"Are you calling us insane?" Cass asked, his breath brushing my earlobe.
"Unless you have a better word for it," I asked. "Unhinged. Out of our trees. Fucked up as fuck. Screwy." I exhaled out my nose.
"If this is unhinged, then I don't want to be hinged," Cass said, squeezing my hips.
"If Jules was here, he'd have something to say about that," I said.
Jules was outside, on the street, keeping an eye on comings and goings from the restaurant. A job he volunteered for. Possibly because he didn't trust the rest of us to be up to it. And possibly because he wanted some time alone, away from the craziness.
Right, there was another word, crazy.
What can I say, I wasn't a walking thesaurus.
"Yeah, he would," Cass agreed. "But he's as unhinged as the rest of us, so that doesn't count. Anyway, I don't give a shit if he approves or not. This is my life now.You'remy life now." He kissed my cheek. His lips soft and reassuring.
"We should start plating up the first course," I said reluctantly.
Not reluctant to feed people, reluctant to step away from his embrace. It was comforting here. Warm and safe. Like the minute I stepped away, I was vulnerable again. I hated being vulnerable more than I hated almost anything.
Cass slipped his hands from me and stepped back to grab plates and start putting them out so I could plate up the fig and prosciutto salad and freshly baked bread, which he'd been slicing while I was greeting guests. His knife work was getting better. The slices were almost perfectly uniform.
Even though I was a bundle of nerves, I noticed details like that. It was ingrained in me, for one thing. For another, obsessing took my mind off everything else.
"That looks so pretty," Archer said as I finished the first of the plates and made sure they were clean and ready to go.
"Thank you," I told him, turning my face far enough to kiss his cheek. His stubble was rough against my lips, but his body close to mine was as warm and comforting as Cass’.
Where once I would have preferred to do this alone, now I was glad for their presence.
Honestly, I wasn't sure if I could do this without them. I didn't want to. They were mine and I was theirs, no matter what happened.
I glanced out to the seating area and nodded to Yvette for her and Shelly to start herding the customers toward their tables.
With one eye on the rest of the plates, I watched Detective Getzoff move around the room before sitting at a table with Judge Cross and Kevin Lotz-Moore.
Interesting that was the company he chose to sit with. Both glanced at him speculatively, but returned to the conversation they were having between themselves. Nothing heavy by the look of it. One or the other would laugh every couple of minutes.
Getzoff said something to the man sitting beside him. A tall man with silver as his temples, who wore a leather jacket that looked expensive. His dark eyes regarded the detective with curiosity, but didn’t seem to be unfriendly. He must have arrived with someone else. I couldn't remember seeing him here before.
They started off a conversation about who knows what. They were too far for me to hear. They could be talking about the weather for all I knew. Or how to eviscerate a corpse without making too much of a mess.
That sounded more like the conversations my men and I had around the dinner table, but who knew? Getzoff might secretly be a serial killer too.
I couldn't rule him out as the person who killed Lionel Gammage. For one thing, he arrived with the other cops remarkably fast after the man's death.
I shook my head to myself and finished plating up. Once the guests were seated, Shelly and Yvette hurried over to take out their salads and bread, plus a couple of plates for people with dairy intolerance who weren't able to eat the dressing on the salad. Plus a couple without prosciutto for my kosher guests.
The chatter died down for a while as everyone started to eat, replaced with smiles and groans of appreciation. The wine flowed freely. Shelly and Yvette moving around to fill up glasses as guests asked for more.
"Everyone seems to be having a nice time," Archer said.
"Mmmhmm," I agreed. Especially Boner. He was seated at a table with some other guests, positioned so he could keep an eye on everyone in the room. He was doing a good job of looking like he wasn't looking, while talking to the woman beside him, then telling a joke that made the whole table crack up laughing.
"You could sit out there too," I told him.
He shuddered. "I'm good here, thanks. It's easier to keep an eye on everyone."
It probably wasn't, but I wasn't going to call him out on it. If he didn't want to be there in the crowds, I wouldn't pressure him.
