Page 89 of Instigator

“Why would there be a serial killer in my car?”

“Why would there be anyone in your car?” I place my hand over my still-racing heart. “Next time, warn me.”

“Next time, I’ll give you a key, and I won’t have to kidnap you.”

“This is a kidnapping?” Ryan asks skeptically.

“A consensual kidnapping,” he clarifies.

“I… you know what, I don’t think I want to know more,” Ryan says. “Can we go home now?”

Aidan smirks as he pulls away from the curb.

thirty-four

. . .

Aidan

The door to my apartment flies open at eleven fifty-five in the morning.

“Good morning,” Hailey yells from the entryway. “Rise and shine! Up and at ’em.”

“Oh, fuck off,” I snap from the kitchen table. My daily bowl of oatmeal sits in front of me, but I’m not eating it, too preoccupied with the woman sitting on my lap.

My sister moseys into the kitchen with a hand over her eyes—without her cane, which means today is a good day. Ryan trails behind her, a bemused smile on his face.

Ceci tries to slip off me, but my hand on her hip keeps her in place.

“We’re decent,” she says dryly. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of shorts, her bare legs on display.

Hailey lets out a shriek as she drops her hand. “You’re here!”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I ask. “You set us up.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it would work.” My sister laughs as she sits in her usual spot at the other end of the table. “Hoped for it.”

This time, when Ceci tries to stand, I let her go. She slides into the seat beside mine, her hand moving to my thigh as if she can’t bear to part from me.

Ryan heads to the fridge, pulling out a carton of eggs. “You want your usual, Hay?”

“Thanks, baby,” my sister says. “Ceci, do you want eggs?”

“I’m good with oatmeal. Thank you.”

“So the date went well? I heard about the locker room.” Hailey smirks. “I thought it would be a one-night-only type thing, not that you’d fall into a relationship after one date.”

“We’ve been friends for years,” Ceci says. “We just didn’t know it until recently. I’d been trying to seduce him for weeks before you suggested the date.”

I turn to her in surprise. “You were?”

She giggles. “Ever since that day you showed up with flowers and told me who you were. But you never seemed to pick up on it, so I had to resort to desperate measures.”

Huh. I didn’t realize.

“At least it all worked out,” Ryan says. He bustles around the kitchen, making my sister breakfast.

When they first got together, I was worried about losing Hailey, but things haven’t changed too much. Ryan was always around before, part of our easy dynamic. Now it’s different, but still the three of us against the world.