our apartment.”

  He snapped his mouth shut in the suddenly awkward silence. I carefully watched for Lanie’s reaction. She barely reacted.

  “So, how long have you lads known each other?” she asked.

  Cam looked relieved at the subject change. “Since the second grade. We both got dumped into the Cummings School with all the uppity-ups. Neither of us really belonged there.”

  “They bused kids in from Winter Hill and East Somerville,” I clarified. “In an attempt to remove the stigma from the school.”

  “The politicians' kids went to Cummings. All the old school Somerville families…” Cam raised his empty glass as if to toast me. “And then there’s us. Two turds who found each other in a sea of porcelain.”

  “Interesting metaphor,” Lanie said.

  I rolled my eyes. “We both got into a lot of fights with the rich kids. Kinda bonded over that.”

  “Those little assholes had it coming.” He paused. “They all had it CUMMING.” He laughed at his own pun. “Like the school?” Lanie didn’t laugh. Cam cleared his throat before continuing. “Anyway…what were you two up to tonight?”

  I started shaking my head at him behind Lanie again, who seemed to sense my discomfort. She gave me a calming pat on the chest. “It’s okay, Max.” She turned back to Cam. “I ran into some trouble tonight with those same creatures. Max helped me out.”

  “He’s good like that. So do you have one of those little Derringers, too? Max let me borrow his in case one of those things pays us another visit.” Cam, apparently, had taken her words as an invitation to ask more questions.

  She nodded. “After seeing what those things can do, that’s probably not a bad idea.”

  “What happened tonight?” I asked, suddenly curious. “How did you end up in a field with two shades?”

  “I thought about what you said the other night. I wanted to find out more about these shades. So, instead of avoiding them…”

  “You went looking for them?” I asked, finishing her thought. “There seemed to be a lot out tonight. I was following one downtown, hoping to see where they were all going. And why, I guess.”

  “So, I’m not the only stupid one, I see,” Lanie said.

  “Oh no, Max is way stupider,” Cam added. Lanie and I rolled our eyes in unison.

  “I had a drone following a group of them toward Government Center.”

  Lanie turned to fully face me. “Wait. You have a drone already?”

  She looked impressed, and it was hard not to puff up a little. Now that I thought about it, we’d never shared our levels with each other. It seemed…weird. Like asking someone about their level was like asking about their body count. However, like body count, I had a theory that I could figure out the right range based on context clues. Lanie’s level was probably somewhere around my own, at least based on the cars and weapons she utilized.

  I sighed. “It didn’t do me any good, unfortunately. I think something happened to the drone around Government Center. The footage dies around the Old State House. I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, so I’m not really sure why.”

  Lanie nodded, then reached for the bottle of Redbreast. She sent me a questioning look, and at my nod, refilled our three glasses. I pulled one of the rickety chairs out for her, getting me a look from Cam, before he flopped into one across the table. I sat next to Lanie, trying not to think about how close we were or the intoxicating smell of her mixed with my shower soap.

  We spent hours drinking and talking in The Central’s kitchen. Lanie and I didn’t need to sleep, but I was surprised that Cam stayed up with us all night. He had to be tired, but it didn’t stop him from drunkenly making us breakfast around sunrise. It was one of his go-tos, a greasy meal of scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and some form of fried potato pancake, something he’d regularly make for us after a night of gaming or drinking. The familiarity of it was something I knew I’d never get tired of.

  Around noon, shortly after Cam had finally given up and headed back to bed to sleep off his hangover, Lanie’s Elysium Pro vibrated. She read it, then held up the screen so I could, and flashed me a wicked grin.

  New Fare Assigned!

  Target: Aidan Chen

  Profession: Triad Mob Boss

  Location: Boston, Massachusetts

  - - -

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