Chapter 9 Genevieve
Genevieve
I round the corner of the Lye only to stop short.
Lance is there, leaning against the wall, one boot braced on the stone.
He stayed.
“You didn’t have to wait,” I say.
“Didn’t feel like scraping you off the sidewalk later.” He pushes off the wall. “Let’s go.”
I should resist. Tell him I’ve been walking three blocks by myself for over a year without a six-foot-something shadow. That Art is the one I’d call to walk me home, except…
Art’s not here.
And as we walk up the stairs to the back hallway of the bar, I think about the man earlier tonight. The one with the blond crew cut and the grin that felt like it was slicing through my skin.
“You know, I doubt anything’s going to happen to me just walking down the street,” I say, stepping outside into the alley, the cold air slapping the damp tunnel smells off my body.
He sighs. “You are so naive it hurts, Genevieve.”
“Oh, please.” I shove my hands into my jacket pockets. “You act like we’re living in some medieval village where bandits jump out from behind barrels.”
“You never know what people are capable of.”
My studio’s close, but I can’t pretend I don’t feel safer with him shadowing me.
“So, what, you think you’re the authority on all things dangerous?” I ask.
“I know I am.”
We round the corner and stop in front of my door, and he leans in, crowding me against the brick of the building.
Heat prickles my skin, and my mouth goes dry. He smells like leather and something woodsy that makes me think of campfires and cold nights.
Art wears Tom Ford—a fresh and citrusy smell. This is none of those things.
And now, unfortunately, my body remembers what it’s like to have Lance’s large hand pressed against my throat, cradling it like a necklace.
Another thing Art’s never done.
His shoulders block out everything behind him. I crane my neck to hold eye contact, and even then I feel swallowed whole.
A flash of him underground hits me—shirtless, tattoo-covered muscles tensing as he unwrapped his hands, his silver chain roped around his neck.
Heat flushes up my throat. Why can’t he be an ugly asshole?
I shove my palms against his torso to make some space. My fingers meet his abs through the fabric, and a stab of heat jolts through me.
“Why do you even care?” I ask. “If I’m so naive and such a waste of your time or whatever, then why bother?”
“You don’t have to like a person to want to keep them alive,” he says.
“Whatever you say, Champ.” I step inside my apartment, flicking on the lights. And Lance is still there, standing in my doorway.
“You can go.” I toss the keys into the entryway bowl.
He moves inside instead, closing the door behind him. “What’s that smell?”
“Blech,” I mutter, pulling my shirt away from my neck, aware of the bleach smell clinging to me. “Huh? Oh, that’s the slow cooker.”
Lance raises an eyebrow, glancing toward the counter in the small kitchenette, like the idea of me slow-cooking anything is suspicious.
“You cook?”
“Sometimes.” I flip the switch on the cooker to warm, and take the top off, the steam curling like a little white flag I didn’t mean to wave. “It relaxes me.”
He chuckles.
“Something funny?” I spin toward him, my hands on my hips.
“Art never said you cooked.”
I can’t remember the last time I cooked for Art. He’s always bringing in takeout or ordering pizza. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep the hurt from flashing on my face.
“Well, believe it or not, I’m not always plotting the destruction of your joy. I do have other hobbies.”
Hobbies, a destroyed career ambition. Toe-may-to, toe-mah-to.
The corner of his mouth lifts.
“I used to work in a restaurant back home.”
“Oh?” He moves closer, leaning his shoulder against the wall. “As a bartender?”
My throat swells. “A sous-chef actually.”
He takes another step. “Smells good.”
“It’s just stew. Nothing fancy.”
And then, right on cue, his stomach growls.
“Do you… Are you hungry?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m a fantastic liar,” he says. “But really, you don’t have to feed me.”
“Sit.”
He tilts his head like he can’t figure out why I’m offering him anything at all.
Honestly, I can’t figure it out, either.
But the slow cooker’s full, I’m tired, and feeding people is the only thing that’s ever really made me feel like I had purpose.
Stew lands in the bowl as I plate it for two. “Sit.”
He still doesn’t move.
“Christ, I’m not offering you my virginity. I’m just offering you a bowl of food.”
He inhales and then chokes, and I belatedly realize that maybe bringing up my nonexistent virginity with a man who looks like he’d wreck my vagina is not polite conversation.
