AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fuck.”
“Fuck,” Dante agreed. “Let’s talk about something else. Who do you think took a shot at you?”
André shifted toward him, earning a pout and a flop onto the rug from Luna. “How about we keep talking about this wooing?”
“How about we forget I used that word?” Dante’s cheeks felt hot.
Now André smiled—and then winced because he’d obviously forgotten about the injury to his cheek. “Mm, nope.”
Dante hung his head in mock despair. “Damn.”
“You really moved here for me?”
He appeared to be genuinely shocked. His reaction made Dante wonder about André’s past.
“Well, I suppose I moved here forme. Dani too. But it was still a very selfish act. Like I said, I’d wondered aboutusbefore you left town, about seeing if we could make it work. If you’d be interested in more than me stopping by between assignments or on my weekends off and taking you away from your evening tea and reading. It just took me a bit to realize that’s what it was.”
André’s lips parted, maybe to deny his reading habit, but Dante never found out. A pounding in the front door had both of them startling.
“Dante Castone, open up,” a deep, muffled voice demanded. A voice Dante was pretty sure he recognized, but he was feeling mighty paranoid these days.
He glanced at André, who frowned and shook his head.
“Get into the kitchen,” he demanded.
“Fuck that. You want us to start something, it’s not beginning with me hiding in the kitchen.”
“Always you have to argue.”
“You love it.”
“I do,” Dante admitted.
ELEVEN
André
André was only minimally relieved to learn that the uninvited guest turned out to be someone from the life Dante had recently left behind. A coworker, apparently. Did the guy have to choose this exact minute to interrupt their conversation? There were things André needed to say and questions he still needed to ask.
After the day he’d had, he thought he might have enjoyed a messy takedown as long as he emerged unscathed. Being closer to fifty than forty had some pros—he was still alive and kicking, after all—but age also had its downsides. Like the fact that his right shoulder throbbed along with his face. And it would be a few days before he shook off the aches and pains, not just by tomorrow morning.
“Fuck you, Morrison,” Dante rumbled at the giant waiting on his tiny porch. “Did you have to knock on my door like some kind of enforcer?”
André didn’t bother to hide his smirk at the complaint. Dante didn’t really have an argument seeing as how he also liked to use a heavy fist when he pounded on people’s doors.
Luna hadn’t barked, which surprised André. Instead, she lurked in the shadows of the front room with her tail slightly lowered. The dog eyed the open door, watching Morrison as if to determine whether he was friend or foe. She must have decided he was no immediate threat because she shook out her entire body before padding over to lean against André’s thigh.
“Eh.” The man spread his hands apart, palms outward, in a gesture of peace. “I don’t get out much these days. Hatch keeps me on a short leash.”
Morrison filled the entire doorframe. He was a giant of a man with thick, curly hair that was absolutely not regulation. Undercover for certain, or maybe he just did what he wanted.
“I can’t imagine why,” Dante scoffed, backing away from the porch and motioning Morrison inside.
André’s stomach chose that moment to growl again, even louder than a few moments ago. Both men turned to look at him. Morrison paused with one foot raised over the threshold, obviously impressed by the volume, and Dante’s scowl deepened. With an exasperated huff, he pulled Morrison inside and slammed and locked the door shut behind him.
“I suppose I’m feeding you too?” he asked his visitor.
Morrison plastered a ridiculous smile on his face and batted his eyes at Dante. André wondered how good of friends they were. Had they worked closely together or were they just in the same office?
