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I shut my eyes. Alive. Breathing. Texting me insults.

I call. She picks up.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Where are you?"

"The porch."

I turn to the empty boards behind me.

"Your porch," she says, like I'm slow. "Your house."

I cross both yards fast enough that the crossing barely happens.

She's on my front steps. Coffee in one hand, my old hand-me-down blanket over her knees like she owns it, Sid is a puddle of black in her lap. Jeans, sweater, and a look promising bodily harm.

My wolf nearly drops where he stands.

"You're here?"

"Ten out of ten observations."

"Why didn't you answer?"

"Phone was on silent."

"Why are you on my steps?"

"Waiting for you." She sips. "Forty minutes now."

"You could've gone in."

"Locked."

"You know where the key is."

Her eyebrows climb. "No. I don't."

Right. Because the version where she knows where my spare key lives is one I've run in my head often enough to forget she hasn't lived it.

Ours. My wolf, smug.

Quiet.

Maren sets the coffee down on the step. "I'm angry at you."

"I noticed."

"Good."

Sid lifts his head and gives me a look of such clean disdain that I lose my thought mid-breath. Not a sound in it. Just a cat who's decided I'm a disappointment and can't be bothered to hide it.

Maren catches me catching it. "See. Even he thinks you're the worst."

"He slept on my porch."

"He has no standards."