2. Two
TWO
“It’s not that bad,” Lex insisted an hour later as we pulled into the parking garage of Hayes Development Company to collect our payment.
As far as we knew, his jammer had worked.
The motorists watching us had freaked out when the ghoul bodies went up in flames.
Then they exited their vehicles to ask us what we were doing.
We feigned ignorance, not that it worked.
Eventually, we had to flee. We were left with no other choice.
We couldn’t go to Lenore Hopewell-Hayes for payment, even though she had the problem.
No, we had to go to her son, a righteous turd from another dimension.
Okay, that was likely not true. Archie Hayes was obnoxious to the nth degree, but I had no solid proof he was from an alternate dimension.
We’d talked to him briefly when his mother contracted with us.
Because she didn’t seem to be on top of things — age got the better of all of us — we wanted to talk to him as well.
In fact, we insisted he co-sign her contract before we started the extermination.
Lenore was a nice lady, but we don’t do pro bono work.
Unfortunately, because of how things had turned out, we didn’t have time to track Lenore down before leaving.
We had to get out of there before someone with a working phone showed up.
We couldn’t use the jammer twice. It needed to be charged.
That meant visiting Archie for payment on his mother’s job.
Because we smelled like death — the worst kind of death — I knew Archie wouldn’t be thrilled to see us in his fancy office.
I didn’t let that bother me. People like Archie, the sort of people my parents spent their time hobnobbing with, didn’t impress me.
They paid for jobs, of course, but they were never grateful for the things we did.
I’d learned not to let that bother me a long time ago.
Hayes Development Company was located in the Central Business District, or the CBD to the locals, and I tried not to let the stares bother me as I walked out of the parking garage and down the street. We had a bit of a hike before us.
“We really smell foul,” I said as I lifted my arm and gave my pit a little sniff.
“Oh, that was so hot,” Lex drawled. He had a smudge of something that wasn’t blood — I really didn’t want to know what it was — on his chiseled cheek, but didn’t seem to care. “I can’t believe you’re still single with sexy habits like that.”
I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “Do you think you’re funny?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.
“I don’t need to date. I’m building a new partnership. You remember those bigwigs from Boston? We’re working together with them. It’s no longer just us and a few of our friends any longer.”
Lex snorted. “Bigwigs?”
“They are,” I protested. “They’re from the Legacy Foundation. Have you even read up on that group?”
“The second they approached you to join forces, I started researching them,” Lex confirmed.
Well, that was news to me. “You did?” I slowed my pace. He hadn’t mentioned this before.
“Oh, don’t look at me that way.” He flicked the end of my nose with his dirty finger, and I reared back. “There was no way I wouldn’t look into strangers claiming to be magical gifts from the gods who approached my best friend out of nowhere. I’m not going to let anyone ambush you, girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” I had to hold back a laugh.
He shrugged. “I did claim you were my girlfriend last weekend when Begonia Stevens asked me out.”
“Begonia Stevens?” I didn’t think it was possible to be grossed out more than I was after burning all the ghoul bodies. Apparently, I’d been wrong. Begonia Stevens had gone to high school with us, and she was … well, she was not a nice girl, to put it mildly. “Where did you run into her?”
“The new bar on Bourbon Street.”
“Ew.” I wrinkled my nose and let my judgment flow freely. “Why are you drinking on Bourbon Street? That’s a tourist thing. Why would you want to be mistaken for a tourist?”
“Honey, I’m never mistaken for a tourist. I simply like to visit Bourbon Street bars when I’m looking for a little one-night-stand action.”
“Ugh.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “You’re so gross.”
“I’m just active.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
He shrugged. “When I’m ready, I’ll settle down. I’m not there yet.”
When Lex finally decided to commit, he was going to make an excellent husband and father. I had zero doubts about that. If he wanted to fertilize the entire city until then, it wasn’t my place to halt him.
“What were we talking about again?” I asked.
“About why you’re not dating even though you’re hot. You know women age worse than men. You should be locking in your mate now.”
Yup. I was officially annoyed. “Mate?”
“I’m a shifter. We mate.” He paused. “You’re part vampire. You mate too. Your father calls your mother his mate.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t like that word.”
