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Following me down the stairs he whistled as he looked around. “Damn. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. Drew seems like the kind of girl who would live in a bomb shelter or something equally as safe and impenetrable.”
If he was looking for an answer, he didn’t get one. We weren’t friends. I wasn’t going to gossip about Vienna with him.
Fletcher must have got the hint because he didn’t try to engage me in any more conversation until we had his car secured in the house next door, and he propped himself up on the island as he watched me cook.
“So where is our lovely lady?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Working.” I emptied a box of farfalle pasta into boiling water, and then dropped the onions and garlic in the skillet, rotating them around to soak in the olive oil I’d already drizzled in. Once that was done, I sweated it down with a quarter cup white wine, and finally added cream and a few other seasonings.
While that was simmering, I slid a pan of homemade garlic bread into the oven, forgetting that I had a man watching my every move. It was easy to do while cooking. It had always been something of a hobby for me, and tended to release all the shit from my mind, giving me a nice escape from time to time.
I’d cooked more here than I ever had for myself, and I found I really enjoyed taking care of Vienna. Especially since she appreciated my efforts and wasn’t afraid to show it in her own way.
“You look very comfortable in her house,” Fletcher mused. I flicked my gaze to him, catching a speculative look before he blanked his expression.
Shrugging, I stirred the sauce, and drained the pasta in the sink, saving a few tablespoons of pasta water for when I mixed it in with the sauce.
“Listen, Rick. I’m not trying to be your enemy. Definitely not Drew’s. Truce for the time being?” Fletcher held out his hand, probably not missing the very clear nonverbal signals that said I didn’t want him anywhere near this house.
I studied the hand he offered, then him. He’d only washed his hands after we’d finished moving everything. His hair was still slightly askew, though he’d made some attempt to pull it back again. It was sticking out in places. While the sheen of sweat had dried, there was still some dust on his cheek that highlighted one of the bruises he still had though it had long since faded to yellowish-green. The bruising must have been significant to last this long.
With care, I rinsed my hands off and then dried them. Fletcher began to withdraw his hand but halted when I extended my own. If he could try to make peace, then I could try to respect it. “I still don’t trust you,” I warned him as I grasped his hand.
“Fair enough.” Despite the glibness of his tone, he exhaled a sharp breath. The handshake was firm and brief. “Can I help with—?”
“No,” I informed him. “I cook. You sit there and wait.” Then because we were attempting this polite thing, I offered, “Would you like something to drink?”
One corner of Fletcher’s mouth kicked up and he licked his lips. Did he have a tongue piercing? I’d noticed it before, briefly, but hadn’t really focused on it. It was probably glorious when they did that and he couldn’t talk after.
Maybe we could get him another piercing for similar effect.
“I’d like a full bottle of ice-cold vodka, but a beer will do and if that’s not an option, soda or water. I’m pretty easy.” Considering he just gave me a list of options, I rather doubted it. That said, I’d share one of my beers with him. Vienna mostly preferred her wine or water. She rarely drank. In fact, what alcohol she had in the house seemed to never diminish. The beer had only been added because I’d picked up a six-pack once.
After that, she always restocked it. I like that she noticed things such as that. That said, I pulled two bottles out of the fridge and opened them both before sliding the cold over to Fletcher.
“Thanks, man,” he said. “I really can use this today.”
It was probably the most honest thing he’d said since he arrived. “What happened today?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. “You were fine at lunch and now—” I motioned toward him. “Now you’re in trouble.”
“Didn’t say I was in trouble.” The almost immediate, if guarded, defense would have waved warning flags at me on a normal day. This, however, was not a normal day—well, not for him anyway. Nor me if I were being honest, though from waking up with her to working together all day, I would like this to become the new normal with Vienna.
Giving him some space, I went back to my meal preparation. The meat would take a minute and the pasta was coming along nicely.
“You do what I do and sometimes you have to be ready to make yourself scarce,” Fletcher told my back. “You don’t always want people to know where to find you.”
“Hmm,” I said in as noncommittal a response as I could muster. After all, I wasn’t sure what kind of people he was avoiding.
“Look, I’m not bringing trouble to her. This is my issue and I’ve taken care of it. Going off the grid for a while will do the rest.”
I took another swallow of beer and glanced over to catch him raking a hand over his disheveled hair before he tugged out the tie and went to work finger combing it and trying to gather it all back up. The brash, ballsy flirt was nowhere in sight. In fact, all I got from him was exhaustion, edged with discomfort and maybe a little fear.
The fear made sense. Even the exhaustion. Something got to him between lunch and when we called—that hadn’t been more than a couple of hours, if that. The threat must have been damn serious. “How long do you think you’ll need?”
“What?” He blinked, as if he just remembered I was there.
“How long do you think you’ll need to disappear for?”
“Twenty years if I’m lucky,” he muttered before tipping the beer up and draining it. I debated my next act, but alcohol did loosen people up and sometimes reveal more than they should. So, I offered him a second cold beer. “Realistically? A couple of months. I can scout my next place, make sure it’s better secured, then settle in and get back to work—business as usual. No more client meetings at my place though.”
