of bed. “Oof!” Her body was indignant at the added abuse.
“Yoo-hoo, Gabe!” Lily tottered into the room wearing a shiny pink jogging suit. “I brought you some tea.”
“You are too kind. Thank you.” His voice boomed around the room.
“What the hell is going on here?” Riley demanded, climbing back to her feet and yanking the sling off her bad arm and preparing to fight. She looked around before remembering that her hockey stick/personal weapon was no longer in one piece.
“I am Gabe,” he said, flashing her that smile again, this time over the rim of a posey-ringed teacup.
He was built like a Mack truck, making the dainty teacup and saucer look doll-sized in his hands. She wasn’t picking up on dangerous murderer vibes, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking beneath the surface.
“Is this a dream or a vision?” Riley whispered, scrambling over the bed to get between the stranger and Lily.
“I very much like your very short pants,” Gabe said, politely admiring her peace sign underwear.
“Lily, you have got to stop letting people into the house,” Riley insisted, grabbing a pair of discarded shorts off the floor and dragging them on.
“I remember when my breasts were that perky,” Lily sighed, as she puttered around the room straightening up. “Don’t waste these years, Riley! You take those perky breasts, and you put them in that Hot Nick’s face every chance you get.”
Riley crossed her arms over her tank top. “You both need to go,” she insisted.
Lily looked disappointed and glanced longingly back at Gabe.
“I’d like to run into him naked and greased up.”
Upset and now considerably grossed out, Riley blocked out Lily’s dirty thoughts and guided her neighbor toward the door. “You can’t let strangers in the house anymore. We all need to be more careful.”
Lily left, muttering about young girls not appreciating the fine men crawling all over them.
Turning to face the intruder, Riley crossed her arms again. “I’m not interested in anything you’re selling.”
“I am not selling anything,” he said, beaming at her. “I have been sent to guide you.”
“That explains nothing,” she said. “Did you just wander in off the street? Are you here to rob me? Because, as you can see, I’ve got nothing worth stealing.”
“A minimalist lifestyle is something to aspire to.” He took another dainty sip of tea.
He looked way too happy, way too fit, and way too calm to be human.
If psychics were real, did that mean vampires and werewolves were real too?
“Are you a vampire?” she asked.
He chuckled magnanimously. “I am not. I am a guide. Your guide.”
“Gabe, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not making any sense.”
He put the cup and saucer down on the bed and rose to his full height. Riley wasn’t great at estimating, but he looked to be about eight feet tall.
“Your spiritual guide,” he announced, pressing his palms together at his chest.
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you some kind of new age Jehovah’s Witness?”
She waited for his next round of magnanimous chuckles to subside. Apparently, this guy thought she was hilarious. “I am not,” he said finally.
“Yeah. Thanks. But I’m not buying. I’m not missing any religious figure that you’d love to tell me about, and I do not want to donate to fund a mission trip to a town that will have to rebuild whatever your well-meaning volunteers erected to feel good about themselves.”
Riley grabbed him by the arm. Her fingers didn’t even reach a third of the way around his biceps. But he still allowed her to lead him to the door.
“You have many bruises,” Gabe observed. “Are you aware of them?”
She was painfully aware of them.
“I am,” she said, giving him a push across the threshold.
“Are we going out?” he asked.
“You’re going out. I’m staying in.”
He stood there smiling, and she slammed the door in his face.
“I’ll just wait then,” he called cheerfully through the door.
Riley limped back to her bed. She debated going back to sleep, then realized that beneath all the aches and pains was a ravenous hunger that didn’t feel like being ignored. Also, she really needed to have that talk with her neighbors about letting strangers in the house.
She put on a bra and a clean t-shirt, thought about running a brush through her hair, then decided there was no point to it. She looked like she’d gone a round with a Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robot and lost. And it wasn’t like she had a fake fiancé to impress. Nick Santiago would never show his sexy face