Throat clearing from behind me brings me back to the world. “I can leave if you guys want? But I thought, I don’t know, maybe we can try to figure out who’s trying to get us locked up for life before eye fucking each other?”
I lean back on the couch. “Yeah, I’m never eye fucking you.”
Nicholas nods. “No offense, buddy. But me neither.”
Sam narrows his eyes. “That’s because I haven’t unleashed The CharmTMon you yet.”
I glare at him. “Don’t talk about unleashing gross things on my boyfriend,” I say before thinking.
Sam’s eyebrows go up, and he smiles. “Soft, I told ya. Tell us who else knows about the murders, Nick.”
I turn to find Nicholas grinning. Totally an inappropriate expression while talking about murders that could land us in prison. He clears his throat. “Right, so we had to share some details of the murders with the victims' families. Not everything, though. I’ll have to look through the reports to see who knew what. But yeah, that’s a batch of people who’ll definitely need to be questioned.”
“Right, so your team can do that, while we can look themup everywhere else in case, you know, they lie,” I say.
“So pessimistic.” Sam shakes his head in disappointment at me. “So, when can you hand me the list? I’ll look into everyone they could have told, too. Which will be a totally manageable number of people, I’m sure.”
Nicholas looks between us and keeps his plate on the table. “You guys wouldn’t last in the Bureau with that attitude.”
“We know that, Nicholas. We actually get things done,” I tease.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll get you the names sometime this week. There are a lot of reports because when you do things properly, you have to be accountable to your team. That means paperwork. Tons and tons of paperwork.”
“So we were saving humanityandtrees. Are you sure you don’t want to get credit for that from any god?” Sam asks me.
“Maybe we can look into Buddhism?” I suggest.
“While I’d love to see you guys immerse yourselves in the religion of peace, I’d love me some peace more.” He gets up and carries our plates to the kitchen.
“I can use some sleep too,” Sam says, giving an exaggerated yawn. He makes a beeline for his room. He’ssomaking breakfast tomorrow.
When I follow Nicholas into the kitchen, I find him leaning over the sink. If he’s going to be this nice, Sam will chew him up. I shake my head. He clearly needs some good influence in his life. “You cooked. We should let Sam clean the dishes.” I get a towel and start drying the clean dishes.
Nicholas smiles, his eyes almost drooping shut. “We’ll make him cook breakfast.”
I watch his tired face. “I knew you were not as nice as you pretend to be.”
He laughs. “You can’t be surprised by that anymore, baby.”
I hear a groan from behind. “That issogross and, frankly, offensive to the single population of the world. Don’t be inconsiderate asses,” Sam says, snatching the refrigerator door open and taking out a bottle of water.
“No PDA in the common area if you clean the dishes,” I offer.
“Put in eye fucking and flirting, and we have a deal,” he counters.
I toss the towel, grab Nicholas’s arm, and drag him out of the kitchen. “You got it,” I shout over my shoulder.
Nicholas lets me pull him to the bedroom easily. “I didn’t agree to that deal, just so you know.”
“You can use some reins, though,” I tell him.
“Ah, is that another one of your kinks?” He leans into me as soon as the bedroom door closes behind us. My heartbeat goes up at the words.Fuck, how can he unravel me just with his words?
I smile up at his tired face. “Not saying we won’t talk about it, but you need to sleep now.” The man was ready to fall asleep on my sink a few seconds ago.
“What,no,” he whines while stifling another yawn.
I raise my eyebrow. “You were saying?”
