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“You’ve got a little…” Damien rubbed under his left eye.
She turned her death glare on him. “I was doing my makeup when Fergus screamed. I poked myself in the eye with the mascara wand. Would you like me to show you how that feels?”
“Let’s not,” I jumped in, shooting Damien a glare of my own before he said something else to deliberately piss her off. “Waterproof mascara?”
“Mhmm,” she hummed in reply.
“Where is Fergus?”
“Locked in the staff room. I tried to put him in the corner, but he wouldn’t stay there.”
Damien burst out laughing.
“The corner? Dear God, Abs. He’s not a damn toddler.”
She stared at me, expressionless. “Watch his tantrum on the security tapes and tell me different.”
Chalk and cheese. They made chalk and cheese look like friends.
I shook my head and headed back to the staff room. She tried to put him in the corner? How had they co-existed running this place while I was in California? In hindsight, I should have expected to come back to the building burnt down. Or one of their houses at the very least.
Hmm.
Maybe that was how I got Damien to leave me alone.
No.
Arson was not the answer. The idea of it was pretty fun, though.
I unlocked the staff room door and pushed it open. “What the hell?”
Fergus was sitting on the sofa, wide-eyed. “There was a homeless man sleeping on the step.”
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“No.”
“Did he do anything even remotely human toward you?”
“No.”
“Then this is ridiculous.” I planted my hands on my hips. “You know Barry helps us out. Or is this just because you and Reggie are still fighting?”
He burst into tears.
This wasn’t in my job description.
“That was insensitive,” Damien murmured, leaning in close to me. “You could have been a little nicer.”
What?
“What else am I supposed to do? Hug him? This is his own fault,” I muttered right back. I was fully aware that I sounded like a petulant child, but whatever.
“I’m just saying, you could have been a little nicer to him. He’s obviously hurt.”
“Oh, so you’re all for being nice to him, but you’ll asshole your way through life around me?”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you mind?” Fergus wailed, throwing himself forward and hitting the coffee table. “I am having a crisis! Can you have your lover’s spat later?”
Damien tilted his head to the side. “If he were a woman, I’d be blaming PMS right now.”
“I may as well be a woman!” Fergus flung his arm through the air, falling back against the sofa cushions. “No man wants me! If I were a woman, I could be a lesbian!”
“Or you could, you know. Just be straight,” I pointed out.
“Just be straight, she says!”
Oh, God. What have I done?
“You know what else isn’t straight? Roundabouts! Would you walk up to a roundabout and ask why it isn’t a square? No, you wouldn’t. You’d accept its bentness and embrace it.”
“You’re the one who said you wanted to date women.”
“Only if I were a woman. Then I’d still be gay. But you’re judging me!”
Damien coughed. Hard.
If he was smothering a laugh, I would kill him.
“Fergus.” He stepped forward and crouched in front of my hysterical employee. “You’ve gotta calm down, man. I know you’re upset, but shrieking isn’t getting us anywhere. Is it Reggie?”
“It’s always Reggie! Do you know what he said?” Fergus blinked at Damien in earnest. “He said we need a break because I’m dramatic. Dramatic! How could he say that?”
I leaned against the doorframe. “I can’t possibly imagine.”
Both Fergus and Damien turned to me. One was scowling and the other was fighting a smirk.
It wasn’t hard to guess who was who.
“I can’t believe you’re so flippant about this. I’m heartbroken, Dahlia.”
“You’re also a thirty-two-year-old man who’s crying over a homeless guy sleeping on the step and being called dramatic. Take a look at yourself, Ferg. This is dramatic. I’m gonna get Bravo on the phone and see if they can get you into a Real Housewives of Las Vegas or something.”
He opened his mouth as if he were going to gasp, then, he froze. What left him was a sigh, and he slumped right back into himself. “You’re right. I’m a mess.”
“I wouldn’t say a total mess, but you’re definitely leaking around the edges.”
He sniffed. “Can we talk about something else? Like when you two are going to go away and fuck?”
Fourteen
Dahlia
“Never. There, conversation closed.” I pushed off the doorframe and crossed to the coffee machine. “Let’s talk about how you’re going to get Reggie back.”
“Not calling Bravo would be a good start,” Damien suggested, getting up from his crouched position.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I need to do something useful.” Fergus flicked a bit of lint from his jeans. “Something else. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like how you two know each other?” I smiled innocently, looking at both men.
