Page 2 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

That’s as far as I get before the door on the left side of the building swings open and the world’s most boring telehealth psychologist ambles out, proving yet again that he’s either got bat ears or an alert set for when I’m back in Wi-Fi range.

“He’s already outside, isn’t he?” Felicity asks through my AirPods, amused as always by my daily welcome-home party.

“Of course he is.”

Hugo’s wave as I pull into our driveway is so enthusiastic that he almost trips down the front steps. Not great when he’s clutching enormous gardening shears. I hold my breath until his sensible loafers are on the sidewalk next to his precious rosebushes before I return his greeting, although I drop my polite smile once I’m out of sight inside my single-car garage.

“Why that cardigan?” I mutter, throwing my car into park and yanking my Medical Examiner’s Office lanyard from around my neck. “Every day, rain or shine, winter or summer, it’s that hideous cardigan and for what reason?”

“I am yet again begging you to take a pic so I can experience the cable-knit horrors for myself,” Fi says.

“I’m not going to sneak photos of my neighbor. He’s not Bigfoot, and I’m not a creep.” That, and some weirdly protective part of me doesn’t want to offer up this piece of Hugo for Felicity’s amusement.

Instead of belaboring the point, I sigh and turn off my car. “I’d better go.”

“You could just stay on the phone with me,” Fi offers.

“No way.” My vehement response surprises both of us, so I hastily add, “The last time I tried that, he looked so sad. It felt like I was kicking a needy, socially awkward puppy.”

“Your funeral,” my sister says with a shrug so big I can hear it. “Enjoy your time with the virgin next door.”

“Talking to the virgin next door isn’t going to kill me.”

“It could bore your vagina to death.”

“At least death by virgin would be quick,” I point out. “Awkward, but quick.”

“Do you think the cardigan is an emotional condom or a metaphorical hymen?” Fi muses. “Ohh, do you think he wears it during se⁠—”

“Okay, love you! Call you later! Bye!” I say over her increasingly disturbing speculations. Then I suck in a deep breath, step out of my car, and brace myself for the full Dr. Bore experience.

When I finally emerge from my garage, Hugo sets his shears on the bottom step and gives me a salute that’s so hopelessly nerdy, I fear I’ll spontaneously combust in secondhand embarrassment. He is, and there’s simply no other way to put it, cringe. Even if the cool kids aren’t saying it anymore, the word fits the man in front of me like a worn pair of Crocs.

“Howdy, neighbor girl!”

“Hi, Hugo,” I say with a quick wave. I stayed late to finish up some paperwork after the end of my shift, but there’s still enough light in the early September sky to see the corner of his mouth tip up as he adjusts his glasses. When we first met, I wondered if he was constantly messing with those thick frames to get a better look at me, but I quickly learned it’s just one of his nervous tics.

“Congrats on surviving your day.” He falls into step beside me as I walk toward our mailboxes at the foot of the driveway. “Were you working hard⁠—”

“—or hardly working,” I reply. “Ha.” He trots this line out at least once a week.

“So?” He crosses his arms and leans against the brick tower housing our mailboxes. “Which was it?”

Let’s see… I got called to investigate an accidental drowning and then a possible overdose. I took possession of some stolen police files that might point me to my next target, and I inhaled a PB&J at my desk in between.

“For me? Hardly working,” I say instead, reaching into my box and emerging with junk mail, junk mail, and more junk mail.

“For you?” He tilts his head a millimeter to the right. “But not everyone else?”

Dammit. I forgot how quickly my big, goofy, supersmart neighbor picks up on little details. And he’s doing it while standing, like, right there.

“You take up too much space.” I scowl up at the man looming over me.

He responds by shifting an inch closer. “How are you not used to it yet?” His tone is so unexpectedly playful that it almost makes me forget his deadly dull conversation and embarrassing earnestness.

Almost.

“I promise you, I’ll never get used to it.”