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Christy hopped to her feet after a minute. “Want to go to the bar? Or you staying in to brood?”
“I need to check on Jesse,” I said, but then it occurred to me again that Eli had my phone.
I’d left it in his car, and he hadn’t dropped it off. I could’ve gone to his house to get it except that meant seeing Eli, and I wasn’t ready for that. I could’ve gone to the bar. I didn’t. I needed a break from him, too, and if an urgent job came up, I knew he’d tell me. No one called my phone other than someone offering work, Christy, Sera, or Jesse. They all either had my address or Eli would answer and tell them I left it behind. It was far from the first time I’d left the damn thing behind.
I wasn’t about to tell Christy where my phone was, so I held out my hand.
“Can I text Jesse? I left my phone somewhere again.” I gestured around the apartment, as if it was there. “Battery dead or ringer off.”
Christy rolled her eyes but handed her phone to me.
“You okay?” I texted.
“Fanger. Bit customer,” Jesse replied.
“Inbound. B.D.” I handed the phone back before Jesse could piss me off reminding me that “before dusk” wasn’t the same as arrivingatdusk. His bookshop was in Gentilly, a good five miles away.
Then without thinking much on it, I texted Tres. “Geneviève here. Friend’s phone. Lunch Saturday?”
He needed my help, and I was failing at the urge to resist finding a way to help him. It wasn’t like me to be like this, but it wasn’t an urge that was passing.
I grabbed a quick shower and walked out with Christy, who drove me partway.
“Tomorrow?” she asked when she dropped me off.
“Day after that. I promise.” I paused and added, “I texted Tres on your phone. If he replies to it, will you let him know I’m available Saturday?”
“Tres?”
“He’s a client.”
Christy shrugged. “Friday night?”
“I’ll meet you at the bar,” I swore.
It was late enough that I wanted to be sure she had time to get home safely, and I felt better with a couple miles of walking.
I headed out to look after Jesse, my mood lighter from a few minutes chatting with a friend. When I arrived at the bookshop, Jesse filled me in. Adraugr, at least ten to twelve years risen, was coming into the shop every night. It had bitten a customer, who had to be hospitalized for blood loss.
“That must be killing business,” I joked.
“Seriously, Gen?” Jesse scowled at my attempt at levity. “You might not be here behind the counter or tracking inventory, but it’s your shop, too.”
“On paper,” I reminded him, for what must have been the hundred and twenty-seventh time. I fronted the start-up costs the first year, and since then, Jesse had paid me enough to more than cover it. As far as I was concerned, we were square.
These days, Jesse was refusing to remove my name, and I was refusing to cash his checks. Eventually, checks expire, so in the end, the money stayed in his account. “I shredded the last check.”
“Just fix this,” he muttered when I stood grinning at him.
“Upstairs.” I pulled my sword out and dropped it on the wooden counter.
Then I shooed him away.
Jesse was the sort of man who looked like he wasn’t afraid of much. Muscles. Deep eyes. Dark skin. Gorgeous. Fortunately, Jesse was also secure enough in his manhood that he didn’t object to me being the one with the gun and the sword. He was my brother in heart, and my oldest, dearest friend if we needed to get technical.
He was also completely human, and if there was one person I’d slaughter the world to protect, it was him. We were friends in childhood. Friends as teens. Aside from one very awkward attempt at kissing, we had a long history of being the kind of friends that seem like cousins. And since my mother was an only child and my bio-father was dead, twice dead now, I didn’t have any relatives I knew of. Jesse was the only person, other than my mother, who had been in my life for most of my earliest memories.
Jesse was as protective of me as I was of him, but in vaguely overbearing-big-brothering ways—which was why I still hadn’t told him or ChristyorSera that Eli had been with me at the cemetery. They liked that I had back-up, but they’d seen the way time with Eli got me twisted up. I wanted him. I cared about him. And that made life complicated.
