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“I’m not doing anything,” Demetrius said in a calm voice. “I’m just going about my work day.”
Cody stared harder, and Demetrius turned his attention back to the computer.
“Fine!”
Cody dropped heavily into his chair and stared at the envelope lying on his desk. He pressed his lips together, shook his head, then snatched up the envelope and viciously tore it open. Yanking out the papers from inside, Cody read in silence for a moment, then swore and tossed them over to Demetrius’s desk.
Demetrius wasn’t in the right frame of mind for deciphering legal jargon, but giving it a quick scan confirmed his suspicion. It was a civil suit against Cody brought by the Wolek family for the death of their son, Phillip.
“We’ll call Dieter,” Demetrius said as he set the papers aside. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Fucking Dieter.” Cody put his head in his hands and huffed out a breath. “Fucking Woleks.”
“I know, it’s shitty. But there’s not much we can do about it.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Cody snapped his head up, his tone sharp and gaze angry. He winced and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. Fuck. You’re the only one on my side, and here I am yelling at you about it.”
“It’s all right. And I’m not the only one on your side. You have a lot of people supporting you. This is a bullshit case, everyone knows it. We have the medical records proving Phil was already dead when you… stopped him from trying to eat me.”
Cody’s expression shifted to something so sad and lost, it ignited an ache deep inside Demetrius. “How did this become our lives?”
“I don’t really know, to tell you the truth. It started with a werewolf and spiraled from there.”
“Fucking werewolves.” Cody looked at the scar on his forearm. “Fucking zombies.”
“Fucking monsters,” Demetrius added. The phone rang, and he smiled. “And now we have some business coming in. See? It isn’t all terrible.”
Cody scowled. “Yeah? You don’t know who’s on the other end of that call.”
Demetrius put as much confidence as he could muster into his expression before picking up the phone. “Critter Catchers, this is Demetrius.”
“There are four raccoons living in the upstairs room of my house!”
The woman’s voice was frantic, and Demetrius could hear her panting breaths through the phone.
“Okay, ma’am, it will be all right. We specialize in raccoon removal.”
Cody shrugged and got up, walking past as Demetrius wrote down the woman’s address and phone number. Demetrius reassured the woman several more times, told her someone would be arriving soon, and instructed her to keep the door to the upstairs room closed. Cody exited the bathroom as Demetrius hung up the phone.
“You heard?” Demetrius said.
“Raccoons all up in her house?”
“Right. She said four of them.”
“A veritable gang.”
Demetrius turned in his chair and smiled up at him. The bruised skin beneath his eyes, the deeper crow’s feet at the corners, and the unusual downturn to his mouth were evidence of the toll the last couple of months had taken on him. Getting to his feet, Demetrius stood on his toes and put his arms around him. Cody leaned down and wrapped his big arms around Demetrius, enveloping him in warmth and his unique scent of deodorant and the tang of sweat.
“I love you,” Demetrius said quietly. “With all my heart.”
Cody huffed a quiet, emotional breath and tightened his hug. “God, I love you so fucking much it terrifies me.”
“We’ll get through this.”
“You sure?”
Demetrius pulled his head back but kept his arms around Cody’s neck. He looked into his soft brown eyes, so familiar, and smiled. “We’ve made it through a lot worse. We’ll get through this as well.”
