I don’t realize until after telling my mom that I was calling for help that I’ve never actually talked to Heath on the phone. Does he even answer his phone? He didn’t answer my text, which doesn’t bode particularly well…

But I call anyhow, turning away from my mom, breathing in slow, even breaths to keep myself from freaking out about both Heath and the potential creeper outside.

The phone rings. Rings. Rings.

It goes to voicemail.

I manage to keep my sigh of frustration to myself as I leave a message. “Hi, it’s me— it’s Karli. I’m at my mom’s and was just wondering if you might be able to swing by and take a look at things. I’m sure it’s nothing, but a light went off outside and there was this thing with the shed— I just. You know, if you get this, send me a text, I guess. Okay. Bye.”

I don’t mention anything about our argument today, about me sprinting away from him. I can’t— because for starters, I know my mom is listening, and secondly, I know if I start down that road I’ll end up in another calorie-laden pity party.

“He didn’t answer?” my mom asks.

“No, but I’m sure he’ll message back,” I lie.

“Who is he? Do I know him? Is it someone from your high school?”

“He’s a Navy SEAL. He’s here on leave. I only met him a few days ago—“

“Did you ask the lawyer to background check him?”

“No, mom, and I don’t need to since he’s been overseas on deployment and the SEALS do all those background checks anyway, much more intense ones than the lawyer could do. He’s going back on deployment soon, actually.”

“And how did you meet him?” my mother asks, hand-wringing again. Am I glad she’s no longer focused on the happenings outside, or horrified that she’s asking about Heath? I can’t decide.

“At Bella’s house. Remember Jack from high school? They’re friends. They were in basic training together for the Navy.”

“Oh. Well. That sounds nice. Is he your boyfriend?”

“No, mom.”

“Are you sexually active with him?”

“Oh my god, I want this conversation to stop.”

“Honey, I just want you to be safe! You know I don’t regret you the tiniest bit, but I do regret that you had to be brought into this world with a man like your father as your…well. Father. You need to make sure that when you choose to engage in sexual intercourse—“

“Mom, I swear to you, I will walk out of this house right now and sleep in the shed if you keep this conversation going,” I say, and I seriously mean it. I think I’d take on one of my dad’s released jail friends over another instance of my mom uttering the words “sexual intercourse.”

My mom purses her lips together, almost opens them, then scowls at me. Thankfully, my phone rings just then. It’s Heath.

“Karli,” he says when I answer. “I got your message.”

“Yeah, hey,” I say slowly. “So, my mom is right here, and we were just wondering—“

“We’re on our way over,” he says, voice authoritarian and strict. “Stay inside when we arrive. Front door, back door— do you have a basement or a crawl space?”

“Um, there’s a crawl space around back. It’s not really much of anything though. You can’t even stand up—“

“Got it. Don’t come outside. I’ll call you when it’s time to open the door.”

Then he hangs up.

“Is he coming?” my mom asks hopefully.

I frown at my phone. “Uh…yeah. He is.” Did he say “we’re on our way”? Because surely he’s not about to drop in with a SEAL team or anything, right? No. No, of course now. But then…who else is coming with him on this clearly pointless investigation into an old lady’s garden shed?

My question is answered when a few moments later, Heath’s SUV rolls up to the front of the house. He isn’t loud about it; in fact, I almost think he’s let the car drive the remaining distance in neutral just to avoid the engine noise. He jumps out of the front side, wearing a dress shirt and jeans. From the back door, Jack emerges, then a pretty young woman who has her hair pinned back and a hard look in her eyes— she’s clearly in the military as well, though I’ve never met her. Finally, Leo, Jack’s artsy friend, stumbles around the side of the car. He looks so out of place with the other three that I nearly laugh.

“Oh, wow. They look like movie assassins,” my mom says almost excitedly as she looks out the crack in the blinds.

“They really do. Right down to the comic relief,” I say, shaking my head at poor Leo.

If Heath sees us looking— which given the hawkish glaze to his eyes, I can’t imagine there’s anything he doesn’t see right now— he doesn’t show it. He and Jack cut to the right, while the woman and Leo cut to the left. They circle round the house, sticking close to the walls. It’s only when Heath steps out and the security lights blink on that I realize they were by the house in order to keep those motion sensors from picking them up.

My mother and I dash to the kitchen, for once on the exact same page about what’s going on outside her house. Heath is walking toward the shed’s open door while the others fan out across the yard. While I don’t see any weapons, the three from the military walk with a careful gait that makes me certain they’ve crept along like this with a gun bigger than my arm at some point in their lives.

Heath circles the shed, and then closes the door. Then he doubles back and looks at something behind the shed again. Finally, they all walk toward the house together, much more casually this time. They’ve finished.

Except Heath doesn’t call me. He doesn’t knock on the door, and my mom and I don’t see him or any of the others come back around the front of the house.

“Where’d they go?” my mom asks, confused.

“I…have no idea. Maybe they’re in the crawlspace? He asked about it,” I saw, frowning.

“We’d hear that door opening, wouldn’t we? There’s an alarm on it—“

The lights in the back yard click back on and I gasp— Heath is coming around the front of the shed. I don’t even know how he got back there without setting of the sensors. I’m less concerned about that, though, and more concerned about the man that he’s tugging along in a headlock.