3. Ellie
Ellie
Iwake up in my bed, which can only mean Tank carried me here at some point without waking me up.
The mental image of him lifting me off the couch, navigating the stairs with my dead weight in his arms and tucking me into bed is almost too adorable for how early it is and how sleepy I am. Especially when I remember how he made me a sandwich and I broke down in tears.
Not my finest moment.
The collar presses against my throat when I swallow. Last night felt like a dream, but that's still there to remind me of reality.
A reality I chose, as I have to constantly remind myself.
I drag my ass out of bed, yawning and stretching, flexing my toes on the plush carpet. It's a nice one. They didn't skimp.
I catch myself smiling about that, a little.
What a weird fucking life I have now.
Still in a daze, I head into my bathroom and start the shower, brushing my teeth with my perfectly pink toothbrush and matching toothpaste, the gel kind with sparkles in it that tastes like bubblegum, and give myself a quick once-over in the mirror.
There's a bruise on my collarbone, to match the ones on my hips and thighs from Tank's grip. He's rough, even when he isn't trying to be. Now my mental image of him carrying me as him doing it very carefully, which is even cuter.
How the fuck is he so cute?
I shower fast, trying not to think about how sore my thighs are. I press one of the bruises experimentally.
Ow.
But so worth it.
I throw on leggings and an oversized pink hoodie that covers the collar if I adjust it right. Not that there's any point in hiding it in this house. Everyone here knows exactly what it means.
Can't find my good hair tie, so I pull my hair up in a messy bun with the one on the sink since I'm not about to go hunting through Jinx's bathroom. God knows what I'll find in there.
The pink streaks stick out at odd angles.
Whatever. I look like I got fucked in the woods and slept on the couch, and that's exactly what happened.
I smell the bacon before I'm even in the kitchen. That and something sweet and carby. Probably pancakes, which would be the only way to improve on the perfection of last night, Kade's meltdown aside.
Jinx stands at the stove in nothing but low-slung gray joggers that show the entire outline of his cock against his thigh, spatula in hand, humming what I'm pretty sure is a Sabrina Carpenter song.
He's got a little spot of flour on his cheek and his long blond hair is pulled back in a claw clip that has a tiny pink butterfly on it.
I have half the mind to steal it.
Cyrus is perched on a stool at the island with his laptop open, one hand on his touchpad and the other buried in his hair as he leans forward on his elbow amidst a fortress of energy drink cans. His eye twitches a little every time Jinx hits the chorus.
"If you hum that fucking song one more time," Cyrus says to Jinx without looking away from his screen, "I'm going to shove that spatula somewhere it'll hurt."
"Promises, promises." Jinx flips a pancake in the air with unnecessary flair and catches my eye. He freezes and the half-cooked pancake hits the side of the refrigerator, sliding down it anticlimactically. "Ellie! You're awake. Look who's glowing."
Okay, he definitely doesn't think I know he's fucking Cyrus.
Or… the other way around probably.
Definitely.
"I'm not glowing," I snort.
"You're absolutely glowing. Like a little post-orgasmic firefly." He points the spatula at me. "So. Tank, huh?"
The blood drains from my face, then floods back in a rush of heat that undoubtedly makes me look like a tomato. "Did Kade tell you?"
Meanwhile, Cyrus stares at the pancake on the Frigidaire like it pains him not to get up and do something about it. Guess I'm not the only one whose OCD has intensified over the years, but I'm pretty sure Cyrus would rather die than go to therapy or get an actual diagnosis.
And I mean… well-adjusted guys in therapy don't typically collar their former best friends and kill people for money, so that checks out.
"Ha!" Jinx jabs the spatula in my direction and sounds utterly triumphant.
"Kade didn't tell me shit. Kade's gone. But Tank's in a good mood for the first time since the trailer park, and they're not speaking.
There are only so many explanations for that particular combination of affairs, Princess, and you're all of them. "
I open my mouth to reply, only to realize I have no counter. He played me and I walked right into his trap.
"You tricked me."
"Obviously." He turns back to his pancakes, supremely unbothered. "I'm not just a pretty face and killer abs, you know."
"I hate you."
"Mmh, no, pretty sure you love me, if only because I'm the only one in this house who makes a decent breakfast."
I drop onto the barstool next to Cyrus, burying my face in my hands. "I can't believe I fell for that."
