Chapter 39
By the end of the week, it was obvious Bea was not really going back to her penthouse except to collect her things. Things were becoming more permanent each and everyday.
Every time she looked up, one of the brothers were there. Feeding her, checking her bruises, hovering like large, emotionally unstable guard dogs in expensive clothes.
She’d tried to stay annoyed about it but she failed every time just by looking at their stupid gorgeous faces.
So now the front hall of the Marchetti home looked like a luxury moving company had exploded with all the boxes, new garment bags, all her books stacked in neat piles, and a ridiculous number of blankets. All three men trying to carry too much at once like competence was a competitive sport.
“Put that one down before you break your spine,” Bea called to Killian, who had three boxes balanced in his arms and looked ready to fistfight gravity itself.
“It’s fine, don’t question my strength Beatrice, it wounds my man hood.”
“She’s not questioning your man hood, dumbass, It is visibly not fine,” Nico snapped, adjusting his glasses as he guided two staff members carrying the wrong bookshelf toward the wrong room. “And those go left, not right. Left. Has no one in this house ever moved furniture before?”
Dimitri emerged from the hallway with one of Bea’s desk chairs tucked under his arm and stopped short when he saw Barb standing just inside the doorway with her hands on her hips.
“Well,” Barb said, surveying the chaos. “This feels very domestic and not like those intense mob movies.”
Bea lit up. “Barb, you made it!” Barb opened her arms and Bea walked straight into them, hugging her tightly.
Barb held on just as hard. “You doing okay, kid?”
Bea nodded against her shoulder. “I really am.”
Barb pulled back enough to look at her face, then at the faint marks still healing on her throat.
Her jaw tightened for half a second before she schooled it.
Behind Bea, the brothers had all gone suspiciously still.
Barb looked at them one by one. Dimitri straightened instinctively.
Killian looked almost nervous, and Nico, to his credit, looked like he knew he deserved whatever was coming.
Barb sighed. “I see the three of you are still breathing, so you must be doing something right.” She looked at all of them again, then at the half-packed boxes. “So this is really happening.”
Bea glanced around the foyer, the brothers, the boxes, the life she was carrying from one place to another, then she smiled. “Yeah, it is.”
Barb’s expression softened, she cupped Bea’s face for a second. “I’m so happy for you.”
Bea’s throat tightened. “This isn’t goodbye, you know.”
Barb snorted. “Didn’t think it was, sugar.”
Bea grinned. “We’re still having our Supernatural marathons once a week.”
Killian, who had been pretending not to listen while absolutely listening, looked horrified. “What does that mean?”
Bea turned to him. “We get together once a week and we eat nothing but junk food and watch our sexy men on TV all day long.”
Nico frowned. “How many seasons is that show?” “Fifteen,” Bea and Barb said together.
Dimitri muttered something under his breath pretty sure he was cussing.
Barb smirked. “And if any of you interrupt Dean Winchester for nonsense, I will hit you with my purse.”
Killian actually looked offended. “Why is it the angry one everyone likes?”
“Because,” Bea said sweetly, “he’s hot and emotionally damaged.”
Nico gave her a deadpan look. “That description applies to all of us.”
“That,” Barb said, “is unfortunately true.”
Bea laughed again, then turned back to Barb and hugged her one more time, this one lasted longer. Not a goodbye, just an acknowledgment, of everything Barb had been to her. Of every time she’d stood between Bea and the world and said not this one.
When they finally pulled apart, Barb brushed a curl away from Bea’s face. “You call me if you need me.”
“You know I will.” Her words getting harder to come out evenly.
“You call me if they get too stupid.”
Bea looked over at the brothers. “That feels inevitable.”
Killian put a hand to his chest. “Wounded.”
Dimitri looked entirely too regal to be offended and entirely too guilty to commit to the act.
Nico just sighed. “Also fair.”
Barb nodded once. “Good. Then my work here is done.” She stepped back, looking at Bea, at the brothers, at the mess of her moving boxes in the grand entrance of a mafia compound and somehow seeming perfectly at peace with it.
Then she smiled. Small. Proud. A little emotional.
“Well,” she said, “try not to scare the staff too badly, sugar.” “I will never make that promise.” Bea confidently stated.
Barb laughed and headed for the door, before she stepped through it, she looked back once more and said, “Take care of her.”
Three male voices answered at once. “We will.”
And for the first time, Barb believed them, the door closed behind her.
Bea stood still for one moment, staring after her.
Then Dimitri stepped beside her, one hand settling at the small of her back. Killian moved in on the other side, warm and solid. Nico handed her a mug of coffee he’d apparently acquired from nowhere like a nervous, over prepared magician.
Bea took it and looked around at the towering pile of boxes, then at her three men.
Then up at the house that was becoming home.
“I have another rule,” she said, taking a sip, “if any of you break my bookshelves, I’m leaving.”
Killian looked appalled. “I would never, you have such little faith in me.” At that exact moment, something crashed in the next room.
All four of them froze.
A voice from down the hall called, “Sorry, boss!” Bea closed her eyes.
Nico muttered, “Unbelievable.”
Dimitri sighed.
Killian pointed at the hallway. “That wasn’t me! So that doesn’t count!”
And Bea laughed so hard she nearly spilled her coffee.