Chapter 17
ENTERING LEVI’S MAZE
PARKER
“Do you remember what to say?” Nana prompted as we walked to Levi’s house with Levi and Davina.
I sighed. “It isn’t all that complicated.”
I still couldn’t believe Fin would be involved in something like this, but when Levi said someone had bugged his house and confirmed with Van that Tammy and Kyle’s scents were all over the listening devices, it was hard to argue my point. I just hoped Fin wasn’t as involved as the others.
“Can’t Van just arrest Tammy and Kyle for breaking and entering?” I asked.
“He didn’t find prints,” Levi said. “You can’t arrest someone based on their scent being somewhere it shouldn’t. Humans need more concrete evidence than that.”
“But what about that council thing? Those people are supes, right? They must know what finding a scent means.”
“They do.” Davina nodded. “But until we can confirm they are hunters and a threat to supes, there isn’t much they can do.”
I frowned. I got why evidence was important, but I hated that Levi might be in danger from these people. It didn’t feel like we were doing enough to protect him.
Davina and Levi walked ahead of us, and I slowed my steps. Nana matched her pace to mine.
“What do we do?” I whispered. “What if Fin is involved?”
“Don’t you worry about that.” Nana shook her head. “I doubt he’s involved with the hunting. He’s simply gullible and na?ve. Everyone is at that age.”
I didn’t remember ever being that gullible or na?ve.
“Like when you got stuck in that storm drain,” Nana said, as if reading my mind.
“Hey. That wasn’t me being gullible or na?ve. I was saving a duckling.”
The little baby had fallen through the grates as it followed its mother with its little brothers and sisters.
I remember being focused on getting that baby bird and not worrying about anything else.
After removing the cover, I’d squeezed my torso into the drain so I could grab it.
Which I did. Unfortunately, the drain was a little tighter than I’d anticipated.
I got stuck. Firefighters were called in to help break me out.
But the duckling was saved and returned to his mama.
You’d think that would have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t .
Unfortunately, my so-called best friend at the time had taken a video of me wiggling around with my ass in the air when I was wedged in the hole. The video made the rounds through the school.
If I’d been straight, that might have worked to my advantage, because after that every girl sprouted heart eyes when I walked by, praising me for saving the duckling. Unfortunately, the only thing the guys did was laugh at me.
It wasn’t until later that I discovered my video had been uploaded to a porn site.
That’d always struck me as odd, because I’d stayed completely clothed through the whole duckling debacle.
Who knew people fantasized about other people getting stuck in the washing machine or under a bed or, ahem, in a storm drain and having them at their mercy?
And once something was on the internet, it never really went away, even after countless take-down notices. Ask me how I know.
“You were gullible and na?ve to trust that little shit of a friend,” Nana pointed out.
I sighed because she made a good point. Although, to be fair to Josh, I doubted he anticipated it would take off the way it had. He’d been just as gullible and na?ve as me, apparently.
“Do you think Finley will be okay?”
Nana nodded. “Of course. He has Girard blood running through him. We’re resilient.”
I hoped she was right because we’d arrived at Levi’s house now and it was time to enact the first part of the plan.
My stomach fluttered as I eyed his house.
I’d known where Levi lived for a long time now, but he’d never once invited me inside.
This felt like a big step in our relationship—er, I mean friendship.
Davina and Nana gave me a thumbs up as I joined Levi on his front step.
“Remember,” Nana said before he could open the door. “No hanky-panky right now. You’ve got business to do, and we’ll be right outside waiting. If you want to get horizontal, you do that on your own time.”
“Nana!” I scolded her.
“Well, you were ready to rip his clothes off on the sidewalk a little while ago. I don’t know what you’ll get up to when you are alone and behind closed doors.”
I groaned and shook my head. Levi’s face looked as flushed as I felt. He turned to the door, probably partly to hide his face from Nana and Davina. When the door swung open, I moved to step inside, but Levi slid in front of me, blocking my way.
He cleared his throat. “So, uh, my house is a little different from what you might have imagined…”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… I live in an apartment on the second floor, and I have a gym in the basement, but the main floor is…” His words trailed off.
“Why don’t you show me?” I patted his chest. “It’ll be fine. I swear.”
He blew out a breath and stepped aside.
