“Or I’m going to tell Rook how upset it makes me until he comes over there and makes you regret even opening your mouth.”
Mason stared a moment longer before his face broke into a wide smile. “You show up and immediately have a fucking guard dog. Not fair,” he said, but sat back, still smiling.
“A guard dog?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at Rook.
“Woof,” he whispered, his breath tickling my ear.
“And that’s it? I say the word and you hit him?”
“Pretty much.”
“But he’s your friend?”
“No friend of mine is going to disrespect you and there be no consequences. Mason is joking, so that should shut it down, but I promise, if you felt it was serious, he and I would have an issue.”
“And he would hit you if the tables were turned?”
“I would imagine.”
I leaned back into him, pulling the blanket Evie had handed me higher on my chest. “Evie, you really went all out on this. It’s creepy, but not gross. You did amazing.”
She smiled, leaning back in her pillow to face me more. “Thanks. I really don’t have a lot to do around the shop sometimes, so I like to plan some fun stuff for us. It gets me out of the house and out of being trapped in a dirty garage with all these guys.”
“What all do you do at the garage?” I asked.
Evie looked at Rook, and I could see the question. She was waiting for him to give his approval, waiting to know if I was allowed to know things or not. I held my breath, already preparing myself to once again be left out.
Rook shifted behind me, and Evie looked back at me. “All the computer stuff. I’m really good at getting documents we need or getting into digital places we need to go. I run the website, the socials, the client list, everything like that.”
They seemed like two different things, but I didn’t want to ask a hundred questions the minute someone let me in.
“Oh, that’s really cool. I don’t know how you get bored with all that.”
She shrugged. “You get good enough at it and it’s just the same thing each time.” The movie blared that it was starting, and she turned to it with a smile.
Rook’s lips were at my ear. “She’s essentially a hacker. She is very good at getting intoanydigital place we need.”
“Interesting. Can you do any of that?”
He laughed, quietly. “Not even a little.”
The movie boomed. The classic slasher film was actually one of my favorites. As much as I hated a lot of horror movies, the classic slashers were always good. Rook’s arms tightened around me, sinking me further against him.
“Freaking out?” he whispered.
“Not at all,” I said. “I’m apparently sleeping with the monsters now. What do I have to be scared of?”
Twenty-Five
Rook
Two days later, I was sitting in the garage with Aiden.
“What are we going to do?” Aiden asked, looking back over the paper. The place we lived together had officially sold, and they wanted us out in two weeks.
“About what?” I asked, my mind wandering from what we were talking about. I’d been too busy looking at my phone, wondering why Regan hadn’t responded. I texted her yesterday and hadn’t heard a word since. I’d been so busy working that I hadn’t been able to go check on her, but it didn’t seem like a good sign that she was ignoring me after we slept together.“Move? If they are selling the place and want us gone, what else would we do?”
“There’s seven of us, Rook. Where the fuck are we supposed to move to?”
