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At first glance, the olive green house looked like every rich person’s house, matching the neighboring ones and so clean it looked like a show house for a realty company. That was what rich people were always good at, anyway—showing off their wealth. Leo’s impression morphed into curiosity with each step he took closer to Piper Hartrick’s childhood home. There were seemingly random, yet cohesive pops of colorful flowers lining the yard and lanterns hanging from poles that lit the way to the front door. On the contrary, when Leo used to tutor in high school, other rich people’s homes seemed to showboat their immaculately cut grass and clean lines. This house let some of the colors overflow from the flowerbeds and climb the railing to the covered patio. Everything seemed to point directly to the front door, as if to tell the world that comfort and joy were waiting inside.
The concrete slab step landing by the door had two large handprints above five smaller ones, where each of the Hatrick siblings’ names were scrawled permanently into the concrete. Piper’s father Cole’s handprint had a smiley face drawn into the palm. Leo found Piper’s tiny hand and couldn’t help but smile down at it before he brushed over it with an oddly gentle slide of his shoe. The tattered doormat below the black door was something straight out of a dad joke manual, reading, “Hello, I’m Mat.” Leo let out a small chuckle before lifting his fist to the door to knock.
The door opened soon after to Piper’s tattooed and grumpy-looking uncle. Leo’s only prior interaction with the man had been an entertaining one, but he could now see why Piper’s ex-boyfriend, Harden, had basically run for the hills when Walker had confronted him back in high school, because the way he was staring at Leo now said he was not his biggest fan.
“You,” Walker said.
“Me.” Leo nodded, unsure of what else to say. Wordlessly, Walker widened the door for Leo to step inside but barely moved out of the way, so Leo had to do an awkward side-shuffle to get in without touching him.
“Piper will be down in a second,” Walker grumbled and waved him farther into the foyer.
The pointillist painting of the open book Piper had mentioned hung over a long wooden shelf lined with multiple copies of the same five books. Instead of following Walker into the kitchen, Leo stopped in front of the painting. Piper was right—it felt exactly like how his brain worked.
“I got that for my wife at the coffee house down the way.” Walker stayed in the foyer with him, tone sharp, but Leo wasn’t one to get intimidated.
“Piper told me. I’ve never been inside, but my sister-in-law manages it, and she gets a lot of art from her sister’s shop.” Leo took a step closer to the painting, his narrowing field of vision separating the pieces and showing him the dots that made up the whole picture.
“Harper.” Walker nodded. “She hangs out with Talia and Amala sometimes.”
Leo dragged his finger along the spines of the matching books and quirked an eyebrow at the author’s name. “You wrote these?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“The Dating Brigade.” Leo read a spine aloud. “What’s the genre?”
“Romantic suspense,” Walker replied shortly. The conversation was going absolutely nowhere, so Leo buckled down. In the blunt way in which he did everything, he turned on his heel to face the man directly.
“Clearly, you don’t like me, so let’s hear it.” Leo waved a hand out to Walker.
“What makes you say that?” Walker asked.
“The extremely warm welcome,” Leo deadpanned.
“I don’t really make a habit of liking anyone Piper dates because they tend to be—”
“Assholes?” Leo finished for him. “Completely agree on that front, but I think we’ve previously established that. To your other point, we aren’t dating and won’t ever be.”
“Then I already know you aren’t treating her with respect.” Walker folded his arms over his broad chest.
Leo knew he should be embarrassed about the hickey if that was what Walker was alluding to, but Piper was a full-ass adult, and Leo wasn’t about to apologize to her protective uncle for something she had consented to. “Did she say she was disrespected?”
Walker blinked but said nothing, and that was all the response Leo needed. There was no way Piper had said anything because, out of the two of them, Leo was the one who had been disrespected—not that he was complaining, but he unfortunately seemed to be very into degradation when Piper wasn’t wearing any clothes. “I’d never force a woman to do anything. Ever. Now that we’ve gotten that over with, how much romance is in this book, exactly?” Leo pulled The Dating Brigade off the shelf and stared down at the blue cover. A feminine hand held a bouquet of flowers down on a cutting board while a large block knife, like the one Leo’s dad used at the butcher counter, sliced through the flowers. At the cut, a pool of blood seeped from the stems. The cover alone sold the book.
“You got a problem with romance novels?” Walker questioned.
“On the contrary.” Leo thumbed through the pages. “I don’t really read anything that’s not a script, but my roommate, Sam, is obsessed with smutty books. I was trying to see if I should tell him to read it. Is this one mostly romance or mostly suspense?”
Walker shifted, his mood seeming to lighten a little. “It’s really hard to explain. The back cover description was probably the hardest part of the book to write. Romance is a big element of the book, and there’s plenty of smut, but it’s not just about the romance. The suspense part of it feels a bit like the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew but more adult, with higher stakes and a psychological element to it.”
“Does it have an ambiguous ending? Because Sam will kill me if I tell him to read something that doesn’t end with a happily ever after.”
“It has a happily ever after.” Walker chuckled. “You can just take that one. I hate that my wife displays my books in the front of the house like some sort of weird altar, anyway. Maybe if I keep handing them out for free, she’ll put them back on the bookshelf in the living room.”
“We’ve been over this, honey.” Piper’s aunt strode into the foyer, and Walker’s posture relaxed even more as she came to stand beside him. “I’m proud of you, and those are staying right there.” Talia turned to Leo conversationally. “I assume he tried to threaten you?”
“Hey!” Walker complained and reached up to tug on Talia’s ponytail.
“I told you to leave him alone. But, fair warning to you,” Talia swiveled to look at Leo, “Piper’s feeling a bit murderous about the stunt you pulled, so I’d watch out for her.”
