Chapter Forty-Two
CLARKE
One perk of cleaning up after Barrett was the fact that I became a lot more observant of my own slovenly tendencies.
After cleaning up the five-thousandth coffee mug of his, I started making sure all my dishes ended up at least in the sink with some warm, soapy water in them.
If not washed as I used them. I cleared out all my old paper clutter, shredding what needed it, tossing old magazines or adverts in the recycling bin.
I even did laundry more often. Somehow, random items of clothing belonging to Barrett found their way onto the floor of his office.
Random socks. But only ever one. Why one sock would come off and not the other was a question never answered.
There were also sweaters—big, roomy, old ones. One even had patches on the elbows.
He also had an impressive collection of glasses though he had a strange aversion to wearing them. Maybe one too many four-eyed jokes when he was a kid, making him reach for contacts whenever possible instead.
Depending on when I would show up, sometimes his eyes would get tired, dry out, and he would disappear into the bathroom to come back out with glasses on instead.
I couldn't decide which look I liked better. The contacts made it easier to see those subtle changes in his eyes—green to brown, brown to green. But the glasses had a kind of sexy nerd vibe to them.
Though why I was trying to decide which look suited him best was beyond me. That wasn't why I was there every week. I was there to clean up his messes in exchange for his silence.
Sometimes, he talked to me, seemingly having nothing else to do, his almost unnerving gaze on me, brows sometimes pinched inward, like he was trying to figure me out, like I was a puzzle with pieces that refused to go together.
But more often than not, he seemed to ignore me completely, clearly caught up on a case.
And when he was, the mess amplified. The number of cups seemed to double.
Literally. I was pretty sure he bought new cups.
Either that or I had somehow forgotten the fundamental skill of knowing how to count properly.
On days when he was working, there was a calmness to his frantic motions.
Everything from the shuffling of papers to the clicking of keyboard keys seemed to have purpose, yet urgency.
He flipped through research books that he often got from the actual library.
Likely because it was closer than the bookstore.
On those days, he also drank too much coffee, never letting it sit long enough to grow old, burn.
His hair got even more unkempt than usual from his running his hands through it, he often forgot to eat except for maybe a bag of chips or something in a greasy bag he brought in with him after having to run out for something case-related.
On the days when he didn't work, though, he seemed antsy, jumpy, constantly fidgeting in his seat.
Or jumping up only to walk a few feet then sit back down.
He still drank a lot of coffee, but often let it get burnt before he got a refill.
Though I had yet to see him actually waste a pot, no matter how old and sludgy it got.
On those days, too, I noticed he had this little tick where he scratched at his arm. Not hard. Not like he was a cutter or anything. Almost like a movement made in agitation. An itch that wouldn't go away. The skin didn't seem to break, but reddened and got puffy if he couldn't make himself stop.
Those days, he ordered takeout. Servings way too big. Enough food for a guy three times his size. But he still managed to somehow sock it all away.
When he ordered pizza and I was around, it always came with half mushroom and onion. And with a side of garlic knots.
It was a little thing, but I couldn't seem to stop a weird fluttering sensation when he flipped the box open, then thrust out a paper plate at me.
Flowers and poetry, it was not, but it was sweet, thoughtful.
And, if I suspected right, not entirely like him.
I could totally see him as someone who would order dinner for himself while he had company and then eat it in front of them without realizing it was a social faux pas.
Which was what made the offer charming. Unexpectedly so.
“Ugh," I grumbled, shaking my thoughts clear, looking down at the pile of clean clothes on the laundromat counter I had been folding before my mind got hijacked.
By him.
It was becoming an all-too-common occurrence too.
I didn't normally obsess over people. I mean there was a period in my teens maybe when I was guilty of that.
But as a whole, my mind skipped from here to there and everywhere in between so fast and often that there was never any time for a single person—and my perceptions of them—to take root and start to grow out of control.
My mind was a garden of weeds. It choked out even the sturdiest of plants that tried to grow.
Until now, at least.
