Chapter 16
UNEXPECTED ALLIES
LEVI
A tremor, starting in my fingers and skating all the way up to my shoulder, was hopefully the only thing betraying how uncomfortable and anxious I was.
And, with any luck, no one would see how much I was shaking because I had my hand lightly resting on Parker’s lower back.
Hidden back there. Even though, as a supe, I should be protecting him, not the other way around.
“Come sit with us,” Edith commanded. Sure, the words sounded like they were an invitation, but we all knew they weren’t.
I pressed my lips together to hide my grimace. They still tingled from kissing Parker. And, holy Magic, what a kiss it’d been.
After years of dreaming about it, it had actually happened.
His body had felt perfect pressed against mine. I rubbed my lips together, wishing the feeling of his lips against mine could linger there forever. It’d been so long since I’d felt another’s mouth against mine that I’d forgotten how encompassing the feeling could be.
Davina smirked like she could read my mind, although I was sure as a medium that wasn’t part of her magic.
She slid into a booth beside Parker’s grandmother.
Based on where her coffee was placed, they had been seated across from one another before now.
Davina slid the mug toward her and lifted an eyebrow in a silent challenge that asked if I was going to do this or not.
“I’ll get us some fresh drinks,” Parker muttered. He walked away, leaving me with nowhere to hide.
Some restaurants had lots of tables in the center of the room, or booths with high backs and dividers. Restaurants like those were like mazes themselves. They were comforting. But unfortunately, the Flying Rowan Café wasn’t like that. It was too small to have a convoluted configuration of tables.
Or was it? Would Parker let me play with the table layout? Another half a dozen or so tables would be great. A full dozen might be pushing it.
But, even if he would, there wasn’t anything I could do about the situation right now.
I eyed the booth. I hated those things. They were never big enough for a guy of my size, but I sighed and shuffled toward it anyway.
After removing my jacket—which Parker had reminded me to put on before we left the motel—and hanging it on a hook at the end of the booth, I wedged myself onto the seat and slid over until my shoulder hit the wall.
The table was snug against my torso. If I took a deep breath, the whole table would jiggle.
The feeling of vulnerability around being too exposed had now been replaced with the feeling of being trapped. I wasn’t sure which was better.
Parker returned a minute later with mugs for the two of us and a fresh pot, which he set in the middle of the table after topping up Edith and Davina’s cups.
Wait, hadn’t he wanted coffee?
Then he slipped off his jacket and slid into the booth beside me, and I forgot what I was thinking as his shoulder rubbed against me. I had the strangest urge to put my arm around his shoulders. Just to get it out of the way and give us a few more inches of space. Really.
His body was warm against mine. Each movement he made, from pouring milk in his coffee to stirring in sugar, had his body jostling against mine.
My skin heated at the brush of his arm against mine.
I inhaled deeply to parse out his scent from the aroma of coffee and sugar and pastries and pizzas.
The way his leg flexed against mine when he reached for the napkin from the stainless-steel dispenser in the middle of the table just about did me in. Every bit of me was fixated on him.
“I thought you wanted tea,” I grumbled. He drank his tea without any extra things. If he’d been drinking tea, he wouldn’t be wiggling around beside me.
“The coffee was freshly made, and it smelled good.” Parker shrugged, making his arm brush against mine again with the motion. Was he trying to kill me ?
Edith cleared her throat. I glanced over to find her staring at me.
Uh. Right. Parker and I weren’t alone. I tried to press tighter against the wall to create a gap between us.
It was the only way I was going to be able to think.
Instead of letting me have my space, though, Parker followed until we touched again.
I had half a mind to push him away to save my sanity.
“Thanks for moving over,” he said, flashing me a smile. “It’s nice not to have half my ass hanging off the end of the bench.”
Son of Daedalus, now I was thinking about his damn ass. About how nice it was. Nice and round and…
“I guess I should make some bigger booths, hey?” Parker joked, bumping his shoulder against mine.
Damn it.
I took a gulp of my burning hot coffee.
“We need to talk about Fin,” Edith said.
“Oh?” Parker said.
I took another big chug of my coffee, mostly so the cup would hide my face. I’d always thought I could mask my emotions reasonably well, but Parker’s grandmother was staring at me like she was Jane Goodall, and I was a new breed of chimpanzee.
Davina leaned forward. “Because he is hanging out with hunters.”
