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“Is that for me?” Lake asked with wide, hopeful eyes. He had big eyes, like a doe.
“I wouldn’t be caught dead eating that crap,” Grady replied. He wasn’t a big fan of fast food. If he wanted a nice juicy burger, he knew some great places, and he could make a delicious one at home. With nice thick beer-battered chips and a decent salad. Or vegetables, depending on the time of year and what the weather was doing.
“You bought me Maccas,” Lake said in wonder.
“You said it helped you,” Grady said defensively. It wasn’t as big a deal as the guy was making it out to be. It had taken barely two minutes to put the order in.
“I’m willing to negotiate where we take our honeymoon.” Lake practically fell on the food, hastily unwrapping the burger and taking a giant bite, moaning loudly. The sound was obscene and went straight to Grady’s groin.
“Thoughtful of you.” Grady had no idea what it said about him that Lake, looking like death warmed over, with bulging cheeks from the sheer amount of food he’d shoved in his mouth, still didn’t make Grady think he was any less attractive.
He really needed to get laid. Mal hadn’t been interested in sex in the last few months of their relationship. That should have been a warning sign for him, he guessed. But after three years, Grady had thought that was normal; didn’t it peter out after a while? The honeymoon period couldn’t last forever. And Grady had been busy at work on the case that had almost gotten Quinn’s boyfriends killed last year. Mal had always been so understanding of his job… until he hadn’t been.
“I need to take you back to get your car, but can we maybe wait an hour or two? I try not to vomit in my car.”
“Sure.” Grady understood that. It was a bitch of a smell to get out.
Somehow, they ended up spending the next few hours curled up on the couch watching reruns of a nineties sitcom. Grady made them a steak burger for lunch that Lake loudly decided—with a mouth full of said burger—he would replace with every other food group in the world. Luckily, he put pants on after that, saving at least some of Grady’s sanity, and then took Grady back to his car.
THREE MEN CAME OUTof the large two-storey house as soon as Grady and Lake had stepped out of Lake’s car. Grady recognised two of them as the hosts from last night: Felix Hawkins and Zach Walsh. The third was Lake’s younger brother, and—if Grady was remembering from the insane amount of inane chatter he’d been subjected to last night—their new boyfriend.
“Big night?” Zach asked, his dark brown eyes sweeping over them critically. His brown hair was tussled, and his clothes were askew. Grady would have bet that he and Lake had interrupted something that involved a lack of clothing.
“Grady shared his whiskey with me,” Lake said, smiling broadly as he slapped Grady’s shoulder. “And now I am delivering him back to his car. What the hell are you three doing?”
“Well—” Felix put a hand over Avery’s mouth, stopping the sentence. It didn’t matter. They were all adults; they all knew what those three had been getting up to. Lake’s question had definitely been rhetorical.
“I hope you treated my brother right,” Avery said, glaring at Grady. Grady couldn’t see the family resemblance. They had the same-coloured eyes and hair, and that was about it. Lake was taller. Bigger. And… friendlier.
“That’s cute,” Lake said. “But I’m the big brother, and he’s the wrong gender. Go inside and finish getting ravished by my besties.”
A red blush crept across Avery’s face. “Really?”
“I’m sorry; are we all pretending you three weren’t just in there having sex? You don’t have to come out here to check on me. I am literally just giving Grady a lift to his car.”
“Is that your shirt?” Avery asked suddenly, squinting at Lake’s outfit. “It looks a little big on you.”
The three men turned to look at Grady, and Grady refused to fidget under their stare or look guilty. Itlookedbad, but he hadn’t done anything wrong, and nothing had happened. He was the one that intimidated people, not the other way around. He’d been in an interrogation across from harder criminals than these men.
“I spilled stuff on mine.” Lake paused. “Oh. I forgot to grab it!”
“You know where I live; you can come and get it later,” Grady said. “Not now, though; I’m heading into the station after this.”
“So you two didn’t”—Zach flicked a finger between them—“do the horizontal tango.”
Lake laughed. “No! We did not bump uglies, but I appreciate your concern over my welfare.”
“It isn’t your welfare he’s concerned about,” Avery said dryly.
Grady could not believe that he thought a man who saidbump uglieshad a sexy mouth.
“His virtue is safe,” he said flatly. “Can I leave now, or do you need to run a background check on me?”
“Aren’t you a detective?” Felix asked. “You’re Quinn’s partner, right?”
“Would you prefer my resume instead, then?” Grady asked. He checked his watch, not even hiding the fact that he wanted to get out of there. He’d meant to go into the station hours before.
“Do you have one handy?” Zach asked with a broad grin.
