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Gavin crossed his arms over his chest and managed to look adorably petulant and stormy. “Do not send Joe over here. I’ll take care of myself if I need anything.”
“How?”
“Deliveries?”
Unconvinced, I nodded. Unless there was a secret database full of door-to-door delivery service for rich folks in the Hamptons, which there likely was, he was going to be without.
“Well if you forget something, make a list and I’ll get it first thing tomorrow. Just leave it on the counter with the cash.”
“I’ll leave my black card. I already had you added as an authorized user.”
My eyebrows flew up. “When did you do that?”
“I dunno. Last week?”
I pursed my lips, and wondered if I’d ever been on a probationary period, or if he’d been planning to hire me all along. The likely answer was that he’d probably just wanted to make me sweat for the past two weeks. And he had.
It was tempting to tell him what an ass he was, but given my contract and my bonus, my mouth stayed shut. If we were going to be holed up together for the next few months, I’d have to start learning how to hold my tongue.
I started for the door but Joe’s words came back to me, and I hesitated.
“Gavin?”
He’d already repositioned himself on the bench, but glanced over at me. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to tell you about something else Joe said. About what he wants me to do.”
Gavin leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “And what’s that?”
“He . . .”
Gavin waved an encouraging hand with a smartass look on his face. I scowled.
“He wanted me to let him know if you’re doing anything that might put your reputation at risk. Hanging out with shady people or something. I told him I wouldn’t spy on you, and he let it drop, so I think it really was out of concern but . . . yeah.”
Gavin didn’t move from his position, and his expression didn’t change. He didn’t even look surprised. After a beat, he shook his head and settled back on the bench with his muscular thighs spread.
“I appreciate you letting me know.”
I nearly fell over in relief and said, while hurrying towards the door, “No problem.”
“Noah.”
I paused midstep.
“Just so you know, there are cameras all over the house. I put them there just in case you’re an untrustworthy asshole.”
“And now you know I’m not?”
Gavin lifted a bar with more weight than I could ever lift.
“Something like that.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or be exasperated, but it was a step in the right direction.
Chapter Eight
Noah
“Anyone ever tell you that you look like Clark Kent?”
The question was a reminder as to why I should have listened to my instincts and made tracks out the door as soon as Gavin had told me his “boys” would be spending their off day at the mansion. His boys being the quarterback and running back of the Barons—Simeon Boudreaux and Marcus Hendricks. They were so famous, even I knew their names. I’d bought Jasmine a limited-edition Hendricks “22” jersey for Christmas one year, for Chrissakes.
“C’mon,” Simeon cajoled. “Have they?”
Why was he talking to me? I didn’t understand. I’d tried, for the past two hours, to keep myself occupied enough to not have to be in the game room with Marcus, Simeon, and Gavin, but the auburn-haired quarterback had come hunting me down.
Simeon Boudreaux, one of the highest paid players in the NFL, had hunted me down. And he was now leaning across the kitchen bar in all of his bronze-skinned, hazel-eyed, curly-haired glory, giving me the biggest shit-eating grin I’d ever seen in my life. His looks, combined with his accent, were already enough to make him a distraction—not that Marcus was easy to ignore, with his lean, muscular body, flawless dark skin, and long dreads—but why the hell was he talking to me? I was nobody.
“No. No one has ever said that.”
Simeon looked me up and down much the way Gavin did at least twice a day but without the judgment and scorn. In fact, it was an eyefuck. A blatant eyefuck. Simeon Boudreaux was eyefucking me. And since Marcus and Gavin had followed him down into the kitchen, they were watching it happen. Well, Gavin was watching it happen. Marcus was standing in front of the fridge.
“You ever see those gay pulp magazines that were takes on comic books?”
“No . . .”
Simeon propped his elbows up on the bar and leaned forward more, grinning bigger. “Well, I did. And they had all kinds of erotic scenes of Superman getting gangbanged by villains and whatnot. Also twink, big-booty Clark Kent.”
I looked at Gavin, who was staring stonily at his best friend, and then at Marcus, whose shoulders were shaking with laughter.
“Are you trying to get me to admit I read gay porn comics so you can humiliate me? Because I’m pretty sure this was the plot of a Degrassi episode.”
