She stepped to the side, which gave me my first good look at Franky.

He was a stocky guy, clearly lifted weights, and had tattoos going up and down his legs, disappearing underneath a long pair of black shorts. He wore a T-shirt that advertised some kind of cleaning business called Frankly Franky’s Cleaning Service, a cartoon representation of himself covered in soap suds holding up the letters. He looked to me first before looking to Noah, their eyes meeting and all the color draining from Franky’s face. He stepped in front of his wife.

“I’ve got this.”

Her brow furrowed together, questions clear on her expression.

“Go, get inside, Susan. It’s fine.”

“Are they really your friends?”

“We know each other, yeah. Haven’t seen them in years, though, and I’m not real fond of surprises.” He took another step forward, forcing us to move back. Now that the initial shock of seeing Noah at his doorstep was fading, it appeared to be replaced by a growing anger, reflected in the cherry-red color that started to spread across his cheeks like a bad rash. “Go. I’m fine.”

Susan gave one last skeptical glare before shrugging and going back inside the house, closing the door behind her with a heavy thud.

Franky turned all his focus onto Noah. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He looked back over his shoulder at the shut door before pointing to the sidewalk. “Explain it down there,” he said, moving forward again, nearly pushing us this time. I took the hint, not putting up any resistance and instead going down the steps with Noah, stopping on the sidewalk. The dogs—three of them, all clustered together in a window—continued to bark, getting louder now that they could see us.

“We wanted to ask you a similar question,” Noah said, keeping his calm, even though the way he picked at the palm of his hand revealed how nervous he really was. “Franky, I know we ended on terrible terms, but I genuinely thought we were both on the same page. So why are you leaving me threatening packages? Why are you trying to break into my friend’s house? Huh?”

Franky’s face scrunched up as if he’d just popped a Warhead into his mouth. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“There was a box left at my door addressed to me, and it had a severed chicken head and a Pride necklace in there. There’s footage of your car driving away from my community around that same time. Then, last night, we were woken up by an alarm—someone tried breaking in. And, once again, we have footage of your car leaving the area. So tell me the truth, Franky. Why are you doing any of this?”