Chapter Five
Emerson
Three days after meeting them, I move into Jamie and Nick’s house. When I’d first replied to the client’s email, I’d figured I might get a hotel for a couple of weeks, but then I checked the cost, and they got back in touch, emphasising the requirements they already sent, and now…
I negotiated some money up front, of course. I shake my head and plant my hands on my hips as I stare down at the piles of screws and pieces of wood that will soon make up my new wardrobe.
Cate was furious. Is furious still because she insists that something is not at all right with this job, and she likes even less that I’ll be so far away while carrying it out.
I share some of her doubts, but my excitement eclipses all of that. A werewolf! I’ve taken a couple of nightly walks already, exploring the streets around my hotel, but this house is far closer to where that video was taken, and I’m already itching to get out and search.
But first, the wardrobe. I pick up the information sheet that came with it and glare at the little pictures.
I’ve put something like this together with Cate before, surely. In her second flat, the one with the nice flatmate who took us out drinking with her.
I sigh and sit on the bed. The instructions make no sense at all. Where are the words?
Thinking back, perhaps Cate did most of the work.
I flop back onto the mattress—I have new bedding, too, in the corner, which I still need to put on the bed before tonight—but then jerk upright again when someone clears their throat from the doorway.
Not someone. Jamie. He grins when I blink owlishly at him, hip resting against the doorframe. “Everything going okay?”
For a second, I can’t speak. Heat prickles my skin, but I have enough sense about me to nod, at least, as I get my words in order.
“Yes. Sorry. It’s all rather complicated, isn’t it?”
“They tend to be,” Jamie says, sweeping his eyes over the mess.
He’s very handsome. My heart beats a little faster when his brow furrows, a fierce look of concentration overcoming his face.
“I’m sure I’ll work it out,” I say, but Jamie only frowns.
“Don’t you want some help?”
“Oh! Yes, please.”
He smiles again. It is difficult to see any of the discomfort that was present during our first meeting, when he admitted to having had a stalker. I am not sure how that whole matter ended, but it’s hardly my place to ask, especially when I’m keeping secrets of my own.
Not that they are as personally important, of course. I am sure if I tell Jamie and Nick that I’m in London to find a werewolf, they’ll write me off as someone who’s completely lost it.
Jamie picks his way around the mess on my floor and drops next to me on the bed. The mattress bounces, jostling us close together, and I inhale the clean, warm scent of him in the second before he plucks the useless instructions from my hands.
I simply watch as his eyes run over the images, what was incomprehensible to me apparently making perfect sense to him, as after another moment, he nods.
“Okay. Up you get.”
“Me?”
Jamie’s grin turns wicked as he pointedly looks around the room. “Don’t see anyone else here, do you?”
I laugh and get to my feet. Jamie directs me to pick up this and that, fit them together, and once the whole frame gets too unwieldy to manage—my lacklustre skills surely to blame—he jumps up and helps.
He also finds a screwdriver, something I did not think to pick up, though I think there is one somewhere in my bags.
An hour later, I’m uncomfortable and sweating, but I have a mostly complete wardrobe. Jamie takes a step back to admire it.
“Not bad,” he says. “You might even be able to do it without help next time.”
“I doubt that. I’m not all that quick on the uptake when it comes to practical things. Things involving your hands, you know?”
“Not any of them?” Jamie asks, and there’s a flicker of heat, an edge of teasing in his tone.
Fire lights in my chest. He’s a little bossy. A bit bratty, maybe. And at least somewhat willing because he doesn’t take it back or avert his gaze when I look at him. He lifts his chin instead, a challenge we both know I won’t take up.
Not yet. Not my first day. I unfurl my own smile, shoving my hands into my trouser pockets, and Jamie’s pulse visibly flutters at the base of his throat. He swallows hard.
“Em, I—”
“What’s this, then?” Nick asks from the doorway. The moment shatters, but I don’t really mind.
“Jamie has built me a wardrobe,” I say, and Jamie yelps, shaking his head.
“No. No! I was walking past, and he couldn’t read the instructions at all, Nick. Honestly, it would’ve been such a mess—”
Nick watches me like he’s testing my reaction to Jamie’s words, his sudden easy attitude. I keep on smiling. I don’t mind teasing at all, so long as it’s good-natured, and they are both clearly not mean-spirited people. After a second, he snorts and shakes his head.
“Hurry up and get it done, would you? We’re going out.”
“Out?” Jamie asks. “Where?”
“Pub. We’ve got something to celebrate. Our new housemate.”
Hmm. Any chance of going werewolf hunting tonight is out of the question—unless I go really late, but I’d rather not do that until I have the lay of the land, so to speak.
I don’t let that show on my face. I nod instead and scoop up the screwdriver again.
“Let’s get these doors on,” I say to Jamie, “then we’ll go celebrate.”