Another unwanted image of him shirtless and sweaty flashes through my mind.
Oh my God. What the hell is wrong with me?
Art, I remind myself. I’m only imagining Art.
He drags the chair from my round table and lowers into it. A smug wash of satisfaction runs through me because he’s listening, and I set the bowl down before taking the seat on the other side.
My knees brush his when I do, and I hold still like breathing too hard might make it happen again.
He’s really gigantic.
Art and I have sat at this table a hundred times, and we’ve never come close to touching. I’ve never even considered where his knees were. That realization settles wrong, and I shift uncomfortably.
Lance’s shoulders are tense and he lifts a single brow, glaring into the bowl.
“It’s stew, not poison.”
His lips twitch, and if he weren’t so violently opposed to expressing human emotion, I’d think maybe he’s enjoying annoying me.
Finally, he brings the spoon up to his mouth and takes a bite.
Meanwhile, I’m pretending I’m not watching his reaction.
“Good?”
He grunts, already taking another spoonful. “It’s fine.”
A warm fire settles in my chest, and I lean back, our knees brushing again when I do.
I pull away like I’ve touched something hot. Why is my stomach jumping? It shouldn’t. Not from an accidental knee tap. Not from his knee, especially.
Clearing my throat, I dive into my own stew and tuck my feet behind the legs of my chair, and I don’t look at him again until I’m done.
Unfortunately, when I do, he’s smiling. And it’s…transfixing. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him genuinely smile before.
I stare at him without blinking.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“What do you mean, what am I doing? What are you doing?”
“You were gawking.”
“I was not gawking.”
He tilts the chair back until it’s balancing on two legs. “Do you know the definition of gawking?”
“I don’t know the literal definition, no.”
“It means to stare openly and stupidly.”
Standing up, I rip the empty bowl from him and carry it to the kitchen, filling it with a second helping. “What are you, Merriam-Webster?”
He smirks.
“If you wanted to call me stupid, you didn’t have to weave it into conversation like that.”
The bowl smacks the table as I set it in front of him.
“I don’t think you’re stupid.” He glances at the food. “You were counting.”
“And? You have a problem with numbers?”
Lance watches me silently.
His attention shouldn’t bother me like this. It never feels like my soul’s trying to jump out of my body when Art’s here, and I have no idea how two guys who are best friends could be so incredibly different.
“It’s just something I do sometimes,” I say.
“You count randomly.”
“Uh, no. I count to seven, not randomly.”
“Why seven?”
“Well… That’s how long it takes to commit something to long-term memory.”
His head tilts. “And watching me eat is something you’d like to remember?”
“Don’t get a big head about it. I just like to feed people. It makes me feel good, even if the company’s less than appealing.”
The front legs of his chair crack against my floor as he leans forward and picks up his spoon.
“You know,” I continue. “They also say when you die, your brain stays active for seven minutes.”
“Who’s they?” he asks.
“I don’t know, smart people who study brains, I guess.”
He shakes his head.
“Anyway, I soak in the moments I want to keep, so that when I die, hopefully the replay won’t be so painful.”
His gaze snaps up, and he frowns, staring at me for an embarrassingly long period of time before saying, “Seven seconds to make sure it’s part of your seven minutes?”
I spin the spoon around in my fingers. “Something like that.”
Silence stretches between us and he just…looks at me again, in a way that makes me hyperaware of every breath. And the longer it lasts, the more mortified I become.
Perfect. I trauma dumped my death ritual onto a man who already thinks I carry a communicable disease. I’ve given him enough ammo to last a century.
And he’ll probably tell Art, because that’s what they do—tell each other everything.
And then Art will wonder why I never told him, and he’ll get weird about it, and then he’ll ask why Lance was in my apartment in the first place, and I’ll have to defend myself over something that isn’t even a thing.
Because this is not a thing.
I brace myself for the cutting remark, but instead, he rises, carrying his bowl to the kitchenette and putting it in the sink.
Then he stands in the door jamb with an odd look on his face.
“Seven, huh?”
I nod, my throat tight. “Seven.”
He jerks his chin then walks to the front door, double tapping the frame. “You need better locks.”
All that warmth I was feeling evaporates.
“Get out of my apartment, Lance.”
He gives a mock-salute before slipping away into the night.