“You can’t kill her and add her to your bucket list.”
Fate was right. He was edgy. This girl was getting to him and that could be very, very bad. “I can’t believe you’re sleeping with one of Malokin’s people. If you haven’t noticed, we’re at war with him. What are you thinking?”
“She’s not with him,” Lars’s voice was firm and more than a little defensive. His hand ran through his long black hair as he sighed. It took a full minute before he spoke again, less decisive this time. “At least I don’t think she is. Talking about fucked up relationships, how’s yours?”
“I don’t have a relationship.”
“Sure you don’t. You two walk around saying nothing about anything and pretend it’s completely normal. Worry about your own issues.”
He resettled the rifle in his lap as I stared at the chips in my nail polish in the heavy silence.
“We’re both screwed up. But your situation is still worse.” All I needed to do was stick my tongue out to make that statement complete.
He turned his head toward me and raised his eyebrows. “Care to debate that?”
I stared down at my nails again, thinking that having them plucked off one by one would be preferable. “I won’t talk about yours, if you don’t talk about mine.”
“Done. That was significantly easier than I had imagined.” He waved a finger toward my hip. “On to other subjects, I’m supposed to take a peek at that.”
“Sure.” I kicked my feet up on the railing beside his but with not nearly the same satisfying thud.
“I’m not going to see anything wrong with the tattoo, am I?” he asked as neither of us made an effort toward show and tell.
“Nope.”
“Care to share what the issue is?”
“Nope.”
“Understood.”
I stood and stretched out my arms with a yawn. “It’s been nice chatting with you, Lars. Sort of, anyway.”
“Back at ya, babe,” he said, using the top of the gun to salute me.
Chapter TwentyTwo
We all watched The Matrix the next night—for our own individual reasons. I’d seen the movie more times than I could remember and was looking for a mindless diversion while I waited to see if there would be retaliation from the recent hit on Malokin’s men. Luck would do anything that avoided being in the room she shared with Mother. I swore Mother was just there to annoy Luck. The Jinxes thought Neo was almost as cool as Fate and Murphy—well, he just went along with the plans usually.
When the doorbell chimed, every head popped up. People came and went constantly now. The only oddity about getting company was who would bother to ring before entering?
Fate rose and headed over to the door as if he’d expected guests.
“Hey, good to see you. Come on in,” Fate said to someone still out of sight.
“Thanks!”
No, that couldn’t be who I thought it was. Then he stepped in and I saw him with my own eyes. Cupid, dressed in his signature silk, a Louie Vuitton suitcase on wheels trailing behind him.
I stopped chewing mid-popcorn bite and looked around the room, gauging everyone’s reaction. I couldn’t be the only one freaked out about living with Cupid. When I hadn’t seen him recently, I’d figured he had some cloud to go hang out on. When he hadn’t made the meeting, I figured said cloud was a bitch of a commute. Not so lucky.
Taking in the expressions, it looked like we were all frozen in a moment of silent panic. The only thing keeping me in my seat was Fate’s warm greeting. He’d known he was coming. What was this about?
Fate stood next to him—not just close to him but he actually patted him on the back. “Cupid is going to be staying with us. He’s promised to be on his very best behavior.”
Cupid couldn’t have looked happier about it. So much so, I felt a twinge of guilt over the fact that I was fighting tooth and nail to not run from the room.
All of us tried to utter greetings in varying degrees of forced enthusiasm while keeping our distance. Knox, poor shmuck, rose and went to greet Cupid and shook his hand. Clearly no one had bothered to warn him.
While Cupid was distracted by Knox, and everyone else was distracted by Cupid, I got up, and this time it was me grabbing Fate’s arm and dragging him behind me. I didn’t stop until I got into the bedroom and shut the door behind us.
“What are you doing?” I nailed him with the question before the lock clicked into place. I waited for his answer even though I had my own suspicions. Fate had declared war on my libido. He’d said no more messing around, and this had to be part of his master plan. Cupid was full proof. He could get a girl in bed quicker than a bottle of tequila and Brad Pitt on bended knee.
He relaxed back against the dresser, not a hair out of place. “He needed somewhere to stay.”
“And he couldn’t stay with his people? Those little flying cherubs couldn’t whisk him away to safety somewhere?”
“He wanted to feel included.”
Yes, that was the Fate I knew. So worried about people feeling like they were part of the gang. I was having a hard time not choking on the bull he was spewing. “I will not stay here with him.”
“You can’t leave. You made a deal.” Fate plopped down on the bed as if he were preparing to take a nap.
“I didn’t agree to stay here with him.”
“Then tell him to leave.” He stretched out his arms and tucked them behind his head and then had the nerve to yawn.
“You invited him here to...”
“To what?”
“Why me? Can’t you find someone else to sleep with to amuse yourself?” Someone that wouldn’t be torn apart when you moved on from her.
“Because I don’t want anyone else.”
If he had just stopped speaking then, I might have grabbed on to him with both hands and thrown caution to the wind, but he didn’t.
“I want to amuse myself with you.”
All the warm and fuzzy feelings from a moment ago were now cold, wet and soggy. I’d gone from warm plush teddy bear kind of feelings to something you found at the curb, discarded after a flood.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going to go ask Cupid to stay somewhere else.”
“Really? You’re going to tell Cupid to go?” He acted like I’d said I was going to get the Jinxes to stop drinking. Then he started laughing.
“Yes. In the nicest way possible, I’m going to explain that due to his past behavior, it isn’t a comfortable situation.”
He got up from the bed and walked toward the door. I thought he was going to try and stop me but he opened it and took a step back. “It’ll never happen. That southern girl is going to rear her polite little head, but I can’t wait to watch you try.”
“You’ll see.”
“Please, I’m dying to.”
It took me a minute or two to track Cupid down in Fate’s office, while Fate himself dogged my steps. The door was ajar when I got there. The furniture had been moved to the side and an air mattress was in the middle. I was still nervous about getting too close but this had to be done. I could do this and be uncomfortable for a few minutes, or not and be waiting for a sex bomb to blow at any moment.
I tapped on the wood of the open door as I watched him unpacking his clothes onto a freestanding rack along the back wall. “Cupid? Do you have a minute?”
“For my favorite couple? Of course I do! Come in,” he said, smiling a hundred-watt smile and waving us both in. “Sit!”
I took the office chair and Fate perched a hip by my side.
“Cupid—”
“Please,” he held up his hands, “before you speak, I have to get something off my chest.”
I nodded, hoping it had something to do with how he wouldn’t be able to stay long.