“Listen, I’m not going too far. It’s just my parents’ house.” She glances at me and asks, “What’s happening, Miller?”

That’s a great fucking question. Why am I still hanging around and hoping she’ll take me along? I look around her closet, take a deep breath, and try to buy myself some time before she asks me to leave her place.

“Found them,” she says. “So, what’s happening?”

“Why can’t you stay for the day?”

“You’re cute,” she comments. “I’m just going to visit my parents, get my pup, and come back.”

“And you can take my truck.”

“Or you really want to come with me,” she guesses.

“I just want to spend the day with you. We just patched things up, and tomorrow is Monday,” I argue.

She chuckles and walks out of her bedroom; I follow right behind.

“Come on, Princess, throw me—”

The combo of the doorbell and a door knock interrupts her. Her eyes open wide and she says, “Can you jump over to your apartment?”

“Excuse me?” I ask, confused by her request. “You want me to pretend to be Spiderman and defy gravity?”

“Too late,” she grunts as the door swings open. “I need to stop giving out the keys to my place to everyone.”

“Claire?”

“Behave,” she mumbles.

Her brother fills the entrance. He smiles at her and says, “Are you ready, Sis?”

“Tom-Tom,” she exclaims, with an overexaggerated excitement that not even I believe. “Let’s get out of here.”

Her brother scans the apartment and glares at me the moment he spots me. “I warned you to stay away from her,” he says.

This would be a great moment to joke about it and say, “She just couldn’t stay away from me,” but I don’t think Tom-Tom and I are in that place, yet.

If we ever get to be in any place. He still seems like he wants to murder me. Those flaring nostrils and the killing glare are my cue to either run or try to smooth things over with this guy.

“You can ask me to do a lot of things and I might do them. But staying away from Claire,” I pause and look at her, “that’s impossible.”

“Claire, seriously, after all the shit he put you through?”

“We’re working things out,” she answers. “I’m not saying we’re together, but I’m trying to give him a chance.”

Wait, we’re not together? I’m still on probation, fuck, what else does she need from me?

“What did you tell me about my last girlfriend?” her brother asks, snapping his fingers. “Right, ‘Don’t you dare go back to that bitch or I’ll kill her and I’ll give you a piece of my mind.’”