AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Watching him is addicting.
I wonder if that’s what he thinks every time he follows me.
“Good?”
He turns to me after swallowing. “Delicious.”
I beam at him. “I knew you’d love it! They’re hard to resist.”
“Hmm.”
We finish the sweet bread between the two of us and share the sweet coffee just before we make it to the morgue. I appreciate that he walks me to work, lingering at the morgue’s front door. I’m even more surprised when he trails in after me without a word.
“Um, I don’t think my boss would be happy if I let someone in the work space.”
Rowan shrugs. “Jim won’t mind.” I arch a brow at the use of my boss’s name, but he keeps going. “I’ve been in here before, you know.”
Righttt.That’s comforting in that it lets me overthink every awkward thing this man must have seen me do in my lifetime. It’s like coming face to face with God and pretending like he hasn’t seen you make yourself cum in the middle of the night while watching Bill Skarsgård play the most fucked-up clown in all of cinematic history.
How could I forget? To be fair, it’s easy to do that when we walk side by side, and for the first time in my fucking life, I feel normal. It’s weird. I can’t feel normal next to Simon, a cute-and-cozy actual nice guy. But I feel normal next to a man who has most definitely killed people.
Why am I like this?
“Right. Well, get ready for the... mess,” I tell him.
We step inside the room and are blasted with upbeat instrumental music and a voice that’s a mesh of pop and... scream-o?
Anna is in the middle of the room next to Hit-and-Run, a notebook in hand as she furiously takes notes and moves her body side to side in what I assume is dancing. It looks like she’s chanting an exorcism over the poor guy.
I wonder if he’s finally come back to haunt us for our annoying behavior?
“Um... Anna? What is this?”
Without looking up at me, she responds. “Do you think he got hit as a part of a more nefarious plan? Like what if he was involved with something he shouldn’t have been? What if he fucked over someone, and they had to make him pay?”
I feel my face heat up, and Rowan’s presence is suddenly very prominent at my back. “LikeThe Godfather?” I ask.
Anna’s face lights up but she still doesn’t look at me. Her pen taps aggressively against her journal. “Exactly! Like the Mafia!” She does another little jig. I can tell she’s excited about the Mafia idea because she keeps talking without a filter. “I bet you he stole from the local Mafia.”
“We have a local Mafia?”
This time, Rowan answers. “Of course, we do.”
At the sound of his voice, it’s like watching the hamster wheel stop turning within her mind in real time. Anna jerks and whirls her whole body in our direction, nearly tripping and stumbling onto Hit-and-Run. Her face flushes a shade as bright as her hair, and she pushes her big, round glasses up the ridge of her nose. She rarely wears those things, and I resist the urge to ask if she lost her contact lenses from all that dancing she’s doing.
“You’re not Theodore,” she stammers, her voice low like it gets when she’s embarrassed.
“Simon,” I correct.
I can immediately feel Rowan’s mood darken with just the sound of that name on my lips.
“This is Rowan,” I say before he can go on a rage. “Rowan Stone.”
Anna straightens and tilts her head to the side as she takes Rowan in. To be fair, there’s a lot to take in.
Anna has a tendency towards... having her head in the clouds. Reality and pain haven’t slammed into her yet, and so it makes her a person who is constantly smiling. Yet there are moments like these, moments of intensity that make her look absolutely fearsome and frankly,beautiful.
Once again, I’m very aware of myself in comparison. Anna has regal features that make me feel like she doesn’t really need cosmetics to enhance anything. Though if she let me at her face like I’ve asked before, I could make her absolutely stunning.
