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“When will you be back?” I asked, earning myself a confused look from Becca and a pointed glare from AJ, who paused on the threshold to the kitchen.
AJ’s nose wrinkled. “Leave her alone, Grey.”
“I just want to know when to expect her back,” I explained, not allowing AJ to overrule me on this. She didn’t understand the stakes here. What exactly was going to be happening to her over the next sixty days. Her trials could happen anywhere, at any time. Someone entering the flat could just as easily be a member of the Saints, come to attack her in bed. Testing her ability to react in the heat of the moment.
If I heard an intruder in the night, I could at least give her a few seconds head start. Wake her up. Tell her to be ready for attack. And maybe not to kill whoever it was.
They were prepared for that, though. I’d have killed the one who surprise attacked me during my trials if he wasn’t wearing a vest and tactical gear.
“Um,” Becca replied, uncomfortable now. “I don’t know—”
“You don’t have to answer that,” AJ told her friend.
“It’s fine,” Becca replied with a little wave of her hand.
“I don’t know exactly when,” she told me. “But it’ll be late. Midnight, maybe. One, the latest.”
I cocked my head at her. I hadn’t expected that response. That was late. Really late. Where was she going?
Not my business.
“Thanks,” I said with a tip of my head. “I have your number. I’ll text you so you have mine. If you wouldn’t mind texting before you get back, that would be great.”
“You have my number?” she asked, surprise paling her salon-quality tan.
“Have a good night,” I replied, my words punctuated by a loud groan from AJ in the kitchen, followed by muttered curses as she began messing with pots and pans in the cabinet.
“Uh, yeah,” Becca replied, in a bit of a daze. “You, too.”
She left without another word, and I leaned over to lock the door behind her, bending to unlace my boots.
Asnappreceded a light sting on my forehead, and I jerked my head up, finding an elastic on the floor by my feet and AJ shooting mental daggers at me from the kitchen. “Don’t harass my friend or the next thing I launch in your direction won’t be as nice.”
The cast iron pan clutched loosely in her hand accentuated her point. I sighed.
“It’s for your own good,” I tried, seeing that I was going to get nowhere with her tonight. Not while she was riled up and still on edge about whatever was happening on her phone.
“It’s for your own good,” she mocked, turning on the gas burner and dropping the heavy pan onto it with a loud clamor. “If you’re eating here, then you can at least help me cook. Get over here and peel the onions.”
It was going to be a long night.
My hip boneand shoulder ached, pressed against her bedroom floor.
I shifted, trying to get comfortable with only one pillow to work with and no blanket.
I explained after dinner how I’d need to sleep in her room. Diesel’s orders meant as little separation from her as possible. If I slept in the living room, she could easily slip out her bedroom window without me noticing. I checked it out earlier, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to climb down.
As it was, with me on the floor between her bed and the window, escape using that route wouldn’t be possible. She could sneak out the front door, but I was a light sleeper. Unless she was ninja quiet, I’d hear her.
Not like I was getting any sleep, anyway. Though, neither was she.
She tossed and turned in her bed two and a half feet up and five feet away from me. Restless. Sighing heavily every few minutes.
I had no doubt it was my doing. The fact that I was here, in her personal space. Corvus was the same way. The only time he ever slept was alone in his room with the door both locked and deadbolted. His phone right beside his head. The light from his studio closet left on in case he needed to see anything when he woke.
I wondered if she was thinking of earlier, when I made her sit in her bathroom with me while I showered off the sweat from our run. I thought she might turn away. Not look as I stripped down and stepped into the glass encased shower, but she didn’t.
She folded her arms over her chest and stared openly, her expression betraying nothing as she watched me step inside and then wash myself meticulously from top to bottom.
