Page 68 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves
The bell jingles again. And I swear to god, time slows.
He walks in like a villainous love letter, sealed in blood and spritzed with pheromones no human man should legally emit.
Edgar Templeton is dressed like he’s either mourning a wife he poisoned or officiating a wedding where the theme is funeral chic. Charcoal slacks, midnight-black shirt, matching vest. A fucking pocket square. His coat billows behind him like it has unresolved trauma and a graduate degree in drama.
And his scent, I catch it before he even speaks. Leather, smoke, something sweet and unplaceable. Expensive ruin. Forbidden pastries. A cologne that whispers, “You won’t survive me, but you’ll say thank you.”
I stare the way a cat does before it knocks over a glass, considering, judging, impressed.
Carson watches with a single raised brow as Edgar strolls up to the counter and delivers his order. “I’ll have an espresso. Double shot. Extra hot. With a dash of cardamom and one sugar cube, not stirred. If the beans are from Ethiopia. If not, I’ll take the French roast, but only if it was ground within the last ten minutes.”
The poor barista just nods like she’s been hexed.
Then he turns to us, spots the pastry in front of me, and hums low in his throat. “A lemon croissant?” he says, silk and sin. “Excellent choice, Blake. Bold. Messy. Subtly cruel.”
He doesn’t break eye contact. Just sits beside me like this isn’t my personal panic apocalypse.
I gawk at him like a baked good just proposed. What the hell is “subtly cruel?” Why do I want him to say it again but about me?
I would let him cremate me for free.
He sips the water they give him before the coffee. Dabs his lips with a napkin. And then, because the universe knows I haven’t suffered enough, he looks between me and Carson with a slow, knowing smile.
“So…” he says smoothly. “Are we comparing notes or making plans?”
For a while, nobody talks.
Carson stares into his black coffee like it holds the secrets of the universe. Edgar casually dismantles his croissant like he’s performing post-mortem on a pastry. And I just sit there, trying not to blurt out so are we all in love with her or just soft in thehead? Because it’s obvious now. Too obvious. We’re not here by accident. We’re here because of her.
“I didn’t know she was seeing both of you,” I say.
Carson lifts a brow. “She’s not. Not exactly.”
Edgar sips his coffee, graceful bastard. “I wouldn’t call it ‘seeing.’ I’d call it… gravitating. Towards what fits.”
Okay, well now I’m the pastry because I am fully crumbling.
Carson finally puts his mug down and fixes me with a stare that should come with a Miranda warning. “She doesn’t belong to us,” he says simply. “But she deserves men who won’t break her more.”
That knocks the wind out of me a little. Because yeah. He’s right. “I’m not trying to… compete,” I say. “I mean. I’m not a cop or a fancy death wizard. I changed her porch light and now I have dreams where we bake muffins and make out on top of the dryer.”
Edgar’s smile curls, sly and not unkind. “That’s more romantic than anything I’ve done. I helped her cremate a sex pest.”
I reconsider my entire love résumé. “I brought her chocolate milk.”
Edgar nods, solemn. “Valid.”
Carson actually snorts. The tension snaps like overworked elastic, and suddenly it’s not hostile anymore. It’s… weirdly warm. “We’re all here for her. Not enemies. Agreed?”
I nod, dazed. Then, because I have a habit of saying the quiet part out loud, I offer, “So we’re all her… team?” There it is. I said it. Out loud. Like I’m pitching the world’s weirdest sitcom. “Three Dudes and a Murder Girlfriend.”
Edgar doesn’t miss a beat. “Reverse harem is the clinical term, I believe.”
I choke on air. Carson just looks exhausted.
There’s a pause, just long enough for me to wonder if I hallucinated the whole conversation, before Edgar casually sets his coffee down. “We need a list of the bake-off judges. And their allergies.”
Carson nods like that’s perfectly normal. “I’ll also pull the permit violations from Cookie’s bakery. Just in case.”
