I smile at his rearranging furniture when he must bone tired. In school, everything came easily to him, but he rarely did homework, so I’d questioned his work ethic plenty of times. Now I realize he was conserving energy for all the work he did away from school.
And maybe needing to arrange his space perfectly is some sort of quirk? Then I realize something else. “Trick, at my place, you slept on the right side, didn’t you?”
Crawling into bed, he says, “I don’t give a shit about right or left side. My side is the one that puts me between my family and anything coming through the door.”
My breath catches. Not a quirk. A gangster rule.
Swallowing, I think about the other thing. The thing that made my breath catch.His family. Under the covers, my hand slides to the bottom of my abdomen. My heart thumps hard in my chest.
Do not fall in love with this man.
Even as I think it, I worry it may already be too late.
Chapter 10
Laurel
I wake sick. Managing to get the yoga pants and a white shirt that’s too tight on, I make it to the guest bathroom. After a while, cool water on the back of my neck and swished in my mouth helps. My own bra and shirt have dried, though they’re stiff from the pool chemicals. I trade the soft obscenely tight white shirt for my own bra and top.
In the bedroom, Trick’s sound asleep, so I take the can of Sprite to the hall. There’s an armchair and side table at one end, so I sit there. It’s the sort of house with a hall big enough for seating areas. Sipping from the can, I think about the way these guys are with one another. I’d thought this was Connor McCann’s mansion and compound. Trick has his apartment, and I’d heard that Anvil Stroviak built a mansion on the same block as McCann’s. But some things about this house make it seem like community property for an extended family, like when Trick said he’d ordered the bathroom furniture and was adding things for me to a house shopping list.
I make one more trip back to the bathroom to be sick, then my stomach really does settle, and I manage to sip through several ounces of soda with no problem. There are a couple of leather-bound books sitting on the table.The Count of Monte Cristoand the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe. In school, I readThe Count of Monte Cristoand a few of Poe’s short stories, but not many. Flipping the wispy pages, I realize someone’s written dates from the past few years above some of the poems. I read, so lost in the book I don’t hear Zoe approach until she’s standing over me.
“Hey. Morning. Whatcha doin’ out here?”
Smiling up, I shrug. “Reading. He’s asleep.”
“Come downstairs and keep me company.”
I love that the younger woman’s open friendliness last night wasn’t just cocktail-induced, and the fact that she’s still nice on a morning when she must be battling a hangover. You wouldn’t know it by looking because she’s gorgeous, with her shiny curls and lithe body.
I want to join her downstairs, but I’m not ready to be thrown back into socializing-slash-being-ignored by C or Anvil.
“Who’s down there?”
“In the kitchen? Probably no one yet. C’s not even out of bed. And once he is, he’ll work out and take a shower before coming to hang out. Usually I make coffee and tea around now and do some food prep, but I don’t set out the breakfast buffet until ten thirty.”
Laughing softly, I make a mock cringe face. “You put out a breakfast buffet? Like a hotel? Outsiders have no idea the amenities here in the C Crue mansion. I found a drawer with ten brand new toothbrushes still in boxes. I used one, which I assume is okay?”
“Oh, yeah, of course. The guys don’t want assigned guest rooms and bathrooms, so if there’s a used toothbrush from the last time someone stayed over how would they know whose it was? So we just keep a supply of new ones. Though these days, when Rachel and Sasha stay over, they always seem to use the room right off the front door that’s like a downstairs master. It has an attached bathroom, so they could keep some of their stuff in there for good. A lot of times when Trick sleeps over, he crashes on a couch in the media room or somewhere like that.”
As I suspected, sometimes they cohabitate in the main mansion. It’s kind of great in some ways. I liked sharing places with roommates in college. Less lonely than living alone.
Setting the book down, I stand, grabbing my empty can and following her downstairs. She stops suddenly halfway to the kitchen.
“All right, it’s rude, but I have to. Let me see that ring.”
Instead of holding out my finger, I slide the ring off and hand it to her.
“Wow,” she says with a sigh. “Love this. So elegant. I always think emerald cuts are the most elegant. Sort of traditional, but still stunning.”
“It’s beautiful for sure.” Putting it back on, I glance at it, startled again at how enormous the stone looks. I don’t have small hands, so for a ring to look big, it’s saying something.
“Colored diamonds are a C Crue theme. Rachel has a blue diamond. I think I want white though. Yellow looks so good against your skin, but yellow’s not a good color for me.”
“Are you looking at rings?”
“I am,” she says tartly. “So far C doesn’t want to talk about it. But if we’re not going to get married, what am I? His slutty housekeeper?” She laughs, so I chuckle with her.
