LOVELY LYDIAMandy’s fate should have been the first warning, in retrospect.In the early hours of the morning of his 18th birthday, Josh was roused from slumber by the chiming of the doorbell downstairs and the usual thunder of his sister’s footsteps passing by in the hall and clomping down the steps. Josh simply turned over and bunched the bedsheets up around his ears to muffle the distant sounds of conversation. His eyes shot open at the sound of Mandy’s indignant shriek.“Oh my God! Eww

Brody
had always been a troubled kid. The day he turned 18, his father
kicked him out of the house with little more than a bitter “Good
riddance!” He never heard from his old man again, but his mother
kept up correspondence for a long time, checking in once a month with
a tearful phone call. But even she could only take so much. By the
time Brody was 24, everyone he’d known during his childhood had cut
him out of their lives completely. Not that he cared. He was a
troubled kid indeed.
He
w

He
was otherworldly; a creature from another planet.
At
least that’s what Adrian thought when he first saw the man.
Tall.
Not freakishly so, but enough to grant a double take. His hair was
cut short and well-kempt. A dirty blond mess somehow tamed into a
fresh-appearing shape and form. The outline of his muscular torso was
discernible through the black t-shirt stretched tight against the
skin of his chest by broad shoulders. His posture was striking,
especially in a place like this. Working as