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“The police?” he repeated, concern etching his face. “Okay. Come on,” he said, sliding past me, absentmindedly patting Frida’s head as he went. “Let’s get you out of the heat, get you a cold drink, and then you can tell me all about it.”
We followed him inside.
And as he closed the door behind me, I had the strangest thought, one that didn’t fit in with anything that I had come to know about myself.
I wouldn’t mind never leaving this house.
CHAPTER NINE
Alaric
“The fuck is Coast doing?” I asked, squinting in the distance where he seemed to be making his way back toward the clubhouse. Pulling a children’s red wagon along with him.
“The fucking tortoise made a break for it,” York said, smirking. “Eddie saw it on his way in, and sent Coast out to grab it.”
“That thing is heavy as fuck,” I said, watching a puff of smoke floating in the air around Coast’s head as he got closer.
“Hundred pounds, easy, man,” Eddie said, nodding as he chopped cilantro with the rhythmic ease of a professional chef. “Goes to show, you can be all big and strong eating only plants. You hear that, little homie?” he asked, looking over at someone’s baby sitting in a high chair a few feet away, smushing pieces of cooked broccoli onto his tray.
I honestly didn’t know whose kid it was. There were so many young kids around these days. And at that age, when their hair wasn’t that long yet, and their faces were all fat and round, it was hard to tell them apart.
The baby answered Eddie by slamming the broccoli even harder onto the tray, smashing it completely.
“Fine, I’ll give you more pasta,” Eddie said, going to scoop more onto his tray.
“Sucker,” York said, shaking his head.
“Says the man who just gave the bird another nut that you know he’s not supposed to have.”
“It was either give him the nut, or let him slice off one of my fingers,” York reasoned.
“Did someone reinforce the tortoise enclosure?” I asked, silently hopeful for a task to set my mind to. Something to keep my mind from focusing too much on Siana.
“Velle is working on it,” York said.
Damnit.
Normally, I loved having prospects around to do all the grunt work. Now, I was getting frustrated by not having any work to do.
“What’s that shit they told us as kids about tortoises being slow?” Coast asked on his way in, walking over to wash his dirt-coated hands. “All fucking lies, I tell ya. That thing was booking it like he just broke outta the Pen. What’s this?” he asked, gesturing toward the baby’s tray.
“Lunch?” Eddie said, brows knitted.
“Babies got more tastebuds than we do,” he said, walking over to the fridge. “They start dying as the years go on. It’s why we can tolerate that green shit when babies don’t,” he explained as the other guys and I shared a surprised look. “Gotta tempt ‘em with something,” he added, uncapping a bottle of ranch, and pouring it into a giant puddle on the tray. “Like this, little man,” he said, grabbing a piece of broccoli, and driving it through the ranch before popping it into his own mouth.
Sure enough, the baby was curious about the ranch, and mimicked him before bringing the dripping floret to his mouth, testing it, then shoving it in.
“No shit,” Eddie said, nodding.
“You got kids?” York asked.
“Would I be here with my face up a different chick’s skirt every night if I had kids?” Coast asked as he put the ranch back in the fridge.
That was that, though. He didn’t elaborate. Even though he clearly knew more about kids than the rest of us did.
I stuck around to pack up some more shit in my room, deciding it was probably time to let it go, to leave it open for one of the prospects when they patched in.
I’d have to borrow someone’s car to bring the boxes to my place eventually. They were starting to clog up the garage.
