AllFreeNovel
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“And…what did I do that morning?”
“Came to fight with me in the jail.”
“What kind of lights do they have in there?”
“Fluorescent ones.”
“I wasn’t pissed. I had a headache, asshole. You were pissed atme. Because you didn’t want to be there. You wanted to be wasting your time handcuffed to various furniture.”
“Being handcuffed to furniture isn’t always a waste of time.”
I wheel around, and he’s smiling.
No. He’ssmirking.
“Are you making a sex joke right now?”
“Absolutely not. I’m a professional. I would never.”
I walked right into that one, didn’t I? I brought up that day in the jail. I brought up the handcuffs. And now he has to be remembering the conversation we had that day.
Girls like me?
Ones who get off on a rough fuck with a strange man.
Hercules purses his lips and tilts his head down again, scanning the tablet. “Who else? Someone in the art scene?”
“I’m not really in the art scene.” I add the slice of cheese to the eggs. Salt. Pepper. Bread in toaster, butter ready to go…
“The shooting happened at an art gallery.”
“Yeah. I was there for my friend.”
“Does she have a problem with you?”
“She didn’t seem to realize we were friends, so no, I can’t imagine she’d have a problem that would rise to the level of a contracted shooting.”
“Anybody else who’s ever taken an instant dislike to you?Besidesme.”
“I don’t know.” I rattle off a couple of people who have been rude and standoffish at other exhibitions. Comments about how I got where I am because of my father, as though skills can be bought, as though they weren’t born into money themselves. Art galleries only exist for rich people. “Like I said, I’m not in the scene very much. I don’t sell a lot of pieces.”
“Then how did you get well-known enough to be shot at at a gallery opening?”
I turn around and spear him with my best glare. “How do youthink?”
Hercules laughs. “That face is more intimidating on your dad.”
“Everything is more intimidating on a man who’s six five and could crush you with his bare hands.”
“Is it?” Hercules says it absently. He’s…he’s tall, too, which I refuse to think about any further. I finish scrambling the eggs as the toaster pops. I butter the toast in five seconds flat, tip the eggs onto the plate, and cover them with a second slice. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with before, would it?”
“What do you mean, before?” I pause halfway to the kitchen island, plate in hand. Hercules’s eyes are decidedly not unfeeling in this moment. There’s heat there. Maybe violence.
“In school. Did anything ever happen in school?”
“I was in school when I met you.” He knows what I mean.
Hercules’s hands clench around the tablet, highlighting all the muscles in his arms.