When Lex broke into a grin, I knew he was going to say something obnoxious. “Is this like when you developed the aversion to the word moist?”
“Everyone hates that word,” I hissed. “Stop saying it.”
“I like it when things are moist.”
I jabbed a finger in his face, and he captured it, wrapping it tightly and staring into my eyes. “What about the bounty hunter?”
In hindsight, I should have been expecting the question. Weeks earlier, Knox Cullen and I crossed paths for the first time. Okay, not for the first time. We weren’t well acquainted before we found ourselves on the same case. We’d sort of known each other from afar.
For example, I knew he was a grumpy pain in the ass who had ties to the 9th Ward. He knew me as a stubborn witch with a bad attitude. He didn’t want to work with me. The feeling was mutual. Ultimately, we’d had no choice but to work together.
There had been sparks, I was chagrined to admit.
Somewhere, under all that animosity, we had sparked together.
Thankfully, neither of us was looking, and we had politely gone our separate ways.
There was no need to talk about that man.
Of course, we would eventually run into one another again.
It would be polite head nods all around when that happened.
“What about him?” I threw back, cocking my head. “I haven’t seen him in weeks.”
“But … you guys were kind of … you know.” Lex waggled his eyebrows.
I feigned ignorance. “What?”
“You know.” Lex swirled his hips.
We might not have ever considered a romantic relationship with one another — neither of us felt that way, and we would never risk our friendship — but Lex never shied from talking ad nauseum about his romantic conquests and my romantic dry spell.
“Dude, I don’t know what you think happened between Knox Cullen and me —”
“Sparks,” he interjected. “There were sparks … and a lot of sniffing. Him, not you. You’re not as turned on by scents as a shifter. Don’t tell me you didn’t lick your lips at the thought of biting him during sex.”
My mouth fell open, and I wheezed. “What?”
“I read a lot of romance books, and I totally know that’s a thing.”
My head was going to explode. “Since when do you read romance books?” Was that the more important question? I wasn’t certain, but I was understandably curious.
“I don’t know.” Lex lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s been about a year or so. I find they help me get into the female psyche and give my partners what they want … even if it’s only for a night.”
That sounded like a huge pile of crap. “How do romance books do that?”
“They’re fantasy.” He grinned. “Women are shown men that they absolutely wouldn’t want in the real world. The men are attentive, always there, and constantly fawning over the female protagonists. It’s a fantasy, because in reality the woman would not put up with the actual tropes.
“They’d kick the grumpy hero in the gonads and walk away whistling when he’s rude,” he continued. “They’d yell at the sensitive artists to get off the couch and take the garbage out. That’s reality.”
Weirdly, I understood where he was coming from. “And you read these books on a regular basis?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. I’m still a mystery fan, but I do read whichever romance book makes a splash and is at the top of the charts each month. I want to know what the current female mindset is.”
“So you can take advantage of it?”
“So I can fulfill the fantasy.”
Could I really give him grief for doing his research? It wasn’t as if he picked his dates from the kiddie pool. He preferred age-appropriate women so they didn’t get clingy when he inevitably walked away.
Sometimes he could be counted on for a single night of romance.
Other times, he kept a woman for a few weeks, certainly never more than three months, and those dalliances were few and far between.
It wasn’t as if his partners didn’t know that he was a dog when they hooked up with him.
Many of the women were looking for a man exactly like him.
“I need to think about this,” I said as he held open the door that led to Hayes Development Company. “I’m sure I’ll have more to say later about this development.”
He winked. “Looking forward to it.”
With that conversation tabled, we hopped on the elevator. There was only one other person in the car with us, a woman about our age. She wrinkled her nose at the smell — it really was noxious — but kept smiling at Lex. The whole thing was disconcerting.
When we got to Archie’s office, his secretary tried to force us to make an appointment.
Lex flirted with her until she placed a call to her boss.
He was in, so I sent a message through the secretary that we weren’t leaving.
The big boss finally let us into his inner sanctum, a corner office with windows on two sides.
He made it obvious that he was unhappy with our appearance.
“Ms. Holmes,” he said in a scolding voice as he leaned back in his chair. “I already told you when we talked earlier that this was my mother’s deal.”