Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(28)

I hustle out to follow him, almost knocking myself out as my towel gets caught wrong against the ceiling of my SUV, but I right myself without dropping the cat and catch up to him as he’s sliding his key into the lock.

Nonna’s nowhere in sight when we step inside.

There’s still a hint of smoke from the ziti fire hanging around us. The air feels like warm bathwater trying to tiptoe into my lungs, and the eerie shadow cast by the ladder against the side living room wall is making me think about haunted houses.

Specifically, of sneaking through haunted houses, waiting for the scary zombies and the dude with the chainsaw to jump out, and do you know what?

Luca’s house would make the best haunted house.

Which might not be the best thing to be thinking right now.

He takes the stairs directly in front of us two at a time, but my legs are short, so I go one at a time, which would be fine if the first stair didn’t give an ominous creak and bend beneath my foot as soon as I put all my weight on it.

Naturally, I freeze, because while I like writing about scary things, my scary things are usually funny—I mean, I write about sentient sticks of butter, and who can take that seriously?—and I don’t want to know what might be hiding under this stairwell if I fall through it.

Or what will happen to my slippers.

Pooks is already looking worse for wear after being impaled by the tail of the bobblehead dragon at Mackenzie’s apartment, which is probably Brooks’s apartment, but it felt like it had a woman’s touch, so I’m gonna call it Mackenzie’s place.

Plus, my feet are sweating with how warm it is in here, and that’s probably not good for my slippers either.

“Are you seriously standing there thinking that hard about how to walk up the stairs?” Luca whispers.

I jerk my head up to him, and the movement makes the stair beneath me give an even more ominous creak.

“Skip that step,” he hisses.

“My legs are short,” I hiss back.

“Do you want to live, or do you want the stairs to eat you?”

I blink at him, because did he invade my mind and beat me to a joke that I’d totally make if I weren’t the one in danger of being swallowed by the ancient, possessed staircase?

His entire face twitches again.

I leap to the next step, grateful to land on a more solid surface, and make a mental note to learn how to navigate this house without dying. It goes right after the mental note about writing down every single quirk of the house, because this house has to go in a book.

Probably one about a vampire lord who’s been thrown out from his kingdom after succumbing to a sleeping spell cast by a troublesome fairy who ends up being the love of his life.

I seriously love love.

“You know you’re terrifying when you smile like that?” Luca breathes in my ear as I join him at the top step.

“Do your teammates know you’re terrified of anything happy?”

“I’m not terrified of happiness. I’m terrified of you. And no, they don’t know that, and they won’t, or else I’ll propose to you. Got it?”

I suck in a breath at his threat and follow him to peek into the guest room.

Nonna’s snoring.

Dammit.

So much for that lingering hope that she would’ve left so I wouldn’t have to share a bedroom with Luca.

His sigh suggests he’s feeling the same.

We creep down the short hallway past the lone bathroom in the house—seriously, it doesn’t even have a powder room on the first floor, and I’d honestly like to know how you’re supposed to have friends over when there’s not a spare toilet, except not having guests is probably exactly his plan—and before I know it, Luca’s shutting the door to his bedroom.

With just him and me inside.

In the total darkness.

He hits the light switch, and a woman sits up in bed and screams.

I’m not one to hear a random unexpected scream and not join in, so I scream too.

Dogzilla leaps out of my arms with a yowl and lands in the middle of Luca’s back, where she digs in with her claws, and now he’s screaming too.

“Get it off!”

“Intruder!” I shriek.

“Pastrami on rye!” the intruder yells.

“Mother?”

I stop screaming.

Dogzilla gives up the fight and falls off Luca’s back.

And his mother pulls the threadbare sheet up to cover—gah.

Look away, Henri.

Look.

Away.

The door flies open, smacking me in the shoulder and sending me tumbling into Luca, who smells like a fresh spring rain shower in paradise.

The man can’t smell like a simple spring rain shower. That would be too easy.

Nonna charges in, rainbow hair flowing behind her and leaving no doubt where Luca got his hair genes, her arm raised and ready to throw the rusty tea kettle she’s armed with. “Who? What? When? Why? How? Where?”

I can agree with some of those questions, because was she sleeping with a rusty tea kettle?

It’s a good thing Luca’s teaching me how to not fall in love, because his family is adorable.

Mostly.

When they’re not dating my ex or being terrifying with their Eye.

So maybe adorable isn’t the right word here.

“Put the damn kettle down, Irene,” Luca’s mom snaps.