Christ, the floors were gleaming.
Glancing up the stairs, he was astounded to find that the carpet runner wasn’t actually brown … it was a deep garnet red. And the carved balustrade was glowing from having been polished. And the walls? The paper that had been gradually peeling free and dropping down was reaffixed, the pattern itself resurrected from aged obscurity, the subtle vines and blooms showing once again.
Jim headed back to the kitchen, and was gob smacked to find Adrian in an apron, sitting at the kitchen table, cutting green beans with a crystal dagger like he was performing heart surgery.
“Like this?” the angel was saying intently.
Sissy pivoted away from a steaming pot. “Perfect. Yeah, just nip the ends.”
Ad nodded and went back to work.
The fact that neither of them noticed him was a little galling. But he couldn’t really be jealous of Adrian— who, at last glance, had only grudgingly accepted her presence. Right?
Then again, six hours later, how times had changed. They were best frickin’ buddies, evidently.
Jim cleared his throat. “Smells good.”
Sissy jumped enough to drop her spoon, but Adrian just glanced up, and then returned to his job.
“You want to eat with us?” she said as she smoothed her hair. “We’re going to be ready in thirty minutes?”
He could wait that long. “Yeah. Please.”
Feeling like he was back in his mama’s house, he went to the sink and washed his hands. Hey, check it, he could actually see out the window into the backyard for the first time. And as he rinsed off, he noticed that the stainless-steel sink was shiny as new. So were the pans that were sitting in a pile in the rack.
Jim took his time drying things on a clean dishrag, lingering just behind Sissy. Her hair had been pulled back into a messy knot, held in place by a big barrette. At her nape, tiny curls had formed, and he had an almost irresistible urge to touch them, wrap them around his finger … and the impulses didn’t stop there. He wanted to wrap his height around her from behind and plant a lingering kiss on the side of her throat.
Wheeling away, he took a seat across from Ad and watched the guy make a pile of cut green beans in a white enameled pot full of water.
“So how did today go?” Ad asked.
“Stayed tight with the guy. There’s bad juju all over him—frankly, it’s a hot mess. I just wanted to come home and see…”
Adrian finished things for him. “Me, of course. And I’m really touched—you’re so awesome like that. You bring me chocolates? Flowers?”
Just as Jim was about to fuck-off the guy, the other angel said softly, “I got her. You don’t have to worry.”
Jim cocked a brow. But, man, that did decrease his stress. It was one thing asking his roommate to play bodyguard, another to have him volunteer for it.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Dinner was on about a half an hour later, just as promised, and Jim wished the meal had been hours late. As Sissy worked in the kitchen, his eyes were glued to her, watching her move around, or tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, or pull up the loose sweats she was wearing over and over again.
He’d never spent much time with women, and he certainly wasn’t into that flighty, giggly, everything-pink bullshit that some of them seemed determined to define themselves by. Still, he was very certain that few of the fairer sex pulled together a meal for two hungry men with the confidence and poise and results that Sissy did—and he found himself loving that about her.
Maybe there was a point to that man/stomach connection.
When she finally sat down, she put her hands out, palms up.
“Prayer,” she ordered as both he and Adrian stared at her in confusion.
“Ah…”
“Er…”
“Prayer.” She rapped her knuckles on the table.
Both he and Adrian complied, the three of them forming a triangle, the links shockingly strong.
She bowed her head and talked so fast that he couldn’t understand the words. Didn’t matter, though. In the midst of the war, and the deaths, and the sense that time was running out … an easing came over Jim, relaxing his breathing and his shoulders, reminding him of days long past—the good ones, the ones he hadn’t thought of in so many years.
The ones that he was shocked to find were still with him.
And what do you know—the beef stew?
Delicious.
Chapter
Forty-two
“Are you kidding me? I thought this one was going to last.”
As Duke stepped back from his door and let Rolly in, he should have known better, but come on—one day? That was all the woman had lasted with the guy?
Then again…
Rolly shrugged as he threw his backpack down. “Dude, I swear, I thought she was something special.” He went over to the refrigerator and opened things up. “Oh, man, there’s nothing to eat.”
“And this is a surprise?”
“You never have food in here.”
“Like I always tell you, you want a cook and turndown service, go to your mother’s.”
“No way, she’s too demanding.”
Well, maybe there was still hope, Duke thought as he shut the front door and tightened the bath towel that was around his waist. Maybe the woman would rethink things.
Rolly’s ass hit the sofa cushions and he sighed like the two parties had been separated for a year. “You know, you could get cable out here.”
“And encourage you to stay longer?”
“You loooooooove me,” the guy called out as Duke went into the bedroom.
“Not really.”
Duke went over to his closet and opened the louvered doors. Not much in there. But it wasn’t like he had any occasions to wear suits.
In the end, he pulled on his newest pair of jeans, a black muscle shirt, and his black leather jacket—in other words, his work uniform.
Pausing in front of the mirror over the simple pine bureau in the corner, he met his own eyes and thought of his newest buddy at work.
The pair of them had gone down by the river and done their thing, and then hit two of the six parks they had to go through. Duke had the unmistakable impression that the quiet bastard was waiting him out, watching, biding time.
Not his problem.
Returning to the main space of the house, he loomed over the sofa, where Rolly had stretched out and was snoring already.
Fuck it. He was going to focus on the positive of having the guy back—it was like a free ADT system. Because if anyone broke in here, Rolly would call.
Surely the idiot would call.
Duke shut things up tight as he left, and while he walked over to his ride, he shook his head at the beater Rolly had been driving around since they’d been at Union. The stoner had gotten it new—from his very proud
