"I did. It felt good. And I know he enjoyed himself."
"Do me a favor," I said, locking my eyes on her. "Don't forget to put yourself first once in a while." When she started to argue, I cut her off with a glance.
"You're always thinking about other people. The innocent people you want to save. People you want vengeance for, like your sister. Your customers. Us. Sometimes Harlow St. James deserves to put Harlow St. James front and center."
"I'll think about it," she promised. "As long as you do the same."
"I do," I assured her. "I need time to myself to get my work done, for one thing."
For my sanity, for another. What does the meme say? The collective noun for a group of humans is a 'fuck nope.'
Four other people in my life was the right amount. Any more and I was going to have to insist we buy a large house in the Hamptons where I could have my own wing. That didn't sound so bad when I thought about it. I might look into that later.
"I've probably disturbed you enough," she said, realizing we'd been talking for a while. "I should leave you alone."
"It's okay," I said quickly. "I don't mind being sidetracked by you for a while."
I glanced at the screen to check the time. Blinked when I saw how much of it was gone. It was about two in the morning when I sat down here to start working. It was now almost seven. Definitely time for a break.
"Are you going to get some sleep?" she asked, giving me a worried look.
I rubbed the heel of my hand over my forehead. "After breakfast, I will," I assured her.
While the others were at work, I'd lie down and catch up with a nap. Fortunately, both my job and my hobby allowed me to operate at night and sleep during the day because I wasnota daylight person. My mother used to joke that I was a vampire, but I preferred the dark and quiet of night. The solitude. The time to think without comings and goings from the people in the apartments around me. Not that they didn't come and go at all hours, but less so at night.
Sometimes I'd sit on the rooftop terrace and look out across the city. Pretend I had the whole space to myself. Up high and alone was a good place to refill the creative well in my mind. To think about nothing in particular and let the ideas come to me. Sometimes work with existing ideas until I was happy with them.
Now, I wanted to sit and look at Harlow. In the past, the city was my muse; now she was. The ideas she'd inspired since I met her were like nothing I'd had before. Likely none I'd have again. As long as I lived, I wanted to be around her, to let my imagination go wild with thoughts of her.
"Your coffee is getting cold," she reminded me.
Reluctantly, I opened my hand to let her pull hers back. The moment her skin wasn't touching mine, I felt empty.
Curling my hand around the cup of coffee did almost nothing to fill the vacuum. Coffee was good but there were things it couldn't do. Replace her was one of them. Especially not when, as she said, my coffee was almost cold.
"I'll get you another one," she said.
I shook my head. "No, I'll get you one."
"I tell you what, whoever gets to the kitchen first gets to make the coffee."
She grinned and started off on a run, her bare feet thudding on the hardwood floor.
CHAPTER 9
HARLOW
"Don't look now," Cass said, taking the dirty plates off the servery countertop and carrying them over to the sink to rinse them.
"What am I not looking at?" I turned the handle on the pasta maker while keeping half an eye on two pots of sauce.
"Hans Getzoff just walked through the door." Cass held a fork in his hand, a little too long and a little too much like he might stab Getzoff through the eye with it.
"Nothing we can't handle,” I said lightly. "Just act normal."
He placed the fork into the dishwasher and washed his hands more vigorously than usual.
I snorted. "As normal as we can." That wasn't too much to ask, right? We were relatively normal on the outside. It wasn't until you scratched the surface that you found what was going on underneath. If you scratched hard enough.