I pushed the door open wider and gaped. Beyond the threshold at the other side of the small vestibule were shelves, so very many shelves. “Wow… This is… ”
“I’m not a hoarder,” Levi said quickly. “I just… I have stuff.”
And, boy, was he right. There was a lot of stuff , or rather shelf after shelf of stuff arranged to create a walking path the same width as a normal corridor.
I couldn’t see the walls or where the doors to the rooms were.
The placement of the shelves almost felt like a maze, but that’d be weird, right?
The white shelves were all the same style and size, so although there were a lot of things to see—because not a single shelf was empty—the space felt more like a museum than a hoarder’s house.
There weren’t heaps of garbage or piles of newspapers or mounds of forgotten purchases like I’d seen on that TV show. No, everything was placed with purpose.
The shelves I could see from the threshold contained dioramas of every description. Some looked like famous rooms from paintings, and others like movie sets. And that only covered the first two shelving units. They went on and on, covering all kinds of themes and places.
“Where did you get these? They’re amazing. Is there a place where you order things like this?”
My gaze darted from scene to scene. There were so many things to see. Eager to see what I’d find next, I turned a corner and right in front of me, in place of prominence—or so it seemed to me—was a room as familiar to me as my own home. I leaned closer.
“Is that the Flying Rowan?”
It was a silly question because it couldn’t be anything else. He’d recreated the café in exquisite detail, from the treats in the display case to the pattern of the fabric on the booths. That wasn’t a kit or something that he’d ordered from a catalogue. I spun around to stare at him.
“Uh, yeah…” Levi’s cheeks darkened.
“Holy crap, did you make it? Did you make all of these?”
“It isn’t that big of a deal,” he muttered.
I closed the distance between us until I was standing right in front of him, and he had to meet my eyes. “You’re so talented. I can’t believe I didn’t know you were so artistic.”
He shrugged.
“No. I’m serious. All I do in my spare time is watch baking shows on TV.”
“And then you create amazing things for people to eat. At least your interests are useful.”
Okay. His hobby was more whimsical than practical at first glance, but I loved knowing that if something ever happened to the Flying Rowan Café—I’d worried about it catching fire too many times not to think like that—that there was some record of it. That some part of it would survive.
“How long have you been doing this?”
Levi squished up his face and shook his head.
He cupped his hand around his ear and pointed at one of the dioramas.
Oh right. The bugs. I’d gotten so caught up with Levi’s amazing creations, I’d forgotten why we were here.
Of course, Levi hadn’t invited me here because we were really dating.
He’d invited me over because that’s where the bugs were.
“Quite a while,” Levi said.
“Well, you’re very good at making them.” I wanted to ask more questions, but that wasn’t why we were here. “I wonder if I should get a hobby, you know, something that isn’t watching TV. You have this. Finley has his ghost thing…”
“What do you think about that? I watched some of their videos. It seems weird. Do you think monsters and ghosts really exist?”
I hated that he’d called himself a monster, but I couldn’t refute him when Tammy or Kyle might be listening to us right now. “I don’t know. I suppose anything is possible. Did they have any links or anything on their videos? You know, like places where you can get more information? I’m curious.”
“I’m curious too. But I’m not sure I feel comfortable sharing a world with things like that. Finley suggested there might be more than just ghosts.”
I slid my hand into his and squeezed. Because I hoped he didn’t think I thought like that. He knew not all humans did, right? He pulled his hand away and walked deeper into the maze of shelves.
“Wouldn’t we know?” I trailed after him. “I could see not knowing about ghosts; they would be invisible, right? But how could we miss creatures walking around beside us. I think I would have noticed a yeti walking down the street.”
“Wait. Shit.” Levi made a production of patting down his pockets.
“I think I forgot my phone at the motel. Do you mind if we go back there? If you’re interested, we could watch a couple of their videos.
I bookmarked a few on my office computer,” he said, leading me back to the door and away from his inner sanctuary .
I suspected very few people had ever been invited into the heart of Levi’s home. Hell, him letting me see this much was a privilege. I wasn’t going to press for more.
Would Tammy and Kyle think it was strange that we said our little script and left? I hoped not, but I wasn’t going to push Levi to take me any deeper into his home.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t wish he’d invited me inside for entirely different reasons.