Chapter 24 #3
FYI Part 2: I phoned this into Marjorie personally. She sounded pleased with this information, but only grudgingly so. The grudge went out when I told her the docs had words about the sling.
But now, she’d stop giving Knox shit.
So that was something.
* * *
That evening, I walked into my place to be confronted with a happy dog who was dragging a new rawhide to me to say hi (Knox had his truck back and that rawhide meant that Knox had done what Knox loved to do: he went to the grocery store), along with a hot guy on my sofa.
I went to the sofa and handed Knox the bag I was carrying and the paper cup.
“Cheeseburger, tots and chocolate malt from the diner,” I said.
“Love of my life,” he replied, sitting up to sort his dinner.
Rather than me doing an encore of my “Walking on Sunshine” routine, I let his comment wash over me in a happy way then turned to pick up my puppers.
His rawhide dropped, I got licks, he got cuddles, and so Knox wouldn’t have a French bulldog up in his business while he was eating, dog and dog mom sat in an armchair.
“How was dinner with the girls?” Knox asked while dumping his tots on his burger paper and before going to his sachets of ketchup.
“Jinx and Noah are fighting.”
Knox squirted ketchup and looked to me at the same time. “That’s not good.”
“It’s totally good. They use it so they can have makeup sex.”
His mouth quirked and he went for another sachet.
I got him a lot of them. I had ketchup, but I couldn’t remember how much I had. I just remembered Knox was a drencher when it came to fried things you dip.
“They’re fighting now about her house. She’s renting it so she can pay for her schooling with it. He wants to let a management company oversee it. She wants to do it herself.”
“That shit’s a pain in the ass.”
“So when you rent your place?”
“Totally management company,” he said.
Good to know.
Though, managing a property had the word “managing” in it, and we both knew how we felt about that.
“Big news, Duane and Lotus are officially an item. They’re moving in together. And now they’re fighting.”
He looked at me. “Lotus?”
“Do you know the girls?”
“Only by sight.”
“White. Brunette. Fake boobs. Belly-button piercing.”
“Haven’t looked at their tits or their stomachs,” Knox said, grabbing his burger and taking a man bite, which meant a quarter of it was in his mouth.
Yeesh.
Dudes.
But I was intrigued.
“You haven’t looked at their tits?”
He chewed, swallowed and shared, “I’ll check out a woman I’m interested in fucking. But I look at her face first.”
“Ah.”
“Why are they fighting? Her job?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. Surprisingly, Duane is cool with her continuing to service her clients. As long as she does it in his hotel so he can make sure she’s safe. Which shocked us all because that’s just shocking, the okay with the sex with other dudes part, and sweet, which Duane really isn’t.”
“No shit?” he asked. “About the sex stuff.”
“No shit,” I answered. “They’re fighting because he’s had his house painted, he put in his new IKEA kitchen, and now she wants them to turn their attention to the master bath. He has a little money left over from the paintjob the Russians kinda, sorta paid for, and she has some socked away.”
“He should give her a bathroom,” Knox said immediately.
And there was why it didn’t gross me out he bit off a quarter of a burger in one go.
“We all said that. He said we were ganging up on him. We told him that would happen when he sat down to dinner with thirteen women. He conceded the point about the ganging up. But not about the bathroom.”
“He’ll cave.”
I hoped so.
“Also, Raye got word that her stepsister’s getting a divorce.”
His brows flew up. “Didn’t she only get married a few months ago?”
“Apparently, the guy is a clown. Everyone knew it but Brittany. But I guess he let that flag unfurl fully when he had her legally bound to him.”
“Fucker,” Knox said while drenching tots.
“And Stella’s hired Harlow to organize her closet.”
“She’s good at that shit,” he muttered.
He would know. He’d help Cap install the system Harlow designed in Cap and Raye’s apartment.
“We might lose her to it,” I told him. “She and Javi are talking about setting her up with an organization business.”
His eyes came to me. “That what she wants?”
“She loves doing it.”
“If that’s what she wants, honey, you gotta let her go,” he said gently.
Yeah.
I knew it.
Jacques and I collapsed back in the seat.
Or I did.
Jacques turned around in my lap so he could watch Knox eat and be prepared to leap down if he dropped something.
“Although your clan is known to some of the girls, they don’t know anything that’s happening down in Tucson,” I told him.
“Not surprised. Crew and Poe will pay for it. But they’re too lazy to search for new horizons and drive up to Phoenix looking for it.”
Euw.
“That’s good to know,” I mumbled.
He sucked back some malt before he asked, “That all?”
“It’s been a slow winter.”
He smiled then returned to attacking his tots.
“Can we read in bed together tonight?” I requested.
He returned his attention to me. “Come again?”
“It’s a fantasy I had when we were together before. You read. I read. I had visions of us being all chill, cuddled in bed together, reading. We can do it before or after nighttime sex, but I want us to give that a go. See how it feels.”
“We can do that, beautiful,” he said softly.
I smiled at him.
His phone on the coffee table clattered.
He picked it up, shoved some tots in his mouth and checked his texts.
Then his body changed.
It went still, but it was more. I could tell he was alert, but there was an edge to it. Emotion. A ton of it. And not good emotion.
“Honey?” I called.
He slid his thumbs over the screen, tossed the phone to the coffee table and looked at me.
“Gypsy told Alexeyev, Alexeyev told Titus, Titus told Mace. She had a message for me.”
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“‘We’ll always love you, but you’re released.’”
Oh fuck.
I put Jacques down, got up and went to him.
Running a hand up and down his back, I got close. “That’s what you wanted, right?”
“She’s disappearing.”
I nodded my head.
“I hope he keeps her safe, wherever they go.”
His phone clattered again.
He grabbed it.
Since I could read Mace’s text from where I sat, I read it.
You okay with this?
Mace was a good guy.
Good, Knox sent. Then, Really. It’s what I wanted. It’s done. I’m relieved.
He put his phone down again and picked up his malt.
I kept rubbing his back and sticking close.
“Reading in bed with my woman,” he murmured. “Normal people shit.”
“Yes.”
“Gypsy and Rocco probably don’t read in bed together.”
“No,” I said sadly.
His cell went again.
He nabbed it again.
And it was Mace again.
You have an army of brothers.
Totally a good guy.
Knox sat with that, and he did it for a very long time.
I kept rubbing his back while he did.
Finally, his thumbs moved.
I know, Knox replied. Appreciate you.
The three dots came up immediately, and then, You need anything, I’m here.
Knox dropped a thumbs up on that and put his phone down.
He then dropped a tot on the floor, purposefully.
Jacques snarfed it up.
“He’s right, you know. You have a huge-ass family,” I said.
Knox turned his head to me, leaned in, pressed a kiss on my lips and went back to his dinner.
That meant my message was received.
I stuck close to my guy as he finished eating.
He cleaned up after himself.
We got ready for bed, got into bed, Jacques jumped up with us, and Knox curled me close, holding his iPad in his free hand while I balanced my Kindle on his ribcage.
We didn’t have sex after.
Because, I learned, sometimes you just need your man, your dog, your bed and a book.
But more, sometimes that was what he needed.
And it felt like everything giving it to him.