It made him shiver.
They scrambled back into their clothes, bumping elbows and hips as they shifted around the limited space. Marlow tucked his T-shirt in and adjusted himself roughly through his trousers. He resigned himself to the ache between his legs. No one had ever died of blue balls. Not directly.
He raked his hair back from his face and unlocked the door.
“Do you want to go first?”
“What, and you follow five minutes later?” Cade asked as he tucked his shirt—wrinkled from its stint on the floor—into his trousers. “I could go out the back and come back in the bar, pretend I just got back?”
A smart response stung the tip of Marlow’s tongue. He caught it between his teeth as he glanced at Cade and changed his mind.
Sometimes, not often, Marlow got the idea that it was actually possible to get under Cade’s skin. Enough to hurt. He was probably wrong, but he didn’t want to risk that.
Don’t ask him why.
“I’m not ashamed,” he said. “But whoever goes first is going to have to pretend whatever Franklin says is funny.”
Cade didn’t look convinced, but he did look… relieved? Whatever it was settled the arrogance back over his shoulders like a coat. He dropped a quick tease of a kiss on Marlow’s mouth as he stepped past him and out the door.
“I bet I’m funnier,” he said and headed back into the bar.
The repeated dull trill of Cade’s phone punctuated the NBC 7 news item as it played out on the bar’s wall-mounted flatscreen. After the eighth notification, he muted it and stuffed it in his back pocket. Marlow glanced over at him briefly and then back at the screen.
“…teen star Haley Jenkins, best known for her work on cult classicHaley’s Comet, was reportedly staying at the exclusive gated housing complex the Reserve, on the outskirts of San Diego,” the smooth-faced blond news anchor said, as footage of a younger Haley in a black bodysuit bounced athletically around the screen as she fired white bolts of energy at wolf-headed aliens. “Her death during the full moon raises the question, what responsibilities does the Reserve and their private security—”
“Turn it off,” Cade said, his voice tight and controlled.
Bennett gave him a flat look as she took a long swig from her bottle of beer. “What if we don’t?” She wiped her mouth. “This isn’t the Reserve. You don’t call the shots around here.”
She always had to be an asshole. Marlow briefly weighed the cost of interfering. He liked Cade—at least, since yesterday—but enough to get on Bennett’s bad side?
What the hell. It wasn’t that much different than being on her good side.
“Since when do you care about the news if you’re not on it?” he asked. There was maybe even a bit of edge under his mild delivery. He’d swallowed last night’s stunt, but it didn’t mean he’d liked it. “Turn it off.”
Franklin snorted and took a shot at the pool table. Balls rattled off each other with brittle cracks that reminded Marlow of the noise the trap had made as it snapped shut earlier. It made the back of his neck itch with sweat. The last thing Marlow would claim to be was squeamish. Not now, not after nearly a decade on Night Shift. It could have been him, though; it was just luck that it wasn’t.
And Marlow’s injuries wouldn’t be wiped away when the moon rose.
Franklin left the balls to ricochet off the green baize cushions as he straightened up. “What if she doesn’t?” he asked. “What are you going to do about it, Kit-kat.”
Bennett grabbed the black ball before it rolled into the pocket, her knuckles white as she clenched them around it, and then fired it back over the table toward Franklin.
“Do I look like I need your help?” she asked. “If I want to start something, I can do it myself.”
They glared at each other for a moment. The report on the screen droned on as they went back over Haley’s bio, including a never-aired detective show pilot and a brief relationship with a Hollywood d-lister.
Cade broke the tension with a dry snort. “Wait, I just remembered,” he said as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. “I can afford to drink somewhere else.”
He pulled a handful of notes out and slapped them down on the bar. “Drinks are on me,” he said, voice pitched to carry. “To thank you guys for your service.”
Someone whooped. Hands went up as people yelled out orders. Cade pocketed his wallet again and stalked out of the bar. The door slammed behind him.
Franklin laughed, a blurt of awkward, resentful humor, and jerked his thumb toward the door. “Some guys can’t take a joke,” he said.
Marlow lifted the cue ball off the table and bounced it on his palm. “Yeah, me,” he said. “Don’t call me Kit-kat, Franklin.”
Heavy-lidded blue eyes narrowed over broad, scarred cheekbones, and Franklin leaned forward. He braced his knuckles on the table, shoulders hunched under his shirt, and showed his teeth in a thin, mean smile.
