I dig deep through my twisted insides to find my voice and answer, “Hello?”
“Hi.” Wilder’s tone sends a caressing chill up my spine, softening my frayed edges. “What time should I be there?”
“Are we having another movie night?”
He chuckles, and I melt. “No, you signed us up for the neighborhood watch, remember? Tonight’s our night.”
“Shoot.” My shoulders fall, and I release my lips from between my teeth. “I forgot about that.”
“Do you have other plans?” he asks. The gentle mood in his voice turns slightly defensive.
“No,” I say tenderly, sitting on the edge of my bed. How can I tell him the thought of going outside tonight scares me without sounding like a fool? “My only plans are with you.”
“Good. I can be there in thirty minutes.”
It’s not until we hang up and the display light on my phone goes out that I realize I’m sitting in the dark. I had been in the dark during my entire conversation with Wilder and didn’t regress back at all. But as recognition washes over me, murkiness comes a little closer and I jump to my feet to light all of my candles.
“You’re going to burn the entire fucking place down, Camilla,” Wilder says a half hour later. He showed up with Talent, and Lydia let them in while I rushed to blow dry my hair and brush my teeth after a quick shower.
“Hasn’t happened yet.” I slide my socked feet into my dirty Vans, slow moving as tenderness makes a home in my calf muscles.
“Should we blow them out before we go?” Wilder never voices an opinion about my candles in the kitchen and living room. Technically, he spent an entire night in my room while every candle was lit, but we were… distracted. “Seems dangerous.”
“You’re dangerous.” Pulling a hoodie over my head, my attempt at flirting falls flat as I struggle to correct the hood that’s flipped inside out.
“Who’s the dangerous one?” Wilder smirks, closing the distance between us in two strides. “You’re some kind of beautiful hazard.”
Dazzled by his sudden closeness, my arms fall to my side and any playful comeback I had lined up vanishes with my entire vocabulary. He burns hotter and brighter than the dozens of candles blazing all around us, and it takes everything in me not to wrap my arms around his waist to absorb his light. Wilder reaches past me to fix my hood, and I close my eyes and part my lips to breathe in slowly. He smells like sandalwood, and I taste it on my tongue.
“You know,” I say, reluctantly opening my eyes to look up into his. “We don’t have to wait until tomorrow for that kiss.”
Wilder laughs out loud, closing his eyes and dropping his head forward like joy punched him right in the stomach. He cradles my face between his hands, still chuckling, and the pulse of his happiness vibrates through his palms. It’s a dizzy, contagious feeling that curves my mouth all the way up and fills my chest with fiery, heartsick affection.
Standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, he bends at the knees to meet me eye-to-eye. “Tempting, but Dawn’s in the living room and Lydia has her limits.”
“Dawn?” I ask dreamily.
No one and nothing computes outside the shape of his smile.
“She arrived bearing reflective vests and flashlights.” Wilder’s thumb brushes along my cheekbone before he pulls away and starts blowing out my candles. “She takes this patrolling gig seriously. If Lydia doesn’t hire her to fuck Benny, I’ll bring her on as head of security. I have no doubt she’d keep even the Coppolas from showing up unannounced again.”
Lydia, the Ice Queen herself, can’t keep a straight face as Dog Mom assesses the fit of the neon green and reflective safety vests Wilder and I are required to wear during our guard. Fighting crime and standing up for the integrity of our fellow neighbors against the unruly requires a lot of equipment. We refuse the headlamps, but I’m more than willing to hold the tactical light. Wilder draws the line when Dawn bears two neighborhood watch police look-alike badges. And I wonder if he still has that knife strapped to his ankle.
“Patrol ends at four. I’ll come by sometime tomorrow for the gear.” Bless her heart, because she turns to Lydia and Talent and says, “I have extra vests if you’d like to join them tonight.”
“Get out,” Lydia says. Talent’s eyes widen in shock, and he nudges her with his elbow. Thankfully, Dawn’s too distracted by the size of Talent’s smile and the smolder in his dark gray stare to notice how impolite Lydia is. Rudeness clears her throat and looks right at me as she clarifies, “I mean, no thank you. I have to wash my hair.”
She’s a work in progress.
We do one rotation around the apartment complex, where we give directions to a lost food delivery driver, cross paths with an opossum, and tell the woman in Building B that she left her headlights on. A decision I regretted as soon as she laid eyes on Wilder and drooled, instantly identifying his illustrious face. Next time I hope she wakes up to a dead battery. The hag probably did it on purpose.
Wicked, wicked girl.
Dog Mom let the whole complex know Grand Haven’s very ownWilder Ridge was on patrol tonight in hopes of recruiting more volunteers for the neighborhood watch program. We catch multiple tenants in the act of snooping out their windows to sneak a peek at the elder Ridge son. Shameless residents—made up of mostly women—loiter on their porches, under the guise of watering potted plants, smoking a cigarette, or under no pretext at all. They smile suggestively as we pass.
“Are you always under a microscope?” I ask, uncomfortable by the whole thing. Wilder and Talent are influential, but this feels more like intrusive.
This feels like the entire city isKeeping Up with the Ridges.
