Page 13 of No Good Fight

And everything is too much.

“Did you tell Josh?”

“No.”

“Did you report it?”

She gives me a look from the bed. “What was I supposed to report? Flowers? Blocked calls? A feeling like someone is following me, and I can’t get away? That’s not how the world works for women, Ryder.”

I don’t answer right away because the worst part is that I understand. I can already hear the questions she would’ve gotten. Are you sure they were for you? Are you sure you didn’t leave the window open? Are you sure you aren’t just anxious because of everything that happened?

“Someone was in your apartment,” I say instead.

Her throat works. “I know.”

Those two words nearly take me out, because she sounds like she hates knowing more than she hated wondering.

I leave the room before I say something I can’t take back and then take it one step further and go outside to grab my emergency kit from the truck. When I return, Alex is in the kitchen pouring coffee she never used to drink. She holds the mug with both hands, letting the steam rise into her face while she watches me carry the toolbox through her living room.

“You just happen to carry something to fix my window locks around?”

“I carry a lot of things.”

“That is not a comforting answer.”

“It wasn’t meant to be comforting.”

Her mouth twitches like she doesn’t want to let it. “Well, good. Because it wasn’t.”

That tiny flicker of her sass almost makes the pressure in my chest ease.

I replace the lock while she leans in the bedroom doorway with the mug in her hands. She looks exhausted. Too small in that oversized sweatshirt, too pale under the soft bedroom light, too stubborn to sit down even though the adrenaline is starting to burn off and I can see the tremor moving through her.

My father raised me to be useful. He raised me to fix what could be fixed and stand steady when people around me couldn’t. He raised me to believe being prepared was just another way of loving people without making a speech about it.

I don’t think he accounted for Alex.

I don’t think anyone could have prepared me for what it feels like to replace a lock on her bedroom window while imagining another man standing here before me.

“You’re going to strip the screw,” she says quietly.

I realize I’ve been turning it longer than necessary and stop.

She lifts one brow.

For some reason, that almost makes me smile. “You always this bossy with men doing free labor in your room?”

“Only suspiciously intense ones who show up at four in the morning.”

“Fair.”

I check the frame, then the other window, then move to the front door. The deadbolt is new. Matte black. Automatic. Not the cheap brass one that undoubtedly came installed when she moved in.

My hand stills on it for half a second too long.

Behind me, Alex shifts.

“I changed it after I moved in.”