I inhaled in surprise and promptly choked. I coughed to expel the coffee I’d inhaled, and it splattered across the table. Everyone turned to stare at me. Again.
“Oh, jeez,” Parker muttered as he scrambled out of the booth. A moment later, he reappeared with a glass of water. “Here. ”
Heat burned my cheeks, but I grabbed for the napkin holder. I was still coughing, but at this point, I knew I wasn’t going to die. I just had to convince my body. I wiped at my face before mopping up the mess on the table.
When everything was settled again and Parker was back in the seat beside me, I itched to take a drink of my coffee or that water Parker had brought, but I didn’t trust Edith not to say some other outlandish thing in another attempt to kill me.
Parker had his hands in his lap. He cleared his throat. “So, um, what was that about Finley?”
“He’s hanging out with those hunters.” Edith repeated Davina’s words.
I glanced at Davina, then back at Edith.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Parker said in an exaggerated way. Anyone who heard him talk like that would know he was lying. “What’s a hunter?”
Oh. Denial. That was a good plan, even if he was executing it poorly.
Edith rolled her eyes and nudged Davina with her elbow. “You better take this.”
“Edith knows about supes.
“You…” Parker rubbed his forehead.
“Yes, me.” Edith grinned.
“I knew all those bull jokes were too on the nose,” Parker muttered.
“I worked a joint case with her a few decades ago,” Davina said.
“A joint case?” Parker’s voice was at least an octave higher than normal .
“Between the Supernatural Council and the human government,” Davina explained.
“We nailed the guy.” Edith nodded and flashed Davina a smile that suggested there was an interesting story there. Then Edith waggled her eyebrows and said, “And then we nailed one another.”
Thank fuck I wasn’t drinking anything this time.
“Nana!” Parker shouted. “Oh my God! You can’t say things like that.”
“She’s a hottie,” Nana said, motioning toward Davina. “And we had plenty of time to get to know one another when we were on the stakeout.”
“Your grandmother turned everyone’s head,” Davina said. “And I was lucky enough to catch her eye for a bit.”
Parker groaned like he wanted to crawl under the table and die.
“I thought you were on Gage’s team.” I directed my question to Davina.
Davina shrugged. “I was. But we worked independently too.”
Parker and I leaned back in our seats in unison, as if needing the bit of space to absorb all that.
“Wait…” Parker scowled at his grandmother. “You said Fin’s investigation into the paranormal was a bunch of hocus pocus and hogwash.”
Edith rolled her eyes and sighed. “What is the first rule of Nana’s house?”
“What happens at Nana’s house, stays at Nana’s house,” Parker recited.
“And the second rule?”
“Never say anything that will encourage questions or curiosity,” Parker said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “So you were pretending you didn’t know anything so I wouldn’t ask questions.”
Edith shrugged. “Well, that, and I didn’t know for sure if there were supes in town until I saw Davie here. It could have been a Mafia base.”
“Right,” Parker muttered flatly. He narrowed his eyes at his grandmother. “So you weren’t a secretary.” Apparently, we were ignoring the mention of his grandmother’s fling with Davina.
“I love secretaries—” Edith waggled her eyebrows.
“You love… Oh God.” Parker groaned again and slapped his hands over his cheeks.
“If you’d let me finish, I was simply going to say they do important work. But no way was anyone going to keep me behind a desk all day.”
“I knew it!” Parker did a fist pump. “Mom is going to be?—”
“You can’t tell your mother,” Edith snapped.
“But…”
“Cara doesn’t need to know everything.” She narrowed her eyes at her grandson.
“Fine,” Parker huffed. He tilted his head and studied his grandmother. “So why are you here with Finley and his friends? You know Finley isn’t a hunter. He’s pescatarian.”
Edith skewered her grandson with a piercing scowl and waved her hand through the air dismissively. “We aren’t talking about religion.”
“What? No. That’s not…” Parker floundered .
Edith winked at me, like she knew exactly what a pescatarian was and was just saying shit to rile Parker.
“But that’s beside the point,” she continued.
“I didn’t suspect they were hunters until he showed up with those two.
I keep my ear to the ground, because I’m too young to retire—no matter what the government says.
So, like I said, I thought there might be a criminal organization in town, and I thought I should investigate.
I do what I can and pass along tips to my former colleagues when I find something juicy. ”
Juicy. What was it with this woman and that word?
“And if you were right? You would have put Fin in danger.”