Tanner laughs at my lack of a better word, but I can’t get over how great everything felt today. I got to see a different side of him, a more relaxed and calm version than the one I’m normally in the presence of. Thank the Lord, because man he can be a piece of work. Seeing him with his sister, the care and bond they share reminded me of what I could have had with Kyle; what we did have before it was all taken away.

“Do you want to take this back home with you?” I ask when we pull up outside the apartment, gesturing to my helmet. “In case you and Emma go for a ride?”

He looks at me as if I have two heads. “Nah, keep it here. Princess doesn’t ride, she’s more the ‘private jet’ type.”

“Your parents have a — never mind, I don’t even want to know.” I shake my head, there are some things I don’t need to be privy to, not when I’ve got so many secrets of my own.

Tucking my helmet the best I can under my arm, I follow Tanner up the steps to my front door. He would get a big head if he knew, but I’m so glad I never changed those locks. I attempt to step further into the apartment, but I’m stopped by the brick wall of muscle that is Tanner’s back. I can’t see around him, something has him planted where he stands.

“W-what is it?” Placing my hands on his waist, I try to move around him. “Tanner, let me see!”

Several photos are scattered all over my floor. Bending down to pick one up, I see it’s of me. I reach for another one and it’s the same thing; a picture of me from a distance, almost like a paparazzi shot. The photos are all of me, over the course of the past few weeks. At the cafe the first day I met Sophie. Waiting out the back of Twisted Sister, after a shift. Running with Lou-loo. The four of us on our double date.

He warned me to stop.

Tanner gets down on one knee to meet me at eye level. “Do you have any idea who could have left these here?”

“No. I — no, no idea.”

It has to be another warning. Regardless of who has sent them. I spread the photos out in front of me on the coffee table. Staring at them for far too long. The phone call. The break-in. Now, stalking? It’s the first time I’ve considered them being anything other than coincidence. Could they be connected?