But actually not at all, the little fucking bastard.
Walter didn’t reply. And for once, I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.
Declan said, “Blake, I’ll see you later, since it seems I have a prior engagement. Walter, let’s go.” And with that, Declan inserted himself between us, blocking our view of each other and chivvying Walter down the hall.
Declan glanced back over his shoulder once before they turned the corner, his expression dark but unreadable, and then they were gone.
I stood there for a couple of minutes getting my breathing under control, fingers flexing, knowing that if I so much as moved a step I’d wolf out and put my claws through that big, shiny interior window. Thank gods Declan’s assistant wasn’t at her desk; she’d apparently already gone to lunch. Who knew what she would’ve thought of all of that.
When I was certain they were long gone and I’d gotten my shift under control, I headed down the hallway myself. I’d lied through my teeth about staying in the office and working. No way, not with how I felt like I might explode out of my own skin at any moment.
The suite. It was the closest thing to a den I had, and I’d go there and calm down. Wait for Declan. Have a drink.
And brood. Olympic-level brooding seemed called for.
Maybe several drinks.
***
Declan came home extremely early by his standards, a few minutes after five, shrugging out of his jacket and tie before he’d even gotten all the way through the foyer and tossing them onto a nearby chair.
I blinked up at him hazily. “Good day at the office, dear?” I slurred from where I’d slumped so deeply into the sofa that we’d basically become one. Several drinks had become…well, I had the bottle in my hand, and not a glass, so that more or less covered it. “Your head of mashi—magical security put the whammy on anyone today?”
That earned me a long, and long-suffering, sigh. Declan ripped at the buttons of his shirt as if they’d personally offended him.
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” he muttered, and headed for the bar. “Did you leave me anything?” he threw back over his shoulder.
“This is only my shecond bottle.” I took another swig, just to make sure he didn’t get any ideas about it—he could find his own. Fuck, I hadn’t been this drunk in what felt like forever. It tooka lotto put an alpha werewolf down. And I’d been trying to keep my wits about me lately.
Fucking Walter. I’d still been so angry when I got back to the suite that I’d needed to immobilize myself, or I’d have done something stupid. Stupider. Declan defending me had helped—at first. But then it’d only made me angrier, as I thought about it. He’d defended me without believing me, used my reasoning about why Walter had failed in doing his job without taking it to the obvious conclusion: that he’d been the one to magic me.
So as much vodka as I could pour down my throat seemed like a better alternative to storming off to find wherever they were having lunch, and giving them both a piece of my mind.
Mmm. Vodka. I wasn’t angry anymore.
Walter had been, though. I couldn’t suppress a ridiculous giggle at the way Walter had been so fucking pissed-off, and how dumb that had been of me to provoke him, and then I tried to take another drink and ended up spilling vodka down my front. I’d taken off my button-down when I got back, so at least it only soaked the front of my undershirt. Fuck it. I already smelled like a distillery.
By the time Declan came back to the sofa, glass of whiskey in hand, I’d sloshed another slug of vodka down my throat and moved on to laughing myself sick over how fucking stupidhe’dbeen.
I’d managed to slouch across two of the giant cushions with my head tilted toward the arm. He dropped into the cushion by my knees, took a long drink, and then tipped his head back with a sigh.
“It’s kind of endearing,” I managed to mumble without slurring any of the words. Go me.
Declan rolled his head on the back of the sofa until he was looking at me, one eyebrow up. “Endearing. I can’t think of anything that happened today that deserves that description. Unless you’re talking about your bottle of vodka. The two of you look pretty happy together.”
I blinked at him, probably looking like an owl caught out in the daytime, and waved the bottle gently. “We are.” I grinned, and his face softened a little. Good. I was too drunk to deal with it if he got all annoyed with me. “But I meant you. So dumb. You must be so used to everyone wanting you you jush—just don’t notice it anymore. It’s still dumb.”
“Used to everyone wanting me,” he said slowly, an odd look in his eyes I couldn’t begin to interpret. “Dumb?”
“Walter,” I said, nudging his thigh with my knee. “He’s gagging for it. He fucking hates me. I don’t know why though, it’s not like you like me.” My tongue felt funny. I needed another drink. I managed to get the bottle to my mouth again, slurping some more and spilling just as much. “Whoops.” The bottle wavered. “Hey!” Declan plucked it out of my hand and leaned forward to set it on the coffee table. “I was drinking that!”
“I think it was drinking you. Blake.” He dropped back, turning to face me fully. “Walter doesn’t…want me. You’re drunk. You think he made you attack him, I know, but he can’t have.” A little note of desperation there, maybe? Gods, he was so close to seeing the truth. “He’s my right-hand man, and you need to let this go.”
“He wants you so bad.” I tried to sit up, lunging for the vodka bottle. One of them, since it seemed to have split into multiples. I missed all of them, and I slumped back, still not sure which one was real. “Soooo bad, Declan. You’re dumb. Trying to get us to eat lunch together, for fuck’s sake.”
The confused look on Declan’s face mirrored his total lack of understanding from earlier so perfectly that I couldn’t take it. My abdomen hurt from the tremors of laughter. I was off again, flopping onto the sofa and howling until tears came to my eyes, and then I wasn’t sure if I was laughing or sobbing.
The cushions dipped and rose as Declan moved. His empty glass landed on the table next to the bottle, and then his hands were under my armpits and he was heaving me up. I flailed, but he effortlessly tugged me upright and into his arms, my head landing on his shoulder.
