I stood, but Zeke didn’t move, his eyes still closed, his brow still furrowed. “That thing you did … with your…”
“Yeah?”
“Holy hell.”
I laughed, kissed his cheek, then left him standing in the kitchen alone, his pants still around his ankles. “I’m taking a shower. Can you check the oven?”
“Uh-huh,” he called.
I came out in tight jeans and an ivory Henley with the top two out of four wooden buttons open, setting off my olive skin. My hair was down and curled for the occasion. It was simple, but Zeke was just as obsessed as he was when I didn’t have clothes on.
“Wow,” he said. “You’re going to keep having to remind me that we’re together, because you’re way outta my league.”
“Quit it,” I said, reaching over to peck him on the lips.
Zeke helped me clean up the kitchen for the second time in an hour before our friends arrived so we could start the potatoes, gravy, vegetables and finish the rest of what Zeke had started that morning.
As I set the table, someone knocked lightly on the door. I glanced at my watch, noting whoever it was, was half an hour early. If I had to guess, I’d say it was Harbinger.
I was wrong. On the porch stood Peter, holding a bottle of wine. He looked at me then down at the dark glass in his hand. “It’s a red. Paige did all the cooking, so I apologize for coming mostly empty-handed.”
“We have plenty of food. Come in.”
Peter stepped in and stood around for a few minutes, trying not to watch Zeke and I work together in the kitchen. He seemed to get sadder as each minute passed.
“Peter? The corkscrew is in the drawer to the right of the sink,” I said.
“Oh. Right,” he said, happy to be of use. He worked on the bottle for a few seconds then took two glasses already on the table and filled them. “Zeke? Would you like a glass?”
Zeke held up a bottle of beer. “I’m good, thanks.”
I could hear the strain in Zeke’s voice. His demeanor had changed the moment Peter walked in. I rubbed his back, trying to show my appreciation for his effort.
“Are Spenser and Kansas coming?” Peter asked from the table.
“They went to their parents,” I said.
He nodded then took another gulp of wine.
Soon, Harbinger arrived with his wife, Caroline, and their young sons, Henry and Miles. Martinez and Sloan showed up, then Kitsch, then Watts. Three facets of my life collided. It wasn’t awkward—except maybe for Peter—and Zeke and Watts got along great with my team and Harbinger’s family. Zeke had met them in passing before, but this was the first time he was able to speak to them, and thank them all, for longer than a few minutes and not while running for our lives.
I was glad that he kept his gratitude vague for Harbinger’s sake. Caroline knew what Zeke did, but she didn’t know exactly what her husband did or how the two were related, and that had to be very confusing. Caroline simply smiled and attended to the boys. If she wanted to know or was at all curious, she didn’t show it.
We ate and drank then ate some more. Everyone brought beer or wine, and by the time Trex and Darby had arrived, we were miserably full and more than tipsy.
Trex and Darby pulled into the drive, and everyone cheered. As they stepped out, Darby was already dressed for work, her baby bump obvious, even though she’d worn a loose top. Trex hooked his arm in hers while they walked. Darby carried a pie across the yard, not nearly as concerned about the short walk in the dark as Trex seemed to be.
“Thank you,” I said, taking the pie.
“Trexler,” Zeke said, reaching for his hand. “Congrats on the new house. That’s awesome.”
“Thanks,” Trex said, his hand on Darby’s belly. I imagined the strange, conflicting emotions Trex would have. Of all the people I could choose to move on with, it had to be Zeke, someone who was once interested in Darby.
“Trex?” Darby said. “I need to sit.”
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, just need to rest, I think,” she said, rubbing her stomach.
Trex led her by the hand to the table, pulling out a chair.
“T-Rex! You’ve turned into a regular gentleman!” Martinez said, slapping his back.
Caroline went to the kitchen then brought Darby an ice water.
“Thank you,” Darby said.
“She doesn’t look very far along,” Caroline whispered.
“Barely half way,” I said. “She’s been under a lot of stress. She works full-time, nights, and she doesn’t have family here.”
“She has us,” Caroline said.
I nodded once. “Yes, she does.”
Not that I can help with a baby. I can take out the trash. Mow the lawn. The dishes and shit like that. Cuddles? Diapers? Negative. I didn’t have siblings. The women in my family practiced holding guns, not babies. I’d never had a desire for children and, approaching my thirties, that biological urge others talked about just wasn’t there.
Zeke paused next to Darby and leaned down to whisper in her ear. She smiled.
Now I was red-faced. I hadn’t had as much to drink as everyone else, but the two I’d had and my temper made me wanted me to fight them both. Zeke was headed to the restroom but stopped next to me. “You okay?”
“Yep.”
He smiled, but the confusion on his face was evident. He walked down the hall and closed the bathroom door behind him. I rationalized the anger, and it slowly melted away before Zeke returned to nuzzle my neck.
He pulled back. “You’re not okay.”
“Fine,” I lied. Just him asking pissed me off. I was such a girl.
He pulled my hand as he walked down the hall, closing the door behind us. He’d had far more to drink than me, his body relaxed. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, let’s go back out before people realize something’s wrong.”
