9. Vex #2
“I walked.” I frown. “Is that a thing? You need an invite?” I scrunch up my face. “That’s a thing?”
“I don’t know,” she finally admits after a long moment.
“So you don’t know as much as you let on.” Noted.
“Is everything okay?” Callie steps into the kitchen, eyes darting between us.
“Yeah,” I say.
“No.” Calypso steps in front of me. “He needs to go.”
That makes Callie even more suspicious.
“Your car—” I begin.
“Is she ready?” Callie cuts me off.
I hate to break her spirit, she’s so damn happy. “No.” I smile. “But lucky for you, I’m your driver now.”
That doesn’t impress her.
“You won’t have to hide from Soren.” I try.
“I’m not,” she denies. It’s cute.
“Right.” I nod.
“Are you stalking me?” Callie asks. “Because seriously, why were you in my crawlspace?”
I’m never getting out of this one.
“He got lost,” Calypso says around a wince. Grasping at a straw she won’t find.
“My apartment.” I lie. “Right across the hall. Did you know our crawlspaces connect.”
Callie crosses her arms and my gods I get distracted by her breasts. But just for a minute, because my mama taught me better than to just stare at tits. Also my sisters drilled it in, how much women hate that. Never had that issue before. Until now.
I want my mouth on her. Not the polite way my sisters would approve of. I want to know what she tastes like, and I’m pretty sure once I started, I wouldn’t stop. Like. At all.
That would probably scare her.
Doesn’t scare me.
“Bullshit,” Callie says.
Calypso, the bitch, cuts in. “He was leaving. Going home to his own apartment. Weren’t you, Vex.”
“No.” I spit it out.
“You drove me home last week and didn’t mention you lived here,” Callie points out.
“Now I do.” I smile and repeat the words because I like how they taste in my mouth. “Now I do.” Guess I do. “Who do I pay rent to?”
Callie stares at me like I grew a second head. “You don’t just… become someone’s neighbor.”
“I do.” I shrug. “I’m very adaptable.”
She’s not buying it. Her eyes go narrow and sharp. I open my mouth before I’ve got anything to put in it.
“The apartment across from you just got listed,” Calypso jumps in, surprisingly helpful.
“That’s exactly what I mean.” I nod. “Moving in. Today, actually. Hence the crawlspace confusion.”
Callie points at my face. “There’s blood on your chin.”
“Still?” I wipe my mouth. “Rat.”
“There’s a dead rat in the crawlspace,” Madison calls from the living room, where she’s apparently been eavesdropping. “I just looked.”
Well, shit.
“Okay, fine.” I drag a hand through my hair. “There was a rat. And I killed it. Because I’m a good neighbor.”
“Did you eat it?” Callie’s eyebrows shoot up.
Yes. Kind of. This conversation is going badly.
“Technically, I didn’t eat it. I just bit it. Out of desperation.” Calypso’s glare burns into the side of my face. “It was feral.”
“Once is enough to be weird,” Callie says, but there’s something in her voice. Not quite fear. Curiosity.
“Vex is weird,” Calypso jumps in. “That’s why we all love him, right?”
Madison appears in the doorway, the baby bouncing on her hip. “So, Vex, are you really moving in across the hall?”
“That’s the plan,” I tell her. “Fresh start.” It’s better than where I was living. Out of my shop. Lazarus’s subbasement doesn’t count. Neither does his house, it’s his not mine.
Callie hasn’t stopped looking at me. Suspicious, sure. But she hasn’t looked away either. So I’m calling that a win.
“And you just happened to wander into my crawlspace by accident?” Skepticism drips off every word. I don’t really blame her.
“Complete accident.” I lie, smooth as anything. “You know how these old buildings are. Floor plans make no sense.”
Madison snorts. “That’s actually true. Remember when the plumber came last month and ended up in Mrs. Henderson’s bathroom?” She looks at Calypso.
