“I’ll do that.” Boaz lost his steam, and he sat at the table too. “Can Addie and I have a moment?”
“I’ll overhear your conversation,” she told him, an honest admission, “but I can go back upstairs.”
“I would appreciate the illusion,” Boaz gritted out. “I need to talk to her alone.”
The growl in his voice, yet another slip of his temper, set Cass on edge. “Addie?”
Without lifting her head, she flicked her hand and muttered, “I’ll be fine.”
“Addie…” Cass bit her bottom lip as she rose. “I am sorry.”
“I know.”
“I was only playing.”
“I know that too,” she repeated herself, but lifted her head a fraction. “Now go eavesdrop like a good little vampire while the necromancers talk.”
Once they were alone, Boaz massaged the base of his neck. “You two really are friends.”
“Yeah.”
Unable to bear her misery, he tapped her arm. “Talk to me.”
Peeking up at him, she slowly straightened in her chair. “What do you want to know?”
“All of it,” he said. “Everything.
Twelve
I could have strangled Cass for putting me in this position, but she was already dead, and she probably would have enjoyed it anyway. There was nothing left but for me to be honest with Boaz and hope he could still see his way to marrying me after I was done.
Comfortable with the role of interrogator, Boaz started me off easy. “How did this begin?”
It was as good a prompt as any, I suppose. “I needed the money.”
“Maybe I should have asked this first.” His brow furrowed. “How did you meet Cass?”
“She was in line behind me at the grocery store. I was short a couple of dollars, and she offered to let me work them off in very naked and very creative ways.” I smiled at the memory of our first meeting. “I thanked her, put back a box of K-cups, and paid my bill.”
“What was a vampire doing in a grocery store?”
“Stalking prey.” I realized how that sounded and amended it. “A bounty, I mean. Not food.”
Though she had picked up dinner while she was out and brought him home with her.
“How did you go from sexual proposition to friends to coworkers?”
“We didn’t.” I rubbed my hands up my arms. “I went from stranger to employee to coworker to friend.” A smidgen embarrassed, I explained, “She came up to me in the parking lot and offered me a job cleaning her house a few days a week as an apology.”
Elbows on the table, Boaz leaned in closer. “Did you take it?”
Maybe he had expected me to play hard to get, or to bite my nails over the decision, but I had needed the money too badly to experience more than gratitude. “Yeah. I did.”
“How did you go from cleaning her house to bounty hunting?”
“I figured out what Cass did for a living pretty quickly. She wasn’t shy about it.” The leather catsuits she wore had me questioning if there was an underground BDSM scene in town before she clarified the outfits were reinforced to protect her from teeth and claws. The low cuts, however, were bait for her trap. “She answered all my questions, which was probably a mistake on her part. I found it fascinating, so I was always pestering her for details. Finally, she told me if I was so interested, I ought to come along with her.” I grinned. “She didn’t expect me to agree.”
Chin in palm, he absorbed my every word with very un-Elite interest. “And you…liked it?”
“I love my job.” I hadn’t mean to say so with such conviction, but there you go. The odds of Boaz allowing me to continue moonlighting were none to none, but a girl could dream. “It’s interesting, and it pays better than anything else I’m qualified to do. Partnering with Cass means we split the bounties fifty-fifty, so it’s less than if I went out on my own, but she keeps me on my toes.”
“And vampire reflexes come in handy,” Cass said dryly from her spot on the stairs. “Undead strength helps too.”
“Hush,” I yelled. “You’re not here, remember?”
Still, both her points were valid, but I could have taken more low-risk bounties solo and cashed in too. But where would the fun be in that? Surveillance was as dull as dishwater. Caffeine by the bucketful and a friend to poke me when I started drooping was how I endured those long hours of staring until my vision blurred.
“She’s gropey and tends to show her love through sexual harassment, but she really is my best friend.” Heat ignited in my cheeks when I tacked on, “And there’s never been anything sexual between us. Except for the harassment, which I’ve already mentioned.”
“Addie.” He placed his warm hand over mine. “Your sexual history up to this point is your business.”
“That is such a player move,” Cass scoffed, her voice louder—or closer. “He’s forgiving your sexual history right out of the gate so that you have to pardon him too.”
“Your piehole, Cass.” I glared in her direction, though she couldn’t see. “Shut it.”
A faint pink tinged his ears until they must have burned, and he slid his hand off mine onto the table.
“I didn’t hear that.” I leaned down to hook his gaze and hoped he would play along. “Did you?”
A slow grin spread across his face when he saw I was earnest. “Nope.”
“I’m willing to extend you the same courtesy,” I said to him over Cass’s loud groan. “The past has no place in our future.”
A flicker of emotion lit up his eyes. I was scared to label it hope. I was too afraid I might be projecting.
“I’m trying to get your career choice to make sense, but you blasted the lid off the box I put you in.” He retreated back to the comfort of discussing me, safe from his earlier pesky show of emotion. “I didn’t see you as the bounty hunting type.”
“I corrupted her,” came from the hall, definitely closer, but we both ignored Cass.
“I wasn’t until I
