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"For?"
"Well, aren't you supposed to patch me up? I defended your honor and shit."
"First, my honor did not need defending. Second, I'll trade you patching up for sex in the shower and lunch before I have to get to work."
"I can work with that."
And so he did.FOURTEENSugarIt went like that for a solid week.
On the days I happened to get the morning shift, I dropped by her place after work. She cooked. We watched movies, talked, fucked. On the nights I pulled overnights, she drove over to the compound to sit with me in the glass walls, trying her best to distract me from my job for a while before cracking open one of her books, content to just sit with me.
That shit? It was nice.
Nicer than I ever could have imagined.
And it was easy.
I thought there would be a learning curve, growing pains. But we just settled in. It was effortless. She'd introduced me officially to Savea who I knew was around some nights, but usually crashed before I got there. Jamie was around some nights for dinner, for movies.
I liked them too, her people.
I liked shit like listening to them recall stories of the crazy shit they had done - or, more accurately, Peyton had done - and laugh until they practically pissed themselves, sitting there rolling into one another, holding their stomachs, gasping for air.
It was nice.
I guess I never really realized how nice it could be to just hang with women. Sure, there were a lot of them at the compound here and there, but the dynamic was different.
But it wasn't only about her and her people.
It was about me and mine as well.
She had, in her short visits to the compound, met all the men. And Peyton just had this ability to get on with anyone. Even difficult people to get on with at times. Like Renny. Who, when he met her for five minutes, declared her daddy issues were showing, and flat-out asked her if he used to abuse her.
I went to fly up out of my chair, but found my wrist snagged in her hand.
"Well, he refused to buy me that Baby from Dinosaurs. You know, the one that said Not the mama when you pulled the string in his back. If that isn't abuse, then I don't know what is."
And because she didn't get pissed, because she didn't fly off the handle at his accusations, Renny backed right off. I'd even caught the two sitting and talking early one morning. Well, early for Peyton. It was around nine-thirty for the rest of us.
"Yo," Virgin said, coming in from another meeting with Barrett.
"Anything?" I asked, starting to feel apathetic about the whole thing. It was getting old - the threats. The waiting to see if there were any signs that he knew where we were.
"That last text pinged off a cell tower in Jersey," he said, giving me a gut punch.
"Shit."
"He could just be passing through. Could be catching a train into the city."
"I don't like the coulds," I admitted. Coulds meant that there could be a fucking lunatic in Navesink Bank. There could be someone showing up at the compound and starting shit. We could get our asses handed to us by Reign once his men had to handle a situation that we brought on them unwittingly.
"Might be time for a talk," he said, sensing where my mind was at as well.
"Yeah," I agreed.
"He'll be back tomorrow," he added.
"If you see him before I do, catch him," I demanded, clamping a hand on his shoulder as I made my way toward the door, having already told him I was meeting Peyton after her class at the gym.
I had maybe figured she was going to let it slide for a while, get back to it after we had spent some time together.
But nope.
I was learning quickly that whatever you expected Peyton to do, she had this tendency to do the exact opposite.
She liked to keep everyone on their toes.
The fucking lunatic apparently spent a lot of time watching gore makeup Youtube tutorials. And went fuckin' HAAM on her face, looking like she'd been goddamned mauled, splashed herself in fake blood, and laid down in the hallway of her apartment building on April Fools Day. Then jumped up at you when you got close.
Two days later, she showed up at the compound and declared we were going into the city for a show.
That show?
Drag burlesque.
The following morning, I shit you not, she dressed up like some goddamn Little House on the Prairie kid, all buttoned-up and demure, and made me this elaborate breakfast... then made me paint her toenails.
Like... you couldn't make this shit up.
I guess that was the most amazing thing about her.
She didn't give a fuck about conventions, about what other people thought. She was the most authentic person I had ever met, just one-hundred percent herself, doing what made her happy, what she thought would be fun or interesting.
