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“Call me Ollie again and I’ll—oh, never mind.” Ulysses stops just short of threatening a policeman.
Holy hell.
I slip past with two boxes labeled Kitchen stacked in my arms.
They’re not heavy, but they are tall. I can barely see to navigate and these two dolts are in the way.
“If you guys are done flirting,” I snap, “you could both just carry the damn thing inside. It’s too heavy for one person. Even if that person is a huge meathead determined to swing his dick everywhere.”
Ulysses blinks at me before I’m past them, ducking into the house.
“...was that for him or for me?” he calls mournfully.
I almost smile even though they’re irritating the hell out of me.
Really, when he tries to stop sounding so posh and sophisticated, he’s just kind of a hot mess and a little dorky.
“Friend,” Lucas says, “I’m pretty sure she meant both of us. You gonna move or what?”
Rolling my eyes, I drop my boxes on the kitchen counter, then lean against the sill of the little dining nook window I’ve left open to let the place air out.
“I mean that if either of you lunks drop my TV, I have zero shame about making you buy me a new one,” I say, watching them through the screen. “It took me a year of tips to buy that thing. So stop being assholes with the one nice thing I own.”
Ulysses cocks his head at Lucas. “Together on three?”
“Yeah,” Lucas agrees. I think he might almost be close to smiling—if only his pride and whatever weird grudge he has with Ulysses would let him.
They finally manhandle the TV through the gate and up the walk.
I race out to catch the gate and hold it open for them.
As they pass by, I hear Ulysses whispering, “She’s rather sweet when she’s threatening us, isn’t she?”
“Whatever,” Lucas mocks. “Guess it brings out the beautiful spark of violence in her eyes.”
“Hey!” I point at them as I duck around and head back to the car. “Stick to sniping at each other. Start aiming it at me and I’ll bite you both.”
“Threesomes ain’t my thing, New York,” Lucas says distractedly as he backs his way up the porch steps.
I freeze midstep, already dead.
“I figured as much, but I hoped you’d surprise me, Graves.” Ulysses honestly sounds baffled. “Are you really so dull in the sheets?”
If Lucas’ eyes could shoot death rays, Ulysses’ head would be vaporized.
“Keep in mind that I’m in a position to use this thing to shove you flat on your ass, Ollie,” Lucas snarls.
“Only if you remember I’m in a position to have you fired and run out of town, Graves,” Ulysses answers just as pleasantly, right before they both vanish into the house.
Jeez. Too harsh.
My whole body tenses.
There’s a deadly silence, this brief moment of levity evaporating like a scarce raindrop in the desert.
Then I hear Lucas grind out, “I’m well aware.”
Ulysses doesn’t answer.
He just smiles strangely.
It’s the last I see of them before the shadows of the living room swallow them up and they hang a left out of sight inside the house.
I just keep staring.
I can’t.
I can’t even process a flipping thing that just happened.
Lucas and threesomes and Ulysses’ vicious threats and—
Somebody save me.
Now.
Especially when there was no third wheel in my imagination.
Just a single hard, flexing body drenched with sweat, eclipsing me completely.
Warm spring-green eyes so hot with passion, a rough voice dragging out low, sugar-sweet groans and filthy promises—
Yikes.
I think I’m having a hot flash.
Can you start menopause at twenty-four?
Nope.
Nah.
Nada.
Nyet.
I go through a global litany of ways to say hell no as I throw myself back into work—and into pointedly ignoring whatever’s going on with those two big idiots while they keep sniping at each other.
It’s the most Southern passive-aggressive nice-nasty fight I’ve ever seen.
I don’t even know what they’re fighting about, only that they don’t like each other, and the sizzle in every glance between them makes me think I’m about to witness a new murder.
As I head outside for another box—we’re working practically in a relay at this point, always one at the car, one in the house, one somewhere in between—I stop in the entryway from the dining nook to the living room.
There’s no blood on the floor now.
No chalked outline of a body.
No yellow crime tape.
Nothing to show Emma Santos ever died here, rudely upending my new life.
But I can feel her anyway, like she left an impression where the air feels colder every time I walk by.
Just my imagination, I’m sure. It still makes me hustle along faster.
I step back outside and grab another box. The back of the Kia’s almost empty now, and as much as they’re annoying me, I appreciate the fact that they’ve cut my unpacking time down to a third and saved me a horribly sore back.
It’s not my back I need to worry about, though.
