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I blink as my thoughts scatter and my attention returns to the here and now. I turn and lift my gaze from the table in front of me to where Hades is standing in the doorway of one of the larger conference rooms at Crown and Black.
I lift a brow. “I could ask you the same question.”
He smirks, leaning against the doorframe and shoving his fingers through his longish dark hair.
“I was, uh, meeting Elsa for lunch.”
Hades’ fiancée, Elsa Guin, is an attorney and partner here at Crown and Black. How my lunatic wild-man of a brother managed to settle down at all, let alone with alawyer, more specifically a lawyer who has a teenaged kid sister who she basically raised and who Hades will now effectively be a stepfather to, is one of the universe’s great mysteries.
But stranger things, and all that.
My gaze drops from the smug, cat-who-caught-the-canary grin on my brother’s face to the front of his pants.
“Your fly is undone, and your shirt isn’t buttoned right.”
He glances down at himself, then looks up at me, the grin widening on his face.
“Well look at that. So it is.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t think Elsa needs you coming into her office and distracting her, Hades. Her job is intense, you know.”
Hades sighs, shaking his head. “Yes, Deimos, Idoknow that about the woman I’m spending the rest of my life with. I know a deep personal relationship with anyone, let alone a romantic partner, is a foreign concept to you—”
“Yes, hello, Mr. Pot, my name is Mr. Kettle.”
He snickers at me. “I’m a changed man, brother.”
I allow my lips to curl into a smile. “I know.”
“And I’m not stopping by tobother her. We actually enjoy spending time with each other, shocking as that may be. Again, it’s called being in a loving relationship. I highly suggest you try it someday.”
“I’ll have to take that under advisement.”
“Oh-kay, ah-firm-ah-tive, Dei-mos-bot five-thousand,” Hades barks in a mechanical robot voice.
“That’s incredibly funny, you should really take that material on the road.”
He grins. “Elsa thinks I’m hilarious.”
“Hate to tell you this, but Elsa is humoring you because she loves you.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’s not the dunk on me you might think it is, Mister Roboto.”
He’s not being an asshole. Hades has always had this joke with me where he leans into my…let’s call itclinicalway of thinking and talking at times. Hence, the robot voice.
Considering my past, you could argue that Hades mocking my stiffness and uniquely wired social skills is both insulting and cruel. But you can’t blame him. You can’t blame any of them.
Because none of them know what happened. Dad made sure of that, and I sure as hell never felt compelled to cozy up to any of them and give them the Cliff Notes version of my trip to hell.
Only my father and a few of his close top brass knew about that. And all of them, himself included, are dead now.
Hades saunters into the room and perches next to me on the conference table. “I wanted to ask you about something.”
“The suspense is killing me.”
He smirks. “Present shitty attitude aside, you’ve been…dare I say it…positive lately. Since you got back to New York, I mean.”
My brow arches. “I think you’re imagining things.”