“Wait. Are we fighting?”
“You whisper shit into a girl’s ear—a girl you dated—yeah, something might be wrong with that.”
“It’s not what you think. I told her she looked beautiful,” he admitted.
Bile rose in my throat. “That’s so kind of you,” I said, my anger boiling just below the surface. “Definitely worse than what I was thinking.”
He held up his hands. “That’s not how I meant it. I was just trying to be nice because she looked embarrassed that she felt sick. I texted her when I found out the news, and I told her about you.”
“You’ve been texting her? Since when?”
“Pretty much since she got her phone. We’re just friends, Naomi.”
I sighed. “Fair enough.”
“But while I was washing my hands in the bathroom, I realized it might not have looked the best. Please don’t be mad. Today’s been amazing, and the last thing I’d wanna to do is fuck it up.”
“I’m not mad.”
“You’re a little mad.”
“I’m jealous, not mad.”
He grinned.
“It’s not funny,” I said, starting to walk past him.
He grabbed my arm and shrugged one shoulder. “It’s a little cute.”
I looked down at his hand on my arm. “Would my knee in your ball sack be cute?”
He shrugged again. “No, but it’s the price I pay to date a woman like you.”
“Like me?”
“Who can kick my ass.”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to smile, but it vanished with my next words. I pulled away from him. “I’m not the jealous type. But you’re texting a girl you’re attracted to and didn’t tell me.”
“Was attracted to. I don’t think about her like that anymore.”
“Because she’s pregnant.”
“Because she’s not you.”
I sighed. “Whispering in Darby’s ear that she’s beautiful?”
“You’re absolutely right. It was stupid. I was thinking
about her feelings and not yours, which is the opposite of what I’d want to do.” He looked around. “Now that I think about it, that’s just idiotic. Why would I do that? I’m in love with you, not her.”
“What?”
Zeke frowned then cleared his throat. “Let’s back up.”
“Okay…?”
He held out his hands, palms out. “Only because that’s not something I want to say to you when I’m drunk. Or…” he began, seeing the horror on my face, “to scare you off. Fuck.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “Turns out, I’m making all kinds of stupid mistakes tonight.”
“Let’s just table this, go back to our guests, and we can come back to it later.”
Zeke nodded slowly. “You’re not going to dump me later, right?”
I frowned at the thought. “No!” I blurted out.
He hugged me tight. “I’m sorry, baby. I wanted today to be perfect.”
“Okay. Okay, let’s just get back out there. I don’t want a bunch of questions.”
He nodded then led me out by the hand. Only Peter seemed to notice we’d been gone. Watts was talking to Darby, and everyone listened intently to their conversation. There was something about her that mesmerized people. She was stunningly beautiful, but there was something more. Maybe it was her Southern charm, or something she exuded that made everyone around her want to be in her light.
You okay? Peter mouthed.
I nodded, irritated he’d noticed.
“You still working nights, Darby?” Watts asked.
“Yep,” she said. “What have you been up to?”
“Traveling, mostly. One of the guys has a house in Mexico on the beach. I’ve been spending a lot of time down there. Is that Laney girl still working afternoons?”
Darby’s smile was strained when she looked at Trex when she answered. “Lane? Yep.”
I poured Trex an ice water and handed it to him. He was standing across the room, watching everyone be as ridiculously obsessed with Darby as he was. Even Henry and Miles had stopped playing long enough to watch her every move.
“Uh-oh,” I said, the ice clinking against the glass when I handed it to him. “What’s that about?”
“Thanks,” he said, taking a sip. “I went there tonight after we were released to get Darby’s boxes,” he whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Crazy bitch tried to fuck me in Darby’s old room.”
“What?” I said, trying to keep my voice down. “Does Darby know?”
“Yeah, I told her when I got back. She’s pissed, but not at me.”
“Makes for an awkward shift transition. Glad you told her. Way to avoid a stupid misunderstanding.”
“I almost didn’t. I was scared shitless it was going to ruin our first night at the house.”
“Well, looky there. You have a reasonable girlfriend. Congratulations.” I swiped my beer bottle from the countertop, clinked it to his glass, and we both drank.
“Told you she was worth waiting for,” Trex said.
“You still believe that shit? You think she’s the one, huh?”
Darby laughed and chatted with Caroline and the team.
“Without a single doubt,” Trex said, taking another drink. His phone pinged, and he checked it.
“Fuck,” he said, putting his phone away.
“What?” I asked. I assumed he was going to tell us we’d all been called in. I was hoping that was what he’d say. I didn’t want to have the inevitable awkward conversation with Zeke later.
“He’s been spotted in town.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Her ex. I had some of my old friends at the Bureau keep an eye on him. They’d lost track of him the last two days. Looks like he’s found her.”
“Shit,” I said. “Are you going to tell her?”
Kitsch came inside from the porch. “Nomes. You got a flashlight?”
“Just in every room of the house.”
“I need the closest one.”
He looked concerned, and I put down my beer. “In the kitchen. Drawer to the left of the dishwasher.”
Kitsch went to the kitchen, rummaged around for a second, and returned, rushing past. “It’s to the right of the dishwasher,” he said.
