Page 28 of The Kiss Connection

She’s right. I shouldn’t be giving her cute nicknames.

“Get in bed,” I order, leading her toward her bedroom.

“Aren’t you bossy?” she grumbles at me, but follows my commands as I bring her to her bedroom. It’s not hard to find, given it’s the same layout, a one-bedroom apartment. “Were you stalking me?”

I pull back the covers and wait for her to climb into bed. “Stalking you? No, you tried to enter my apartment with your key, remember?”

“No, I was entering my apartment, and you were inside,” she groans, plopping down on the mattress. “We’re neighbors? This can’t be happening. Hot hockey players aren’t supposed to live next door to me.”

“Tell me about it,” I mutter. I’m not the least bit happy about this new development either. She lives in my building, across the hall from me?

“Why can’t I just get away from you?” Her words slur together and she slides under the blankets, pulling them up to her chest. “Is this Roe’s idea of a joke? First, she sends you that message, then she’s giving you a key to my place?”

“I don’t know a Roe.”

“Rowan? My best friend? You met her with me at the bar.” She waves her hand dismissively when I’m not answering her quick enough.

I honestly don’t know what she’s rattling on about. She’s drunk, not making much sense. “I didn’t know that name,” I admit. “And I don’t have her number to be making insane plans with her behind your back.”

Drunk Juniper is a mess.

Although sober Juniper isn’t much better.

“She’s the reason you hate me. I’d hate me too. But you’re a catfish. She thought she was protecting me from you. She didn’t know about Britney.”

There she goes, forming half-sentences, not finishing a thought that I can follow.

“You’re drunk, get some sleep.”

“I can’t,” she groans, her eyes growing heavy, but she’s fighting sleep to argue with me. Sounds about right when it comes to Juniper. “You hate me. You might murder me in my sleep.”

“You would be so lucky,” I tease. “I promise not to touch you. Just putting you to bed, then I’ll leave.”

“Good.” Her eyelids flutter closed, but she’s still mumbling something incoherently that I can’t follow. I hear a few recognizable words in her slurring like Rowan and app. But then the rest is more mutterings.

Did she meet that loser on the dating app? Her purse is discarded on the floor, and I pick it up, her phone peeking out. I’m not going through her handbag, but if her cellphone is sticking out…

“What’s your passcode?” I ask.

“My birthday.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. Juniper and Conrad. I swear, those two make things too easy for hackers. “When’s your birthday?”

Turns out I’m not much of a hacker.

“December fifteenth.”

I type in her passcode to unlock her phone, and it works. Drunk Juniper does have some perks. She’s willing to give me information that she wouldn’t otherwise. I don’t poke around or pry into anything but the Kiss Connection app.

“Hot date tonight?” I ask, trying not to let the hint of jealousy simmer into my veins. That guy was a real dirtbag.

“Yeah,” she mumbles. “He was handsy. Kept trying to grab my ass.”

“Oh, believe me, I saw.” I open the dating app and block the piece of shit from her account. I also block all the other guys she’s started conversations with, which aren’t many. Just one other guy, Conrad. Turns out, Juniper has more guys she’s blocked than guys she’s chatting with or dating.

Curious, I pull up one of the message threads of her blocked contacts and am assaulted by a very ugly and very hairy dick. “Gross.”

I back out of her messages and poke around on her profile, reading it, which I haven’t been able to do lately. She still has me blocked.