It was right then, as my hands started to refold a tee that I had wadded up in my hands, that I noticed I was no longer alone either.
The laundromat wasn't exactly a hopping place late at night. Most of the smart, careful women had finished their washing hours before when they weren't alone in a building with no security and a half-secluded lot, leaving them prime targets for any douchebag with bad intentions.
I probably shouldn't have even been there, even if I did have the skills to handle myself, even if I did walk around with at least three concealed weapons on my person should I need them.
But, for some reason, the only time I could seem to muster the particular kind of motivation it took to do the banal task of leaving the house to do laundry was after I had eaten dinner and before I was tired enough to climb into pajamas and binge-watch reruns until sleep claimed me.
So I came.
I took my chances.
Apparently, so had another woman.
Someone whose light eyes were focused on me without even trying to hide the fact that she was watching me.
"You're Clarke, right?" she asked, hauling a black garbage bag onto the counter. "Clarke Collings," she clarified as though there were a lot of female Clarkes in town.
"Ah, yeah," I agreed, pretty sure I didn't know her.
"I'm Kenzi," she explained, though the name meant nothing to me. "I am married to Tig." Again, I was getting nothing. Though the name Tig did have some little twinge of recognition, it was not enough for me to think I had ever met the person in question.
"Tig works for Sawyer," she explained, sensing my lack of understanding.
"Barrett's brother," I said, finally understanding. That was why I knew the name Tig. It was just from a story in passing. As a whole, Barrett didn't talk much about his time working for his brother—a wound that never quite healed right.
"Exactly," she agreed, starting to pull a giant duvet cover out of the bag, an unmistakable coffee stain splashed across the white fabric.
"My machine at home isn't big enough for this," she explained, slipping it into a machine, putting in the detergent, then turning back to me.
"Brock told us you were seeing Barrett. We, ah, didn't quite believe him, to be perfectly honest. That says nothing about you, of course. Barrett just... he never sees anyone."
Whoa.
Wait a minute.
Barrett told Brock that he was seeing me?
What the ever-loving hell would possess him to say something like that?
I mean, unless he thought what we were doing was seeing each other.
He was a bit of an odd duck. I could see him doing or saying things that didn't quite compute for other people.
But surely even he knew that what we had was an arrangement.
I cleaned. He kept his mouth shut. Hell, it was even a simple arrangement.
It wasn't like we had a friends-with-benefits situation where lines could get blurry.
For God's sake, I wouldn't have even called us friends.
Unless, maybe, he had a reason to tell them that.
Some motive I wasn't privy to. Which, well, could work to my advantage.
I didn't mind working for him. I mean, it was something to do now that I didn't work my usual nine-to-five.
And I would go stir crazy if I had to sit at home every day of the week, just analyzing everything I had messed up over the past year.
That said, it was a long commitment. And I had some pressing things I needed to get back to.
Things involving the Turkish mob.
Things that required me to be out of town.
The more time I wasted, the more I fell behind.
And if I wanted to fix everything, I needed to stop wasting time.
If I could use this against Barrett—or use it to our mutual advantage—maybe I could get out of the deal I made with him. Or at least get a short hiatus. I wouldn't mind coming back when all was said and done, and finishing up what I said I would do.
"I, ah, things are, you know, new," I hedged, not exactly lying, though I clearly didn't have any moral objections to the occasional lie.
"How did you guys meet?"
"Oh, well, it's kind of a funny story. I went out of town for a while. My father somehow missed my note about it. And he thought I was missing. So he hired Barrett to find me."
When it came to lying, it was always best to add in a liberal sprinkling of the truth. "And things just... you know... fell into place from there."
"Have you met the bird yet?"
"Diego?" I asked, as though there could be another bird in Barrett's life.
"He brought him to a dinner at my house once. The winged creature from hell managed to take a huge chunk out of my coffee table. But, you know how he is with that bird..."
I did.
He seemed to have custody of it more than he didn't most of the time. Luce and Evan were out of town a lot. It was easier not to bring the giant macaw with them.