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the dark before. I was Joe Gray. I wasn’t scared of
anything.
So why I was still freaking out about this? This was just plain stupid.
    “This is seriously pissing me off,” I mumbled under my breath.
    And suddenly, as if by magic, the eerie feeling left me and I felt a whole lot calmer. The room was just … a room. No evil shadows lurking in the dark, no wicked things going bump in the night. I smiled contentedly and pulled the covers up to my neck, getting myself comfortable at Tristan’s side.
    He shifted and turned over, wrapping one arm around my waist. I snuggled into him, and a part of me was a little ashamed for feeling much safer now that he was holding me in his arms.
    I breathed deeply, relaxing myself. If there were more evil shadows or mysterious noises in the room, I wasn’t aware of them, because within seconds I had drifted into a deep sleep, safe and sound in Tristan’s arms.

Chapter Five
Kitchen Love
    I tried to move but I wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed a hold of my collar with a tight, vicious grip, and I knew I was doomed.
    There was a reason why you never let Josh get a hold of you. Because if you did, there was no way you could weasel your way out of his steel-like grip. I tried anyway, but lost my balance, landing on my back on the mattress with a loud bump.
    “
Whooof!
Ouch, Josh! Take it easy, will ya?” I yelled at him.
    I was mostly annoyed at myself for being this out of practice. But it was hard to train during tours, so we always resumed our martial arts practice when we were back at home. Josh and I both had black belts so we never got too rusty.
    I woke up really early, leaving Tristan sleeping comfortably in my bed, to go looking for Josh because I knew he would be up too. Josh was always an early riser.
    I was beginning to regret the idea, though. My moves were so slow. We had only been training for a few hoursand I was already sweating buckets and feeling pretty out of breath. Josh was going to kick my butt all day long at this rate.
    “Come on, Joey. You can do better than this,” he taunted me.
    Huffing, I grabbed his hand and he helped pull me up. He had tossed me on the mattress, like, a hundred times already and I hadn’t managed to take him down one single time yet!
Damn him.
    As he made sure I was back to standing position, I took advantage of this momentary distraction and swiftly moved to his side, grabbing his elbow while pushing my entire arm against his neck, making him stumble back and lose his balance. Now, it was his turn to fall back on the mattress.
    “YES!” I shouted smugly. “I win! I’m the man!” I laughed, raising both my arms in the air and doing a quick wriggling victory dance.
    The celebration didn’t last long, though, because Josh swept his legs at my feet. I tried to jump over them, but only one foot was fast enough; I was on my butt in the blink of an eye. He landed on top of me, pinning me down, and leaned close to my face with a wicked grin.
    “Who’s the man,
now
?” He reveled in his moment of triumph. Served me right for gloating in his face and doing a silly victory dance just because he fell once.
    “Oh,
puh-lease
. Who says being ‘the man’ is a better thing anyway? Being a girl is just as good,” I scoffed, and pushed him away from me. I was officially done with training for today.
    “What? Quitting already?” He laughed. “Don’t be a baby, Gray. Just because I’m epic at all martial arts doesn’tmean you can’t be some day, too! And hey, there’s always second place on the podium.”
    Josh was the most competitive boy I knew. “Good, you can have that spot. I’m just rusty now, but you wait until I’m back on form and climbing to that epic first place, drummer boy!” I huffed before storming out of the gym room.
    Losing non-stop tended to put a dampener on my mood. Josh’s relentless banter wasn’t helping improve matters, either. I headed into the kitchen with a thunder cloud above my head. I found Tristan