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I smiled. “Thank you. I admired your breasts.”
It was a toss-up between who reacted more strongly—Magnus or Clint. Clint choked and Mag stared at me as if horns had sprouted from the bee’s nest atop my head that kept falling out of its scrunchie.
I really needed to stop skipping the conditioner when I showered, but before recently, I hadn’t worried about ever seeing much of anyone but Princess.
Now I was answering doors to strangers—or I would’ve been, if Clint hadn’t neatly cut me off at the pass.
“Ask who it is first,” he reminded me gently before doing the honors himself.
I had a tendency to forget that step.
“Who is it?” Clint said into the speaker.
“Clintondale, it’s your father. I’m coming up.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Clint whirled toward me, his green eyes wilder than I’d ever seen them. “Fee, go fix your skirt. And your shirt. Lose the throw. Hurry. Look presentable.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why is that buzzkill Dad here? Can’t a girl get some in peace once in a while? Did Em rat me out that I was escaping here? I’m gonna kill her.”
“The father?” Mag’s voice sounded strangled. “I gotta go.”
Clint threw out a large beefy arm to block my best friend’s flight from justice. “You have nowhere to go, remember? You did the crime, now you’ll do the time.” Clint swallowed audibly. “Me too. Fuck. I haven’t even had any sleep. And my sweetheart needs to eat.”
“Oh, I had an English muffin on my way out the door—” Silence descended as I realized he was cooing to the cat on his shoulder. “Oh, right. Gotcha.”
“We’ll talk.” Clint’s eyes softened as our gazes locked. “After I get rid of my father.”
“Yeah, get rid of him,” Felicia called, hurrying up the hall toward the rooms in the back of the apartment. “Tell him Em’s pregnant. That’ll get him off our backs.”
Magnus tucked his fists under his arms. “Who’s Em?”
“Another sister.”
“Jesus, how many do you have?”
“More than you can sleep with, you horndog.” Clint shifted “his sweetheart” cat to his other shoulder where she began gnawing on his hair and peering out at me between his curls, her bright yellow eyes aglow.
“Dad, I’m releasing the door,” Clint said into the speaker. “Come on up.” Then he lifted his finger from the button and lightly but repeatedly thunked his forehead against the door. “I’m never getting any sleep. Or peace. Or a meal not from a vending machine. I ate the sub,” he added before I could ask. “It was one of the few bright spots in my shittastic day. That and Charise. Stop getting my hair gooey, you rugrat.”
She didn’t stop.
A moment later, Clint’s father opened the door and stepped into Clint’s apartment, all six-foot-six inches of him, complete with thick salt-and-pepper hair and a booming voice that made me think he could give speeches to his constituents without needing a microphone.
I immediately shrank behind the not very concealing plant as his overwhelming energy filled the apartment. No wonder Clint didn’t know how to say no to the man. Holy crap.
“What’s this about you not coming to dinner, Clintondale, and breaking your mother’s heart?”
So much for easing into things.
“Dad, you came all this way to ask that?”
“Yes. And to ask why Felicia felt the need to leave home right before the holidays.”
Felicia was already heading back down the hallway to the foyer. “I didn’t leave home, Dad. I just needed a break. I can’t stand any more togetherness, okay?”
The loud voices startled the kitten. Clint tried to adjust her on his shoulder, and she flailed and jumped out of his arms, landing awkwardly on the floor.
I expected her to shake it off and run away like a kitten usually would, but she stayed sprawled for an extra half minute and then found her way to her feet before toppling over again.
