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Levi glances back at me and the flush on his neck deepens.

I close the door gently, smiling like an idiot. The second it clicks shut, I press my eye to the peephole. He drags a hand through his hair, muttering what sounds like “fucking idiot” to himself, then stalks back toward his house with tense shoulders.

I lean back against the inside of my door, biting my lip.

Big, intense Levi had just forgotten how to look at me because of a towel.

I shouldn’t like it as much as I do.

15

LEVI

It’s Saturday morning. I ask Carmen to watch Theo, then drive myself to urgent care.

This is getting ridiculous. Yesterday, when she opened the door wearing a towel, I thought I was having a heart attack. My chest clenched so hard I could barely breathe. It was just a woman in a towel. I’ve seen women wearing a lot less and never once needed medical attention.

Even now, just thinking about it, the stupid thing starts acting up again.

I rub the heel of my hand hard against my sternum and scowl at the urgent care building through the windshield. The stress from this whole situation is clearly getting to me, which is weird as hell. Nothing ever stresses me out. Not jobs. Not blood. Not even getting shot.

I need to get this shit checked out and fixed. Fast.

The doctor listens to my heart, takes my blood pressure, and runs an EKG. I sit on the examination table with my boots planted on the floor, waiting for him to come back and tell me the bullets fucked something up inside me.

Finally, he walks in with the results.

“Well?” I ask. “Heart attack? Arrhythmia? Something torn loose?”

He glances at the printout. “Everything looks normal. Strong, actually. Your heart is in very good shape.”

“No.” I point at my chest. “It’s doing weird shit. Clenching. Kicking. Like it’s trying to climb out through my ribs.”

“When does it happen?” he asks. We’ve already been over this.

“When I’m stressed,” I tell him again.

“What triggers the stress?” That part we didn’t get to before.

I shift on the table. “Mostly my neighbor.”

The doctor looks up and waits.

Fine.

“She’s weird,” I mutter. “Not bad weird. Just…weird. Nice. Soft. Has this hair that looks soft, which is annoying, because now I keep noticing it. And she looks at me like she’s trying to figure me out, and I don’t like that.”

The doctor blinks once.

“Yesterday she opened the door in a towel, and it got bad. Chest went tight. Got hot. Couldn’t breathe right. Then she called me shy, which is bullshit, because I’m not shy.”

The doctor lowers his pen slightly.

“So what the fuck is she doing to me?”

“Does this clenching happen when you’re not around this neighbor?”

I look away.