Looking at Duffy, I can’t help but feel like he’s actually my friend now. That thought is like a big black ball of dread falling to the pit of my stomach.
I need to come to terms with the fact that my life—my precious life where I was a journalist and an investigator, a researcher—is over. There’s no going back. Ever.
All I’ll be able to use my talents for from now on, is these people.
No matter what happens when I help them take down Lucian Venuti’s human trafficking operation, I still won’t be able to get that life back.
I don’t know if this is the very second I accept it, but it’s the first step toward admitting defeat. I suspect my brain will free up considerable space once I do.
“We’re all weird,” Eian says before Duffy can take control of the conversation again.
I can’t resist the siren’s call that is his voice. I have to see him. It’s not voluntary, but also not involuntary.
It just is.
“Every one of us,” he continues, his eyes not as cold, his face not as set in stone. He’s not soft, no. Nothing about Eian could ever be soft. “And we’re in good company.”
Then he actually smiles. Like, arealsmile.
I’m so done for.
8
EIAN
I can’t really swallow back my chuckle when Colby’s jaw doesn’t snap closed after a few seconds.
“Did he just laugh?” I hear Bran whisper, and I snap my head in his direction.
“Watch it.” He laughs at me, and that’s perfectly fine, but when Mac, Duffy, and Blake begin to snicker, I know I can’t let that happen. “You three have something to say?” I ask, and the way my voice bottoms out is enough to get them to stop.
My son can make fun of me, they can’t.
“No, Boss.” Blake shakes his head and lowers his eyes.
“Nothing,” Mac says, and quickly shoves another forkful of food in his mouth.
“Nope,” is Duffy’s eloquent answer, though his smartass smirk doesn’t completely vanish.
“Good.” I nod once. “Then fucking eat already, because I have shit to do later and I still need to show Colby where he’ll be staying.”
“And where’s that?” Duffy risks his life by asking with a shit-eating grin. I understand the subtext, and it tells me that probably none of them missed how differently I act with Colby.
Shit, that’s going to be annoying.
“Celly’s been preparing one of the guest rooms for him all week,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
“Y-you don’t need to show it to me,” Colby says, that stutter telling me a lot more than he probably wants me to know.
Doing my best to keep my face from showing that annoyance, I risk another glance at Colby—he’s proven to be distracting if I look at his face too long.
“I want to,” I tell him, and yeah, it probably comes out as a command, but... that’s just how I speak. Whatever, he’ll have to get used to it. “Besides, there are a few things we need to discuss.”
His throat bobs at that, but without another word he lowers his gaze to his plate and starts eating. I make myself look away and continue dinner as if that reaction from Colby didn’t leave me disappointed.
The whole wayup the stairs I can practically feel the vibrating waves of Colby’s stress pulsing off him. I think dinner went pretty well, even with Duffy’s knowing glances and Bran’s obvious enthusiasm, but clearly he thinks differently.
Filling him in on me having a son and how that all happened should’ve made him relax around me, at least a little, not fucked with his head even more, yet here we are.
