“Am I distractingyou?”
He probably needed toconcentrate.
“Please don't be offended, but yes. I need to focus and find how he gotin.”
He jumped as I leaned over and gave him a side hug. “I'm not offended. Come find me later. We can watch a movie. Let me know if I can help with anything,okay?”
“I will,” he said with a nod, completelydistracted.
The door clicked behind me as I went out into the hallway, unsure what to do with myself. I still hadn't finished my book, and it called to me, but I felt like I should be helping somehow. I wandered toward the living room. Maybe Griffin or Chandler would have something useful I could do. Being stuck in the blizzard was getting reallyboring.
I found Griffin in the garage, rustling through a toolbox on a workbench against the wall. “Hey.”
He looked up at me. “Hey.”
“Whatcha doing?” Iasked.
“Fiddling.” He pulled out a few wrenches and walked over to an old muscle car with the hood up. “Trying to distractmyself.”
“Yeah, crazy day, huh?” Good grief. I was making small talk with the asshole-turned-nice-guy.
“Yep.” Sucheloquence.
“Do you have anything I could do? I'm bored.” I tried to keep the whine out of my voice. I didn't want to sound like a sulkingteenager.
“Like what?” he asked, bent over into thecar.
“Like, secure the house against Hunter?” I imagined myself pushing armoires to block doors and getting forks and knives ready to hurl if Hunter tried to force his wayin.
“I appreciate the offer, but we’re as secure as we’ll get. The doors are all alarmed again, and we all have weapons on us. He's not getting in here.” His voice was a little muffled from inside the engine of the car, but I understoodhim.
“Yeah, I felt silly as soon as I said it,” I said with a laugh. “Well, could I clean something or do some laundry foryou?”
Griffin straightened himself to his impressive height and faced me. “There actually are a couple of loads of laundry to be done.” He turned back to the car but paused in the act of burying his head again. “That's if Chandler hasn't gotten to itfirst.”
“Ah-ha. So Chandler is the organized and clean one. I wondered which of you itwas.”
Griffin's laughter echoed across the garage. “Chandler is so far beyond clean we should probably get him a shrink to evaluate his obsession with all things being perfectly organized and spotless. Did you notice the kitchen?” heasked.
“I did. I pegged Ellion as the clean one since his computer lab is spotless.” I leaned myself against the car to continue the amicablechat.
“Chandler again. He cleans up after Ellion. Ellion’s a slob. I'm kind of in between. I don't like to deep clean, but I neaten up after myselffine.”
“I guess we all have our quirks. Being compulsively clean isn't the worst quirk to have.” I hesitated for a moment, standing beside him in silence. I wanted to choose my words wisely. “What’s this big secret you three have?” I blurted out. Well, damn. So much for wisewords.
Griffin jumped and smashed his head on the hood of the car. “Son of a bitch!” he yelled. “What secret?” he asked, voice still raised as he rubbed hishead.
“You're more than meets the eye, aren't you?” Iasked.
He stared at me with one eyesquinted.
“Oh, sit, I'll check your head. Maybe we'll have concussionstogether.”
He walked over to a stool and sat so I could check him. I combed my fingers through his thick hair and inspected the spot he'd hit. There was a tiny cut and not enough blood to worry about. He was fine, but I took a moment to feel his hair before letting him up. It was silky. I stopped admiring it. I didn’t want to cross the line into totalcreeper.
“You’re fine. Try not to take your head off again,” I said, patting him on the back—the muscled, broadback.
He stood and walked back over to his car. “There’s no secret. What you see is what you get,” hesaid.
