“Sure,” Danny said. “Follow me.”
I followed him toward the rear of the store, past the racks of chips and snacks and CDs—did people still buy those?—past the coffee stand, and through a small door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
It led to a small room with a battered Formica table and three chairs and not much else. One of the twins was sitting at the table, legs stretched out in front of him, scrolling through his phone.
“Hey, Chase, are you good to watch out front for a bit? Miller and me need to talk about the tree,” Danny said.
Chase looked up from his screen and gave me a nod. “Sure.” He stood, stretching his arms over his head and yawning before shoving his phone in his pocket. He turned to Danny. “Bobby texted. He’s coming in to see about the raccoon in the back room.”
“You have a raccoon?” I asked.
Danny screwed up his nose. “We havesomethingin the back room, and Chase is choosing to believe it’s a raccoon because he’s scared of what it actually is.”
“What do you think it is?”
Danny gave me one of those easy grins of his. “I can’t say because Chase will slap me.”
Chase glared at him. “Hey, fuck you, okay?”
“I’m just teasing, man,” Danny said softly, gentling Chase’s sudden prickliness with his words. “Go watch the counter for me, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Chase said, his brow creasing. “It’s just, dumpsters, y’know?”
It was a random comment, but Danny nodded like he got it.
Once Chase had gone back front, Danny pulled out one of the old wooden chairs and sat down, and I took the chair opposite. He must have sensed my curiosity, even though I was too polite to ask. “Chase and Cash hit a rough patch a while back,” he said unprompted. “I found them picking through the dumpster out back one night, and it turned out they had nowhere to go. I took them home for the night, and now they live with me and Wilder.”
His statement conjured upsomany questions, but the one I asked was, “Wait, you took two strangers home with you? What if they’d been dangerous?”
“They were just a couple of skinny kids. Wilder would have kicked their ass if they’d been trouble.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. Maybe to him it wasn’t.
“Was your grandma still living there?” I tried to imagine cramming five adults into the tiny house.
“It was kinda good timing because she’d just moved out the week before. And she was cool with it. She was the one who helped Cash get the job at Sunny Fields.” He set his elbows on the table and said firmly, “So, what’s the deal with the tree?”
I took his tone to mean that he was done answering any more questions about the twins.
“So like I said, we need evidence of your power of attorney. Have you found it yet?”
Danny squirmed in his seat like a kid who hasn’t done his homework and has just been called up to the chalkboard. “Ihaven’t exactly looked. Honestly, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
I suppressed a sigh and reminded myself that just because I had all my important documents in a fireproof lockbox, that didn’t mean other people did. “Okay, so we really need that in order to go ahead,” I said. “Maybe we can go see your grandma and see if she has a copy and fill her in on what’s happening at the same time.”
“I guess. I just don’t want to worry her, you know?”
“I understand, but really, you’re doing her a favor if we win this. The settlement could be sizable. But we do have a limited window. We need to notify Mr. Whittaker within thirty days that we’re taking action.”
Danny worried at his bottom lip with his teeth, and I did my best not to stare. He had a really nice mouth. Finally, he said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll call her and set up a time. It’ll have to be next week, though. I’m working every day through till Wednesday.”
“That’s fine,” I said, giving him a reassuring smile. “And I get it. I know legal stuff’s not everyone’s idea of a good time.”
“Lucky for me it’s yours then,” he said, giving me a smile. There was something teasing in his tone but not in the same way he’d teased Chase. There was an unasked question hanging in the air now, or maybe an invitation, as though he was baiting a hook and casting a line, just to see if he’d catch anything.
And it turned out that hey, I maybe wanted to check out that bait. I smiled back. “I mean, yeah. I enjoy what I do.”
“What else do you enjoy doing, Miller?” he asked, his voice all low and syrupy, and there was no mistaking the intent behind it.
As a seduction technique, it was one hundred percent successful. The sound of his voice went straight to my dick, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out he wasn’t talking about crossword puzzles or hiking.
