“Too damn many,” the older man grumbled. “It’s Nolan, as well you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nolan rolled his eyes.
Liam turned to leave. He started to walk back to the door, but turned around again and asked, “Do you mind me asking why you were so quick to say yes? I mean, didn’t you need to think about it?”
“No, I didn’t need to think about it. You were the hardest damn worker I ever had. I’m no fool. A man like that comes into my place looking for employment and I’m going to bite his fingers off to take him up on the offer. But don’t expect me to say it twice.”
Nolan looked around Liam out of the garage door to where Eve was sitting in the car, talking on her cellphone.
“Pretty lady,” he noted. “She with you?”
Liam beamed. “Yes sir, she’s my ma— uh, my, um, she’s my partner, sir.”
Jesus, Liam was so bad at this whole shifter secret keeping thing. How did people do it? He hoped he got better at it with time. Sure as hell couldn’t get any worse.
Nolan gawped at him for a minute, his lips twitching, but they didn’t lift into a full-blown smile.
“Tomorrow at eight,” he said. “Don’t be late.”
Liam was full on beaming by the time he made it back to the car. He climbed in behind the wheel just as Eve was hanging up her call.
“Hey,” she said. “How did it go?”
Liam grinned at her. “I start tomorrow.”
“Yeah? That’s great, I’m so proud of you. I know how much you loved working there.”
“I did. Being back here made me realize how much I’ve missed it. Who was that on the phone?”
“Mia. She just got out of her counseling session.”
Liam nodded. “Is she okay?”
Eve sighed. “As okay as she can be, I guess. Identifying Silas’ body the other week as the man who raped her hit her pretty hard. It brought it all back up, you know?”
Liam nodded again and squeezed her hand, and she continued.
“But she said that it helped her to get a little bit of closure and I know she feels better knowing that scumbag is not on the streets anymore hurting anyone else.”
“Yeah, can’t be much of a consolation, but hopefully it will get easier for her with time.”
Since news of Silas’ death had got out, Liam couldn’t believe how many people had come out of the woodwork with stories of things he had done to them. A lot of Vipers had come forward too, stating that Silas had forced them to do certain things, and they’d done them because they’d feared him. The Vipers had disbanded since, and for that, Liam was relieved.
“Have you got plans for tonight?” he asked as he put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot.
Eve grinned at him and waggled her eyebrows, and a loud boom of a laugh tore from Liam’s throat.
“You havethosekinds of plans every night,” he said with a grin, “But I was referring to the kind where you actually have to leave the house.”
“Nope, none at all, why?”
“Hawk and his mate have invited us over for dinner.”
Eve’s mouth hung open. “They did? I was just with Hawk an hour ago. Why didn’t he ask me?”
Liam shrugged. “Don’t know. You don’t mind us hanging out with them, do you?”
