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I couldn’t reveal to him that I didn’t.
“Of course not,” I said. I gripped the doorknob and ducked away into my bedroom. As soon as the door was closed behind me, I sagged against it, clutching my queasy stomach.
I needed him out of here, out of my life. But how could I convince him to leave if he didn’t care how willing I was?
Chapter Nine
Seth
When I’d texted Damon asking if I could stop by his place to talk, I hadn’t expected him to suggest the Bluebell Café as an alternate meeting spot. It didn’t seem to fit his current image. But when I came out to the back patio with its picnic tables under bright gingham umbrellas, lilting piano following me through the screen door, he was sitting there already halfway through a slice of peach pie, looking satisfied if not exactly relaxed. When did Damon ever look really relaxed?
I started to think this conversation might go better than I’d hoped. My mistake.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down across from him as he dug into the rest of the pie. “Thanks for coming.”
He shrugged and shot me a wary glance. “Your mom still makes the best pies,” he said, as if he needed to explain why he was eating.
A flash of memory hit me: We must have been only eight or nine years old, the five of us guys and Rose, sitting on the gritty floor of the estate’s old hunting cabin that was one of our favorite haunts, laughing and scooping mouthfuls of still-warm apple pie out of the pan with our hands. My mom had passed her creation off to me and Kyler from the manor’s kitchen with a grin.I made something extra for you kids.
I’d realized when we’d brought it out there to meet them that we should have brought plates and forks too, but Damon had said,Aw, it’ll be cold by then. What do you think hands are for?And plowed right in. We’d been a mess afterward, but nothing a splash in the pond couldn’t fix.
I could almost taste the apple sweetness and the cinnamon from back then. Suddenly I had a craving for a slice from the café. But I wasn’t here to get a snack. I was here to make sure Damon didn’t get us into any messes wecouldn’teasily clean up.
“So what did you want to talk about anyway?” Damon asked, spearing a piece of the crust with his fork. “Need an extra hand with something you wouldn’t go to your brainiac brother for?” He smirked at me.
“No,” I said. “Actually, I thought maybe I could help you out. I was talking with one of the contractors Dad brings on for some of the projects—Mr. Lewis, the electrician. He said he’d be open to taking on an assistant as an apprentice. Paid, of course.”
Damon lowered his fork. “You’re trying to hook me up with a job.” His tone was unreadable.
“Well, yeah.”
“I work, you know,” he said, starting to bristle, and that was my first clue this wasn’t going to go well at all. “I pay the bills I need to. I don’t need you or anyone else pulling favors for me. Why did you think I’d want to be an electrician’s assistant?”
“It’s a good job,” I said. “In a few years you could be fully qualified. Electricians make a lot of money, you know. And it’s not like people are going to stop using electricity any time soon.”
“I didn’t ask for a list of selling points,” Damon said. “Why are you trying to get me a job at all? I’m fine.”
God, how would Gabriel have handled him? He’d always managed to somehow cool Damon down without turning him sulky. I didn’t have even that kind of magic. I wavered and settled on honesty. Honesty and one thing I knew for sure Damon cared about.
“I know you are,” I said. “I’m not worried about you. I don’t think you need charity. I’m thinking aboutRose. We’re all tied to her now. The kind of ‘work’ you’re doing, the way you make your money… the people you work for… The deeper you get with them, the more you’re bringing them into her life too.” And Lord knew she had enough on her plate without having to cope with small-time gangsters casing her and her estate.
Damon scowled at me. “I’ve been dealing with these guys for years. I think I can manage to keep them away from Rose.”
“So you didn’t go to one of them to crack Mr. Cortland’s phone?”
His eyes twitched. Uh-huh. “How do you know anything about that?” he demanded.
“She passed some phone numbers on to Kyler yesterday for him to look up,” I said. “She told him where she’d gotten them. We’re all in this together now. You can’t just—”
He couldn’t just steal people’s fucking phones and draw Rose even more into the line of fire, I wanted to say, but I thought better of it at the last second. Damon was already fuming. You could practically see smoke rising off that spiky hair.
Okay, it was probably time to call this. Attempt number one at bringing Damon back to the non-criminal life: total failure.
He shoved his plate away and stood up. “No one is going to take care of Rose better than I will,” he said darkly. “So take your pity and your job offer and shove it up your ass.”
He stalked off down the alley, not even bothering to walk back through the café.
When he’d passed out of sight, I leaned my head into my hands and groaned. Great work, Seth. Way to make your case.
