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“She is a sore loser,” Fenway informed him, handing me my wine, then Kai his before moving to his side of the couch, and reaching for the remote.
“I am not!”
“I would let you win,” Kai said, hitting me with his shoulder as he reached to hand me my ravioli.
“You guys are making me seem pathetic,” I said, shaking my head. “No, not that!” I almost shrieked when Fenway clicked on The Bourne Ultimatum. That one was suddenly off limits. Along with all the Fast and Furious movies. And anything Stephen King. “I think there has been enough crazy in my life lately,” I was quick to cover when their eyes fell on me, worried. “I would just prefer something a little lighter,” I added.
“As you wish,” Fenway said, going back a screen and toggling over to comedies instead.
When that one rolled to credits, our bellies filled, my head a little swimmy thanks to Fenway being a little heavy-handed with the wine pours, and Kai immediately suggested another, I felt it again. The tug. The gut feeling thing I never used to believe in.
And when the second movie went to credits, and he suggested a third, there was no denying it anymore.
Kai was here for a reason.
He was there for babysitting or distracting.
But for whom?
I was saved from my curiosity a moment later when Fenway snatched the remote from Kai. “Alright. Me or her?”
“What?” Kai asked, feigning ignorance.
“Who are you here to keep busy, Aven or me? I very much doubt you have a pressing need to watch Dirty Grandpa at almost ten o’clock at night.”
“I think you underestimate my love of Robert De Niro,” Kai hedged.
“It has to be her, right?” Fenway pressed. “Quin doesn’t give a shit if I go stir crazy up here. But he cares about her. And he sure as shit doesn’t want the two of us getting close. So you’re here to distract and cock-block, am I right?” There was a sigh from Kai who was clearly not into outright lying to our faces. You had to respect that. “Why distract though? What are they up to?”
“Fenway, this is…”
“Is something going on with my case?” I asked, maybe a little too anxiously. If something was happening, it involved this woman. And I was worried it would not have a good end.
“Yes. But that is all I am allowed to say.”
“You do realize that that is going to drive her nuts now, right?”
“What can I say? I suck at this babysitting thing. Where is Ranger when you need him?”
“Off in his woods where poor, unsuspecting humans don’t have to cross paths with him, I hope,” Fenway said, lip curling, the two of them clearly not on good terms.
“Yeah. Well, now that I have utterly mucked this up, I can head down to walk Jules out, can’t I?”
With that, he gave my knee an apologetic squeeze, then jumped up to do just that.
“Those two crazy kids,” Fenway said to his retreating form before turning to me. “There’s really no point in sweating it, sweetheart. They do what they do. We sit here and allow it to happen. That is the deal when we sign up. We no longer have any say on how it gets fixed; we just get to enjoy the benefits of a life cleared of whatever mess we found ourselves in.”
“Yeah, but–” I trailed off, realizing what I was about to say right before it escaped my lips.
“But what?” he pressed. “I’m a big boy; I can handle it,” he added when I hesitated again.
“But the mess I am in is of no fault of my own,” I told him, knowing full-well that all his messes he had enjoyed creating. “I don’t like the idea of someone dealing with my problems for me.”
“Ah, that is the problem with you bootstrappers,” he said, making me jerk slightly at the term my father would have used, a word you didn’t often hear. At my raised brow, he shrugged. “You have always had to do everything yourself, so you don’t understand the freedom that comes along with delegating tasks.”
“Freedom that gives you space to fuck married women, you mean?” I asked, cringing at my snippy tone, knowing I was just snapping out of my own pride.
“Oh, say it ain’t so,” he said, sighing slightly. “I have gone and somehow pissed off the only person in this office who doesn’t already hate me.”
“You didn’t piss me off. I’m just… anxious. And tired, I guess.”
It was just a saying, but I found as soon as the words left my mouth that they were true. I was tired. The bone-deep kind. The kind where you could crawl into bed for ten hours, wake up, and were so exhausted that you just needed to curl back up again.
Maybe everything that had happened was finally catching up with me now that there was nothing left to worry about. I was out of my house, safe. I didn’t need to get up, go to work, put on a brave face I didn’t feel.
