1 Chapter 1

1

Particles of dust danced in the light that filtered through the windows of the den. Jesse Velasco coughed and went to open one. His tiakept a clean house, but books tended to collect dust, and her house was wall to wall shelves of them.

Breathing in the cool spring air, he turned back to face the den with clear lungs. Two of the four bookshelves had been emptied, with their contents sorted into boxes labeled either keep, donate, trash, or sell. The boxes took up much of the floor space; Jesse would have to clear some room before the other two shelves were tackled. He frowned, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Eleven in the morning. Too early for lunch, but Jesse wasn’t ready to start lugging all those boxes through the narrow doorway to the garage. A break was required.

He went to the kitchen and poured himself the last of the coffee he’d brewed earlier that morning, black and strong. He took his coffee and his phone out to the front porch and settled onto the uncomfortable wicker chair that sat next to a beat-up stool serving as a table.

A quick peek at his work email showed nothing pressing. Jesse worked from home doing data analysis. It wasn’t glamorous, but he enjoyed wrangling raw numbers and transforming them into a story. Plus, it paid well, he got to set his own hours, and he was able to live anywhere—and any way—he pleased.

The flexible schedule had come in handy over the last few weeks. When his TiaCarmen moved to San Diego to live with her niece, she had left most of her possessions behind. Her home for the better part of the last half-century had been a small rancher in a sleepy shore town. Jesse spent a week here most summers with a revolving assortment of cousins, camping out in the den and trekking to the beach each morning to stake out the best spot before the tourists moved in.

A lifelong bookworm and avid traveler, TiaCarmen managed to accumulate an impressive library over the past fifty years, along with many other knickknacks and oddities. Once the most important belongings had been bequeathed, and the Velasco cousins group chat had lovingly argued over the rest, Jesse had volunteered to pack up what was left over. He’d also been charged with handling the book sorting situation, seeing as he was a fellow bibliophile.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. With his most recent relationship coming to an amicable end, Jesse was happy to take advantage of a rent-free living situation that gave him some time to think about where he wanted to go next. So far, he hadn’t given it much consideration, but once he was further along in the book sorting, he’d figure something out.

Jesse switched over to Twitter and scrolled through his timeline. He wasn’t very active on social media, using it mostly for news and media updates. Currently, most of the accounts he followed centered around his latest pop culture obsession.

Silver Ridgewas a weekly television series set in a paranormal town, now on its sixth season. The show followed two best friends—Grayson, a werewolf and Samuel, a wizard—who cracked jokes and solved crimes together. Jesse liked reading the meta that his fellow fans shared regarding the intricate world building of the show’s magic, along with speculation as to what might come in future episodes.

He also appreciated the photos of the two costars, both of whom were extremely easy on the eye. Devonte Jones, who played Samuel, had a lithe frame, long locks, and a warm smile. Jack Anders, who played Grayson, had a bigger build, with messy chestnut hair and striking hazel eyes. Jesse didn’t generally go wild over actors, or care about their personal lives and careers outside of whatever show he enjoyed them on. But if he scrolled a little slower past Devonte and Jack’s pictures, that was his own business.

A little blue alert popped up over his mentions. Jesse smiled as he checked to see who had liked or commented on one of his tweets. He had a pretty good idea of who it would be. Out of a scant handful of followers, there was only one who regularly replied to his tweets.

Boasting the handle @sleepywolf, along with he/him pronouns in his bio, Jesse’s favorite Twitter friend was a cheerful person who mainly retweeted cute animal gifs, book rec lists, and positive quotes that weren’t overly saccharine. His account was locked, with less than twenty followers, but Jesse had followed him back anyway.

Over the past few months, Sleepywolf liked and commented on all of Jesse’s book reviews. They had similar tastes in fiction, and found they both loved a good documentary, too. Their conversations quickly moved from tweet replies to direct messages. Jesse generally thought of himself as a loner, but he always looked forward to their jokes and conversations. And Sleepywolf had been a big help when it came to researching the more obscure books uncovered in his tia’sarchives.