Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Fiddling with Gremlin’s collar, I try to sound casual, friendly even. “So, what do you like to do for fun? Hunting, or maybe recreational phlebotomy—” The question ends in a grunt as a bony elbow jabs me in the side.
“I didn’t leave the blood.” His voice is flat. “You want to call my girlfriend and confirm?”
I glance at Margot, wondering if she’ll catch, or care about, the girlfriend detail. If it bothers her, she doesn’t show it.
“It’s been a rough few days,” she says to Jeremy.
He nods, dragging a hand through his hair. “I bet. If you don’t want to stay out there alone, you know you can move back in.”
“She’s not alone,” I interject. “I’m staying there.”
Ignoring me, he continues, “Your room’s free.”
Your room?
Margot shakes her head. “Thank you, but I’m good. Besides, I don’t think having me and whatever fresh hell follows in your guest room is going to go over well with your girlfriend.”
He snorts. “Probably not.” Tilting his head toward the hair dryer still lying on the concrete, he adds, “By the way, you left your hair dryer at the house.” The look he gives me is judgmental.
“It’s been riding around in my car for the past month, kept thinking I’d bump into you at the gym and give it to you.
So when I saw your car as I was driving by, I figured I’d hand it over. Did you switch gyms?”
Margot shakes her head. “I’ll be back. I’ve been running lately.”
After a few more minutes of mundanities, Jeremy leaves, both of us eyeing each other one last time.
“Hear me out,” I blurt the second Margot and I are alone on the patio. “What are the chances he did the snake? And the blood?”
“Zero.” She moves back to her table, settling into a chair. “What is wrong with you?”
“He wants you back.” I drop into the chair across from her.
“Respectfully,” she starts, her tone the exact opposite. I can’t help smiling, which only makes her scowl harder. “You’re wrong. He doesn’t.”
I side-eye her. “He does. He may be playing it cool with you, but I can tell. I have a fifth sense for these kinds of things.”
“Sixth sense. And I can guarantee he does not.”
I arch an eyebrow. “I don’t like him. He’s letting you stay with me—a strange man with staggering physical strength and agility.”
“How’d you fit all that ego in your truck? And nobody lets me do anything. I do what I want, and I go where I want.” Sensing I’m about to protest, she adds, “You would not be able to stop me.”
“If you decided to stay with him, I would burn his house to the ground.” It comes out louder than I mean it to. “If you decided to camp out in the ashes, I’d put my tent right next to yours.”
Staring at me, she blinks and lets out a long, slow sigh. “You realize you are behaving far worse than he is at the moment, right?”
“Yet you’re sitting here with me.”
“Proof that my judgment is questionable.” Groaning, she slides down in her chair. “I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but you’re not easily scared, and I think you’re fun. If I have to go through this mess with somebody, at least we can laugh at it.”
I try to play it cool, though that’s basically a marriage proposal coming from Margot. “What happened with y’all, anyway? Why’d you split?”
Margot closes her laptop. “Just because you use your accent to ask a question doesn’t make the actual question any less rude.”
Though she acts like she isn’t, Margot’s a sucker for the accent I picked up during the few years I lived in Tennessee.
I’ve long since dropped it, but bring the drawl out every so often, just to fluster her.
“You’ve been broken up, what, all of a month or two?
He’s still in the emotional devastation phase.
Honestly, I don’t know how he’s even functioning after losing you.
How can you be sure he isn’t trying to scare you right back to him? ”
She huffs. “Touched that you think breaking up with me would cause such emotional devastation, but he’s completely fine.”
I refuse to believe this. “What if we set a trap to see if it’s him? You mention you’re going hiking alone or something, but I’ll be waiting at the trailhead to kick his ass if—”
“Caine, no.” Cheeks flushing, she glances toward her lap then back at me. “No ass kicking, okay? He does not want me. We were never actually engaged.”
I gape at her. “What are you talking about?”
“It wasn’t a real relationship.” Toying with the straw in her iced coffee, she gives me a half smile.
“Jeremy works for his parents’ company; they were on his case about him needing to settle down and grow up if he wanted a promotion.
I thought my being engaged might discourage Nicholas if he started looking for me online.
” She shrugs. “We always seemed to be at the gym at the same time, so we’d chitchat in between sets if we were using the same machine.
One day he looked really upset, so I asked what was wrong.
He vented about his parents, and long story short, he asked if I’d be willing to go to his sister’s wedding with him the next month, platonically, to get them off his neck.
I went to the wedding, and his family liked me, and from there one thing led to another.
We were roommates who told everyone we were together.
In exchange for going to a family dinner with him a few times a month, I lived in his town house rent-free.
It’s how I had the flexibility to get my freelance business going.
I told him about Nicholas up front, of course,” she adds quickly.
“I wouldn’t put someone in danger without letting them know the stakes. ”
I stare at her.
Wincing, she swirls her iced coffee. “I know. I know. Nothing with me is normal. I hate it too. Trust me.”
“Are you kidding?” The tabletop groans as I drop my elbows onto it. “This makes so much sense.”
Margot’s nose wrinkles. “In what universe?”
“The one where you’ve been giving me those pretty fuck me eyes since the moment I met you, while simultaneously acting like I’m getting on your last nerve.” World thoroughly rocked, I lean back in my chair.
“I have not.” The slight flush on her cheeks deepens. “And you are on my last nerve.”
“Yeah, on it and doing that thing you like with my tongue.” I wink at her. “All your nerves love me.”
Incredulous, she laughs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “How do you do it?”