Page 72 of Dark Obsession

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Demetrius found the chicken breasts and burger in the office refrigerator when he went to grab a Gatorade. He wiped sweat from his forehead and said, “Huh,” before closing the door and chugging half the drink. Returning to his desk, he sat, leaning back and sighing. Removing the bats from the client’s attic had been a hot, dirty job, but he’d gotten it done on his own. Just like Jugs and Cody had had to split up in the afternoon and each take two more calls. Their business was growing, which he was happy about, but…

He sat up and shook his head at himself. Always a ‘but’ with him. He could never seem to be happy about or satisfied with a situation. Cody had been calling him out on it ever since middle school. They were bringing in good money now, so he should be satisfied and proud of it.

But all three of them were working long hours and a lot of weekends. They really did need at least one new hire. Someone they could trust to represent the business and who would blend in well with their established team.

Downing the rest of the Gatorade, he set aside the empty bottle and started his computer. He entered his time and the client name and job number, then did the same with the information he found on a sticky note in Cody’s familiar handwriting. It sparked the memory of the night before. The middle of the night sex had been hot and frantic, the two of them almost desperate to reconnect, to find their harmony again through intimacy. He recalled the driving thrusts as Cody pumped into him, filling him over and over, until he’d finally emptied inside, and the faint heat of a blush across his face surprised him, but the fact that he was already half-hard just thinking about it didn’t. The love of his life, for the rest of his life, had been right beside him almost all his life. How had he gotten so lucky?

Setting the note aside, he adjusted himself then did some more work shifting money between accounts to cover utilities and rent. With the bookkeeping done, he opened a note taking app. He paused, his fingers over the keyboard as he thought over the last few days and tried to figure out where to begin. Everything they were dealing with now seemed to have started with their second ever monster call and the abandoned house on Shale Road, so he decided to begin there.

After entering the events and names of people—or vampires—involved, he hit return a few times, then added things they still needed to figure out. The identity of the person who had staked the vampire in that house, for one. The memory of those tiny fangs carved into the door still sent a chill through him. He figured that had been the same person who’d been in the woods when they’d taken out the zombie, keeping watch for the vampire’s return. He didn’t know if the identity of the owner of those boots was important, but he added it with a question mark. They also needed to understand how many vampires Bastian used to get blood for his contraband business, and just how far his distribution reached.

Jugs entered the office. His shoulders were slumped and his face beaded with sweat. He placed two invoices on Demetrius’s desk, both crumpled and damp. Going to his desk, he grabbed a plastic bag filled with what Demetrius assumed was cans of dog food, and left with a tired wave over his shoulder.

Demetrius set Jugs’s paperwork aside and focused on his note again. He added more space and entered the names of people who had become victims, either turned, dead, or vanished. Where he didn’t have a name—like the man whose funeral had been attended by the group of seniors from the potluck picnic—he added an associated name. He was surprised by the hot sting of tears when he typed out Andy and Annie’s names, and he wondered briefly what had become of their parents.

Cody pushed through the door, and the atmosphere of the office immediately shifted. He was dirty and sweaty, his smell washing over Demetrius like high tide. The threat of tears retreated as he turned his head to meet Cody for a kiss before he moved on toward the bathroom. Clouds had gathered during the afternoon, rumpled gray cotton darkening in the west with the threat of thunderstorms. Cody’s arrival, however, seemed to bring in a bit more light.

“Did you see my meat?” Cody called from the break room.

“I saw it, and I felt it inside my body last night,” Demetrius called back.

Cody came up behind and nuzzled his neck. “Last night was fucking hot.”

Demetrius turned his head for a long, slow kiss. “It absolutely was.”

Cody sat one ass cheek on the edge of his desk, a half-empty bottle of Gatorade in one hand. “We doing okay?”

Demetrius reached out and Cody took his hand. “Better than okay.”

“Good.” Cody thought a moment, fingers loosening and tightening the bottle’s cap. “I told Jugs about our weekend.”

“How’d he take it?”

“As expected.”

Demetrius grinned. “He’s very dependable.”

“Yeah.” Cody lingered on the edge of his desk, still working the bottle cap. “He asked me if I ever actually apologized to you.”

Demetrius raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

Cody met his eyes briefly. “Yeah. Did I?”

“I think we’ve talked it through enough.”

“But I didn’t say I was sorry?”

“You did.”

“Because I am. Sorry, I mean. I’m sorry how I reacted.”

Demetrius slipped a hand up the leg of Cody’s shorts and gently squeezed his thigh. “I know you are. And I’m sorry, too.”

“Okay.” The lines across Cody’s forehead smoothed out, and he leaned down for a quick kiss. He went to his desk and groaned as he sat in his chair. He put his boots on the desk, crossed at the ankles, and lifted his chin toward the computer. “What’re you working on?”

“I’m making notes about everything we’ve learned and what we still don’t know.”