Page 32 of When I Accidentally Snagged a Serial Killer

Tartlet forces herself beneath my arm. Strudel climbs over the back of the couch. Muffin sprawls across my lap like a weighted blanket with opinions. Within two minutes, I’m pinned beneath approximately twenty-five pounds of cats. This is what they do after certain nights. Just warmth, fur, and the comforting vibration of purring against my ribs.

“You’re all wonderful therapists.”

Okay, except for Marzipan, who slow-blinks from the cat tower like the empress she is.

I pick up the remote, ready to cue up an old musical. For whatever reason, they help me reset. Can’t think about shit when Gene Kelly is swinging an umbrella in the rain. Then again, Tom Holland in Rihanna drag works too.

My phone vibrates on the coffee table. JUBILEE. Gravity itself shifts before I even open the message. There’s a video attached.

The music box sits on her nightstand. The tiny horses circle beneath the glass, rhinestones winking, while the song chimes softly through my speaker.

JULES: They gallop perfectly.

That one goes somewhere under my ribs and stays. Muffin lifts his head as though personally offended by the interruption. “I know.” I don’t text back. I hit call.

She answers on the third ring. “Wow. That was fast.”

I sink deeper into the couch. “Needed to hear your voice, sweetheart.”

Silence. I straighten slightly beneath the cats. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Actually…can we address the ‘sweetheart’ thing really quick? It’s not a big deal. I have an alternative.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I don’t hate it,” she says quickly. “Okay…don’t laugh. Would you mind calling me Princess?”

Fuck, my body temperature spiked. “It would be an honor.”

“You don’t think that’s weird?”

“Jules, I own a brass chicken named Henrietta and six cats named after baked goods.”

“Don’t forget two shovels, roadkill, and a shrubbery.”

She’s never letting that go. “You’ve set the weirdness bar much too low.”

Her laugh slips through the phone.

“Mind if I ask why, though?” I stroke Muffin’s back when he headbutts my wrist. The pause lasts long enough that I wonder if I pushed. “Princess?”

“I’m here.” Her voice is quieter. “It’s been a long time since I felt like me. Before everything got shitty, I wore dresses. Bows.” She makes a low, embarrassed sound. “I was aggressively whimsical.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Shut up.” Teasing. Another hesitation. “Today, I guess yesterday now, you made me feel like a princess.”

The words land somewhere I don’t have armor. Marzipan chooses that exact second to release an imperious meow.

Jubilee laughs. “What was that?”

“Competition.”

I tap the video icon, and she accepts almost immediately. “Aww!” Black hair loose around her shoulders. Makeup softer and smudged from the day. A plain white shirt. Behind her, the music box glitters on the nightstand.

I angle the camera toward Marzipan, who stares into it with the disdain of someone photographed without a rider in her contract. “This is Marzipan. She’s very demanding. Also royalty, so she reminds me of you.”

Jubilee lifts one dark brow. “I’m demanding?”