Chapter 14 #2
Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me. Doctors had plenty of disposable income.
Why not buy a house just to bring your hookups back to?
That certainly saved him from having to live in the aftermath of the mess.
Deep down, a small voice inside of me worried this was all some kind of cover to hide what we’d done from some family he had on the other side of town.
Would it be entirely possible?
Sure, anything was.
Which was what made me want to look him up in the state’s database the moment the thought crossed my mind.
What a psycho I was turning into. One good fuck and I was willing to abuse my powers as a cop to see if he was legally married or not and how many kids, if any, he had running around with his same piercing blue eyes and intimidating personality.
His kitchen looked straight out of a magazine, but instead of one fashion vogue bible, this would’ve been featured in one of those cooking ones that made any homemaker jealous beyond belief.
A restaurant-sized stainless steel fridge, two ovens to bake in, and a pantry that made my jaw fucking drop the second I peeled the doors open. All quite the picture perfect example of how out of my tax bracket this man was.
The house was quiet outside of me taking things out of the fridge and pantry and setting them on the counter. Above the stove, that had an actual cooking stone built into the damn thing, the microwave read 9:28am.
Damn, we did sleep long.
Finding his frying pans wasn’t hard and soon I had two of them going on the stove while I cut into a brand new package of bacon and laid it flat on low heat. The second pan had a couple of eggs scrambled into it.
A simple breakfast and easy enough to make so it didn’t seem like I was trying too hard.
Getting Silas to like me enough to invite me back here was… a weird desire to be experiencing. I’d had times in the past where I’d enjoyed hooking up with a guy and wanted a second or third meetup, but none of them gave me this odd, deep-in-my-gut feeling that craved.
That wasn’t something I did. I hooked up, got it out of my system, and then moved on.
Wiping my hands clean of any impending drama was my favorite part.
Relationships were messy and far too complicated for me to have any interest in involving myself with.
I had a sister and a three-year-old to help take care of.
There was no time in my schedule that allowed for extracurriculars that went on for more than a few hours a night every so often.
Which made me staying over last night even worse.
My sister was probably worried sick.
Something chimed from deeper inside the house. It was a sharp and shrill sound that was quickly cut before it went on for longer than three seconds.
Some kind of alarm?
Turning away from the stove, I held a rubber spatula clutched in one hand, my other curving behind me to turn down the heat before moving across the expanse of the kitchen and toward the archway leading out into the hallway.
The second I reached it, a man appeared, both of us stopping short at seeing the other.
He was taller, maybe a little bit more than Silas, reddish brown hair that was slightly curly at the ends and a few strands of gray threaded near at his temples. He was tan, close to what I looked like when I spent hours out in the sun during the summer and refused to put on any kind of sunscreen.
His green eyes were pinned directly on me, slightly wide from surprise while he stared at me. “Hello…?”
I didn’t recognize him.
Friend?
Partner?
Lover?
He didn’t look pissed to see me.
A good sign so far.
“Hey,” I said, nodding to him. “Can I help you?”
He stared for another long moment until his gaze slowly raked over my body.
Astonishment reflected in them before he locked on to the spatula in my hand and then deviated to the tie of the robe I was wearing.
A grin stretched across his lips, deviousness bleeding into his eyes. “Did you sleep over?”
What kind of question was that?
“Excuse me?”
He gestured with his chin. “You’re wearing his robe.”
What was this, an interrogation?
“You his ex or something?”
The man sputtered before he doubled over, slapping his hands down onto his knees while he let out a vicious cackle. The gesture had me stepping back once, my hand tightening around the spatula in an effort to ready myself to have to wield it against this crazy motherfucker.
While he didn’t seem like any kind of threat—none that came at me the moment he laid eyes on me and saw me as being something other in this house—that didn’t mean he wasn’t. Clearly, my read on people hadn’t garnered me a good track record considering I’d been dead wrong about Naomi.
“Oh my god.” The man gasped, wiping a finger under his eyes. “That’s so good.”
He was an odd one, I’d give him that. The invasive questions were what I was latching onto as suspicious.
What were the chances Silas had a stalker?
One who was interested in his escapades, and apparently, knew his front door code.
I glanced down the other side of the hall; it remained empty and dark. No sign of Silas waking from the dead and coming to join us.
Damn.
Of all times for me, a cop, not to have a damn phone on me.
Improvising would have to do, then.
The thing about having a blunt object, even if it wasn’t exactly meant to withstand a lot of force, was it would still hurt being cracked across someone’s face. Enough to double them over and take them down long enough to run back to Silas’s room and grab my phone to call the precinct.
“What’s going on?” another voice asked, wandering from down the hallway.
The man straightened and turned, waving his hand wildly. “Babe, come take a look at this.”
Soon, another man appeared, younger looking than the first guy but not by much, with honey brown hair and freckles scattered over the bridge of his nose and cheeks. His head was tilted curiously. “Oh? You are…?”
Two of them.
Great.
Honestly, with Silas’s wealth, it wouldn’t shock me if he had multiple stalkers. Maybe I was overdoing it with the conspiracy theories, but these days, you could never be too careful. Ellington Heights was supposed to be safe but all it took was one crazy motherfucker to disrupt the status quo.
The second guy reached out to slide his arm around the first one’s lower back, leaning into him. “Is… that Silas’s robe?”
“He slept over,” the first one stated.
The second guy’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “No shit?”
“I know.”
Okay, now I was beginning to think these two weren’t here to rob the place or drag Silas out of bed and tie him to a chair while professing their undying love for him at all. “Are you guys… friends of his?”
I had a hard time believing the man I’d slept with last night had anyone close to him—enough that they knew his alarm code and were comfortable enough to wander on in while the owner of the house was still sleeping.
How often did Silas see them?
Enough to be familiar with the fact that, apparently, Silas had a ‘no staying over’ rule I wasn’t aware of.
I tried not to let that go to my head. We’d both been exhausted after last night, so it wasn’t far-fetched to assume him not kicking me out wasn’t done purely out of accident.
The younger one snorted with an eye roll. “Friends…”
“Best friends, actually,” the taller one commented.
Between the two of them and their reactions, I was going to take a wild guess and say that they weren’t totally in agreement on that fact. But, whatever, it wasn’t like I was any judge of relationships. My only friend was my sister.
“Are you cooking?” the younger one asked. Before I could answer, he held out a hand. “I’m Blake, by the way. And this is Marlow.”
I slowly shook his hand. “Terran…”
Marlow gasped into his hand. “He’s cooking him breakfast.”
This was so fucking weird.
Why was this weird?
Meeting Silas’s friends the morning after we fucked was on another level I wasn’t expecting to have to deal with.
The walk of shame back into my house?
Sure.
The embarrassment of trying to explain to the dry cleaner why my very expensive lingerie set was crusty to the touch?
Absolutely.
Silas kicking me to the curb and never seeing me again?
Well… yes, but that one hurt a bit. It had a little bit of a spicy kick I didn’t like.
What was I supposed to do with Silas still tucked in bed sleeping?
Was I supposed to entertain these guys until he woke up, or was this my cue to leave with my dignity still intact before Silas rose from the dead and banished me from his lavish home in front of his friends?
Ugh, I hate this.
Before I could make a decision, Marlow broke away from Blake to scoot around me and head into the kitchen. “I definitely smell bacon. Babe, you want some?”
“Yeah, absolutely.” His honey brown gaze darted to me. “You don’t mind, right?”
Yeah, actually, I do.
“Help yourself.”
He flashed me a smile before slipping past me.
I glanced back down the hall toward Silas’s room; it still remained dark and devoid of any semblance of life.
Well, fuck. Now what?