“Everything all right?” Trex asked.
Kitsch pushed through the screen door, pointing his flashlight at the ground.
“What is he doing?” I asked, stepping forward.
“Boss,” Kitsch called from outside.
Trex and I traded glances, then we followed Kitsch to the front porch. He stood at the top of the stairs, nodding to the yard. The flashlight highlighted a mound of dead rabbits.
“What the hell?” I said, grabbing the flashlight from Kitsch. I followed the carcasses with the light. I handed the flashlight to Trex then rushed inside.
Martinez passed me, going outside too.
“What’s going on?” Zeke asked, watching me furiously gather flashlights.
“I don’t know. Something bad.”
Sloan and Harbinger followed me out, and I gave flashlights to everyone on the team. We each turned on a flashlight and pointed it in the same direction.
“What the actual fuck is going on?” Harbinger asked.
Zeke and Watts came out, talking and laughing, but stopped the second they saw the mutilated bodies in the spotlight.
“That wasn’t there ten minutes ago when we came outside for Watts to smoke,” Zeke said. “Is someone…is someone playing a sick joke?”
“It’s more than one person,” I said. “One guy couldn’t do all of that in the amount of time he had.”
“Agreed,” Harbinger said.
The screen door opened one more time, and Trex turned. Peter was holding a beer now that the wine was gone, recoiling at the mess in the yard. “Is that…?”
“Yes,” Trex said, glowering.
We peered out over the rabbit carcasses lying in the dead grass, lit up with six heavy-duty flashlights, forming just one word: MINE.
chapter twenty-five
sticks and stories
Zeke
T
he large black trash bag Naomi held rattled each time the guys pitched in a new double-handful of dead rabbits.
“Get a move on, guys. Darby will be out in a few minutes, and Trex wants this gone,” she said. Damn, it turns me on when she orders grown men around.
I approached her with my own handful. “This is a shit ton of animals.”
“Yep,” she said.
I didn’t like it when she acted like I was just one of the guys, and it was impossible not to show my disappointment, which she loved. At least she loved something about me. I was batting way out of my league, and we both knew it, but dead animals were a whole new level of romantic gestures—if anyone could even call it that. No, definitely not. Naomi could handle herself, but she was being harassed. I wondered how long it had been going on and why she hadn’t told me.
Martinez dumped in some more limp carcasses, then Harbinger, then Sloan, then Peter.
“What do you think they meant?” I asked.
Naomi frowned. “They?”
“The people who did this. Mine must mean something. Who would do this to you?”
She let go of one side of the bag, using her wrist to brush a thick strand of sweaty hair from her face. “It wasn’t for me.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“Naomi…” I began. The fact that she hadn’t told me and was now keeping it from me didn’t help one fucking bit.
“Remember when I said there were things I couldn’t tell you? This is one of them. You don’t have to worry about me anyway. You know that.”
Harbinger and Kitsch traded looks.
I glanced inside the trash bag. “Whoever did this is sick. It happened in your front yard. I’d still be worried if you had superhuman strength and could fly.”
“You assume I don’t have superpowers? That hurts.” She jutted out her lip.
Martinez chuckled.
“You’re not taking this seriously,” I said, frustrated. “That just makes me worry more.”
Naomi opened the bag wider for Peter and Watts to dump the last of the carcasses in. She looked at the other two trash bags then the one I held, acting like the conversation we had was over.
“Doesn’t feel right to just dump them in and throw them away. Poor things.”
“Naomi!” I yelled.
“I heard you!” she shouted back.
“Don’t yell at her,” Peter said. “She’s been taking care of herself far longer than you’ve been around.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “How about you worry about your girl, and I’ll worry about mine?”
I could see Naomi was unhappy from my peripheral, but Peter was a spoiled rich kid, and I had no patience for putrid, tie-wearing fuckwads like him.
Peter’s jaw tightened. “Naomi doesn’t belong to you.”
I took a step forward. “She sure as shit doesn’t belong to you. You can’t even keep your own wife.”
The skin around Peter’s eyes tightened. I could tell no one had ever spoken to him like that.
Naomi stepped in. “Oh my Christ, you two. Shut up. Guys, take these to the bins on the other side of the garage.”
When Kitsch, Harbinger, Sloan and Martinez disappeared, Trex and Darby came outside.
The team came around the house as Trex walked Darby to the truck. Concealing their bloodied hands and keeping them away from her clothes. Darby didn’t seem to notice, and thankfully it was dark.
“Thanks for doing this. I loved meeting everyone,” Darby said in her sweet Southern drawl.
“Come back anytime. It will be nice to see Trex more often.”
Trex hugged Naomi. “Thanks, Nomes.”
“Of course.”
When Darby turned, we traded glances. She had no idea what we’d just done. Trex waved to Naomi, to the rest of us, then backed out of the drive. He had to be out of his mind with worry.
I turned on my heels and headed in, trying to get settled on the couch before Peter came back in.
Naomi passed through the living room to the kitchen sink. She held her hands under the water for a while, probably relieving the ache in her hands from the cold temperature outside.
The Edge of Us (Crash and Burn Book 2) Page 20