They don’t live here. I’d have smelled them.
Calypso seizes it. “See? Vex just got turned around. Nothing suspicious about it.”
Callie’s gaze slides between all of us. Not buying it. Not calling me out either. “Fine,” she eventually says. “But if I find out you’re lying…”
“You won’t.” It’s a lie. One more for the pile.
The baby makes a gurgling sound and reaches for me. Without thinking I give her my finger and let her grab it. Her grip is surprisingly strong for such a tiny thing.
“Careful,” Madison warns. “She’s teething.”
Heh, me too.
I don’t mind her biting. Her pulse thrums against my fingertip, warm and alive. I can feel her little heart going a mile a minute against my finger. Tiny thing. Wouldn’t be hard. Wouldn’t be hard at all and that’s just the truth of it.
Huh.
Except her blood doesn’t make me hungry. It makes me want to stand in front of her and dare the whole world to try something. Weird, right? New one for me.
Then she reaches for me again and I scoop her up and set her on my hip.
The twins look suspicious. Not Madison.
“She likes you,” she whispers.
“Babies love me.” I coo at her. “Got three nieces of my own.”
“Do you?” Callie’s arms are still crossed, but she’s coming around. I can tell in the way her posture has dropped, just a fraction. “Show me.”
“Show you what?” My head snaps to her. She wants to meet the family? So soon?
“The apartment.”
Oh. That.
“Okay.” One arm holding the baby, I walk to the door, open it, step into the hall. Luckily there’s minimal sunlight. Still not taking the chance. I cross the hall and look back, all three women watch my every move.
The doorknob is, in fact, locked when I twist it.
“Lock yourself out?” Callie steps up beside me. She is judging me so hard right now.
“No.” I lie. Again. Stacking ‘em up. Then I twist again and just like that it gives. I totally broke it. But she doesn’t know that. Yet. Maybe. Just in case, I swing the door open and let her in.
It is, in fact, vacant.
See. Everything always works out for me.
“Welcome to casa Vex.” Mable grabs my T-shirt and swings around to look inside too, the nosy little thing.
Callie steps in to look around the empty space with dust everywhere. Bare floors, white walls, a kitchen with appliances older than Calypso’s attitude. But it’s mine now I guess.
“Well?” I shift Mable to my other hip. “What do you think?”
“It’s… empty,” Callie says, dragging a finger along the counter and leaving a trail in the dust. “You don’t even have furniture.”
“Minimalist lifestyle.” I lie, real smooth. “I travel light.”
Calypso leans on the doorframe, arms crossed. “Very convincing.”
Madison pokes her head in. “We should get going, Calypso. That appointment…”
“Oh, right.” Calypso straightens. “Callie, we’re heading out. Text me later?”
Callie nods, but she’s still looking at me like a knot she can’t pick loose. Fine by me. Let her work at it.
“Come on, Mable.” She reaches for the baby, who doesn’t want to go to mama.
“See, she likes me.” I hand her over.
“Suspicious.” Calypso, on the other hand, hates me. “I’m watching you, Vex.”
“Say.” I grin. “How’s that boy toy of yours.”
“Fuck you, Vex.” Calypso strides off with her friend, barely looking back, middle finger raised over her head.
“So,” Callie says, turning to face me full on. “You just happened to find an apartment across from mine, move in, and somehow end up in my crawlspace all in the same day?”
“When you put it that way, it does sound suspicious.” I admit it. “But you’re glossing over the most important part.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re neighbors.” I smile.
She shakes her head and walks off. “I’m locking the crawlspace.”
“Good idea.” I snicker. “Don’t want any intruders.”
“You are the intruder, Vex.”
She pauses at her door, me at mine. Her in her little sleep set. Me in my usual jeans and T-shirt. There’s something she wants to say. I can see it. But she doesn’t. Instead she shakes her head and disappears into her apartment.
Lazarus is going to murder me in my sleep.