Page 16 of Bones
I sit up straighter, attention zeroing in on Sydney who is currently talking a very long drink of wine. “Wait, date?”
“Ugh,” Sydney drops her head back against the chair’s cushion before glaring at us. Her dark eyes reveal nothing. She rakes ahand through her long black hair with irritation. When neither Kennedy or me give up she finishes off her wine before speaking, “It went about as I expected. He was interested, but I wasn’t. Nothing wrong with him, other than he lives two hours away in the city. Perfect gentleman, cute...”
“I’m hearing a ‘but,’” Kennedy prompts and I nod in agreement.
“Butthere was no spark. I might as well have been getting dinner with a cousin.” Sydney groans before leaning forward and refilling her glass with the last of the bottle. She shakes the empty one at Kennedy as she stands up. “Good thing you brought more than one. I’m going to grab us some things to eat from downstairs, any requests?”
Kennedy shouts out a request for mozzarella cheese sticks as the woman heads down the stairs leading to her bar. Honestly, I’ve realized I’m not that picky--maybe one of those weird not so bad things I got from my time with the Justicars. I’m more interested in how quickly Sydney left.
“She’s avoiding the conversation, isn’t she?” I ask. I’m not well experienced in socialization anymore, but I do remember what high school was like before I dropped out.
“Oh yeah.” Kennedy stares in the direction Sydney disappeared before turning towards me and scooting closer. Her voice lowers, like she’s worried we’ll be overheard. “Lacy and me have a theory that something happened between Reaper and Sydney years ago that she hasn’t gotten over. She says she doesn’t like him but we’ve been paying attention. She ignores him way too much.”
“Reaper? Like the president of the club?” Excitement scurries through my veins. Not necessarily for Sydney but I’m justenjoying this whole situation; gossiping like this is something I’d given up on ever experiencing again. I wonder if Bones knows anything. At the thought of him, my excitement dims but I refuse to let thoughts of him ruin my night. “Has Blaze told you anything?”
Kennedy’s eyes sparkle with mirth and she’s so pretty I can absolutely understand why Blaze fell so hard for her. The idea of humans having a relationship with a demon, let alone binding their souls to them, isn’t strange to me anymore. It was impossible to think it as evil when Kennedy and Lacy are so clearly adored by their mates.
“Get this: Blaze says he has no idea what happened, other than it was years and years ago. They were fine one day, then she hated him the next. Reaper shuts any of them down that asks what happened.”
I lower my brows, turning to look towards the stairwell, considering. “And Sydney has never said anything?”
Kennedy shrugs and leans back against the couch. “She just says she doesn’t like him and that she’s got plenty of reasons not to.”
“Huh.” I sit back, thinking about it. If I hadn’t seen how well Lacy and Cinder and Kennedy and her Blaze work, I wouldn’t have any questions about why Sydney so adamantly dislikes Reaper. I try to think of the times I’ve seen the two in the same room, but other than the bar below and at the clubhouse party, I don’t think I’ve seen them near each other. Even then, they seem to keep clear of each other.
“Speaking of demons.” Kennedy swings her foot up and nudges me again, a cheshire grin on her face. I brace myself for whatever she’s about to say. “Any of them catch your eye? It seemed likeBones and you might have something at that party when he got all bent out of shape when Sampson was flirting with you.”
I laugh but it isn’t filled with happiness and Kennedy picks up on it right away. I reach back and tug my blonde hair free its tie, needing something to distract me. She waits, patient, while I gather my thoughts and finger comb my hair. I haven’t talked about this to anyone, not even Dr. Anna Leigh.
“We kissed at the party.” My cheeks burn at the admission and I start to plait my hair. “I’m pretty sure he’s avoided me ever since.”
“Were you okay with kissing?” she asks carefully.
I give her a sardonic grin. “I’m pretty sure I’d have let him do a lot more than kiss me that night. He’s the one that stopped it and left. Pretty sure he’s avoided me ever since.”
Kennedy’s mouth pinches. “I wonder why.”
I give up another admission, “Before we kissed, he said something like, ‘just one kiss.’” I look at Kennedy under my eyelashes, trying to gauge her reaction. She looks surprised, her perfectly sculpted brows raised high, but then her lips morph into a grin.
“You know what that means, right?” She doesn’t wait for me to respond. “It means he wants to kiss you but something is holding him back.”
I consider her words while staring at my nearly empty glass of wine. If he wanted to kiss me, which it certainly felt like he wanted to kiss me, then why has he avoided me since? It can’t be me, because I was clear about my own desire, right? So, is it him? Or something else? I go to ask Kennedy her opinionbut the downstairs door opens with a bang, startling both of us. Someone begins to stomp up the stairwell and the wine turns sour in my stomach.
“Stupid men,” Sydney grumps as her head comes into view. She stops at the top, a wicker basket with black and white checkered parchment paper in it, piled high with fries, fried cheese sticks and some sort of cheese with olives. In her other hand is a brown paper to-go box. Her dark eyes zero in on me as she holds the latter out. “Sorry, lady, but Reaper and Cinder are downstairs. They say you need to head with them to HQ.”
Cold sweat beads my neck as a sense of dread demolishes the good mood I’d been in. I know, in my gut, whatever they need me for has to do with Father Xavius.
10
BONES
“You need to get laid, man,” Chainz drawls from where he sits, sprawled out with his legs extended, at the conference table. I’m sitting at the computer station Stubs and I share. He’s the main IT and computer genius, but I’m close on his heels. Well, heel, I think with a mental chuff. There’s a reason why he’s called Stubs and it’s absolutely because of the gnarly stub at the bottom of his left shin where his ankle and foot used to be.
Before he lost it down the throat of a hellcat. Stubs hadn’t let the beast get away with it, shoving his blade down the hellcat’s mouth as a mortal chaser.
“Fuck off,” I toss over my shoulder, gritting my teeth as my fingers fly over the wireless keyboard perched on my lap.
We’re at the main office of Cerberus Securities, the Knights of Hades first legitimate business after establishing ourselves in Devil’s Haven. Reaper had bought the rundown empty warehouse that’d been full of broken factory machinery and other shit abandoned decades previous. We all put months ofsweat and blood into the place until it became a place we could be proud of bringing clients into.