"Don't feel bad," Cyrus says, typing angrily. His neuroses must be screaming at him to clean up the mess on the fridge. "He does it to everyone. Manipulation is his one actual skill."
"Prick." Jinx slides a plate in front of me, filled to the edges with three fluffy pancakes, all perfectly golden, and bacon on top arranged in a slightly freaky smiley face. "Eat up. You've got a big day ahead of you."
I eye the plate suspiciously. "Why does that sound so, um… ominous?"
"Because you can't be trusted alone," Cyrus says, finally looking up from his screen. The dark circles under his eyes have dark circles, and he's a shade paler than usual. "So you're shadowing me today."
"I'm shadowing you doing what, exactly?" I ask him, resting my hand on my hip and giving him a look.
If it's murder, I'm out.
"Working." He adjusts his glasses, pushing them slightly higher up the bridge of his perfectly straight nose. "You're going to sit quietly, without touching anything, and you're going to try very hard not to be distracting."
"Sounds riveting."
"It won't be." He shuts his laptop with his usual deadpan delivery and stands with it under his arm, coffee mug in hand despite the energy drink graveyard surrounding him. "My office. Five minutes."
He disappears down the hallway with one last glance at the pancake he probably thinks is subtle.
Jinx leans across the counter to me. "He's actually excited about spending the day with you. That's his excited face," he says conspiratorially, watching the hall where Cyrus just vanished.
"Huh. And here I thought that was his I want to murder everyone face."
"It's all the same with Cy. He gets excited about murdering people too, y'know."
While I eat the pancakes and the perfectly crispy bacon, Jinx chatters at me about everything and nothing, from a show he's watching to some admittedly riveting drama between two of their guys at the warehouse.
I listen because he still has that way of talking that makes even the most mundane subjects seem fascinating.
And if I close my eyes, I can pretend we're back in the trailer park, sitting in Mom's kitchen, and he's making us frozen waffles in the toaster at 3 a.m. during a sleepover where we're not sleeping at all.
Five minutes later, I'm standing in the doorway of Cyrus's office, even if calling it an office feels generous.
It's more like mission control. It's dark except for blue and red LED strips following along the edge of the ceiling, and the light glowing from three monitors arranged in a curved setup, with a fourth mounted on the wall displaying what looks like a live security feed of the entire house perimeter.
Oh. So these fuckers knew the second I left the house with or without the collar.
There's even a feed of my bedroom, which I already knew, but still. The son of a bitch isn't even trying to be subtle about it and I find that mildly insulting.
He catches my eye and the smirk on his lips tells me he knows exactly what I'm thinking. I simply refuse to give him the joy of saying it out loud.
"Sit," he says, pointing to a chair in the corner.
I sit. For about eight minutes.
Then I spin the chair. The wheels squeak against the hardwood.
Cyrus's jaw tightens, but he doesn't look up at me.
I spin again and pick at a thread on my hoodie. I try to be quiet, but before I know it, I'm tapping out a rhythm on my armrest.
One, two, three, four, five.
One, two, three, four—
"Stop."
"Stop what?"
"All of it, please," Cyrus says through his teeth. "Especially the tapping."
"See, you should have mentioned this was a strictly tap-free coworking space."
He stares at me for a few seconds. Then he pushes back from the desk, spreading his legs slightly, and pats his thigh. "Come here."
I blink. "What?"
"You heard me. Come sit. If you're going to be in here, you might as well be useful. Or at least contained."
The command in his voice makes my lower stomach feel tight, which is fucking annoying. I cross the room and lower myself onto his lap, my back resting against his chest. His arms come around to bracket me in as he reaches for the keyboard, and I'm effectively caged between him and the desk.
His body is warm. He's not built like Tank, but he's still got plenty of muscle. It's just lean. He's more solid than I expected, though. He's gone from looking like a scrawny nerd to Clark Kent hiding Superman's physique beneath the button downs and glasses in a shockingly short amount of time.
The cool, citrusy scent of his aftershave makes it hard to resist breathing him in. I succumb a little, but hopefully not in a way he'll notice.
"Good girl. Now stay still," he murmurs against my ear, "and watch."
When he says good girl in that tone, it's very difficult to stay still. The worst part is, I don't even think he's trying to be sexy.
He's trying to work. He types like his life depends on it, and I watch the screens transform. Windows open and close faster than I can even track. Code scrolls in one monitor while another displays what is very clearly a police database he has no business accessing.
"Is that—"