Chapter Ten #2
Shepherd shrugged as he recapped the jar.
He had to give it a thump with the heel of his hand to get the lever latch to work.
Once it was, he turned and stretched up to slide it back onto the shelf.
Kel chewed on the ginger as he appreciated the play of Shepherd’s arm muscles as his sleeve slid back.
“It’s not the only drawback,” Shepherd said.
“OK,” Kel said. “Let’s hear ‘em, but you’d better have something better than ‘sometimes pukes’.”
There was a low grinding creak from under the floorboards and a glass jar full of dry white bits shot off the shelf.
Shepherd jumped back, and it just missed him, shattering on the ground at his feet.
The shreds of whatever had been in the jar floated up into the air, sticking to Shepherd’s legs and shoes.
“Hey!” Shepherd snapped as he looked around. “That’s unnecessary. He asked me.”
A door slammed somewhere. It shouldn’t have been able to sound petty, but it did.
Shepherd used the side of his foot to scrape the broken bits of jar up.
“That’s the first drawback,” he said. “You and the house have to co-exist.”
“It seems to like me well enough,” Kel said.
“That’s new relationship energy,” Shepherd said.
He made a long arm to grab the HOA list off the table to run his eye down the list as he talked.
“Wait until the HOA says you need to paint the trim Shrimpboat Pink and the house doesn’t like the idea.
It’s like having a roommate with veto power and a bad temper. ”
“I live with my grandmother,” Kel said. “And not like I’m going to be around that much—”
He stopped mid-sentence as Shepherd shook his head.
“OK, feed the house, and it feeds me,” Kel said. “That’s what. Twice a year.”
Shepherd folded his arms.
“Once a…month?”
Shepherd screwed up his nose. The dream of Vegas and cleaning up at the card table dissipated like…smoke.
“I need to stay in Marble Falls,” Kel said. He took a breath and huffed it off. Of course he did. He’d wondered often enough why Dio Madden hadn’t just taken his inheritance and run instead of moving to Marble Falls. It was because he didn’t have a choice. “Forever.”
Shepherd unfolded his arms and stuck them in the pockets of his shorts. “Or until you hand the curse off to someone else.”
“...wasn’t Dio going on a cruise?”
Shepherd acknowledged that with a nod. Apparently he’d stood still long enough because he headed out of the kitchen. His answer was thrown over his shoulder as he started up the stairs.
“He was,” he said. “And within about three days he’d have been able to blend in with the old folk on the shuffleboard deck. When he came back he’d need to…feed…more to recuperate. You could probably stay presentable a bit longer, but from what I hear it’s not pleasant.”
Kel gave the stairs an unenthusiastic look. He leaned against the newel post, arms crossed on top of the carved ball.
“You look pretty good.”
Shepherd stopped mid-step and glanced around. “Oh, I’m not…supernatural,” he said. “All this? 100% pedigree human. I was just home-schooled.”
Kel put his head down on his arms. Great. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Do you actually know any more than I do?” he asked the darkness inside his lids.
“Depends,” Shepherd said. “Specifically? No. Generally? Yes. About anything to do with taxes? Definitely not. Shit.”
Kel lifted his head. “What now?”
“I think that is a hornet's nest.” Shepherd balanced precariously on the bannister as he squinted out the bullseye window situated high on the front of the house. “I was hoping it was some sort of demonic chrysalis, but no… OK, I just need to find out who the pest guy is for this area.”
“Seriously?” Kel said. “That takes priority over my thing?”
Shepherd glanced down at him and shrugged before he hopped back down off the balcony. His feet thumped on the landing, and Kel felt a twinge of envy, low and mean in his gut, for how easy that was for him.
It wasn’t a new feeling. For some reason, though, it did make him feel bad to grudge Shepherd his knees. Maybe that was growth.
“Good point,” Shepherd said. He loped back down the stairs and stopped a few steps from the bottom. It gave him an inch on Kel. He smiled easily as he held the papers. “Your thing? It means the HOA is your problem now.”
Oh.
Fuck.
Kel reluctantly took the list and gave it a dubious once-over. It was pretty long, everything from ‘tree roots impinging on a neighbor’s yard’ to ‘a non-standard mail slot.’
“It’s double-sided,” Shepherd pointed out helpfully as he leaned against the bannister.
Kel flicked the page over and grimaced as he saw the list of problems was in a smaller font on this side.
“OK, you’re the expert…for what that’s worth,” Kel said as he glanced up from under his lashes at Shepherd. “You think Dio topped himself to get out of handling the HOA?”
Shepherd only had a shrug for him.
Ruby, on the other hand… Even without the full story, she had a fully formed opinion.
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” she said tartly. She cleared away a plate—the remains of a half-eaten burger in a puddle of ketchup—and tucked the tip under it into her apron. “That family has always had a selfish streak.”
Kel reached out and grabbed the burger before she swung the plate out of reach. He picked a wet bit of napkin off and took a bite. Cold meat and crisp pickle gave under his teeth, sauce thick and sticky on his tongue. It just tasted like cardboard.
Free cardboard, though. He took another bite.
“Did Joe get another load of burgers off the back of someone’s car?” he asked.