For some reason, that comment made him wince. “Uh, yeah… I guess we are.” He cleared his throat. “Why don’t I start on breakfast?”
I stared at him for a moment, unsure of how to read him right now. He looked upset or maybe uncertain? I had no idea what was going through his head. “Um, sure. I’ll go hop in the shower, and then you can take your turn. I have clean clothes you can wear, and there should be some new toothbrushes under the sink.” I shrugged.
But now his expression was amused instead of… upset or whatever that’d been. “You know we’re like two floors away from my condo, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but I wanna hang out today, and do you really want to leave?”
He stared at me for a long moment. “No… no, I don’t.” Then he walked into the kitchen and started banging pots and pans around.
Hm. No idea what that was about.
Chapter Nineteen
Roman
This morning had been a major whirlwind of emotions.
First, waking with Oakley in my arms, on top of me, was heaven. Having them cuddle and goof around with me was so much better than I expected our morning to look like.
But then I’d fucked it up by holding them down. I should’ve known better. I was a total asshole. I knew things had been difficult for them growing up. I should’ve guessed they wouldn’t like that.
Hopefully they were okay. They seemed okay after our hug, thank the Mother of Scales.
They were playful again with me, making me practically swoon like a princess being rescued by her knight in shining armor when they carried me around.
But then Garrick called and not only made all the anger I felt toward him rise to the surface, but also the guilt that I was standing there trying to woo his kid.
Fuck, he really was going to kill me.
I sighed to myself as I finished up with the french toast I was making.
“Need any help?”
I jumped in surprise at the sound of Oak’s voice behind me, and I whipped around to face them with wide eyes.
They cracked up laughing. “Oh, my Scales. You should’ve seen your face.” They laughed harder. “How did you not hear me coming? I wasn’t trying to be quiet.”
I chuckled, shaking my head and returning to cooking. “I was lost in thought, I guess.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to lie to them, avoid the question, or brush them off, but I also couldn’t tell them the whole truth since I hadn’t talked to them about being viramores yet. Fuck. I really needed to do that, but what if… what if they didn’t react well to the news? What if they were mad or upset that I was their viramore or that I hadn’t told them yet? I cringed at the thought.
Maybe I was the one who wasn’t ready yet. Shit.
I cleared my throat. “Uh, just thinking about Garrick and how pissed I am about being taken off the case.” It wasn’t a lie. Butit also wasn’t the whole truth. Dammit, I was already fucking everything up, wasn’t I?
They sighed and hopped up onto the kitchen island’s counter. “Yeah… it sucks. Do you think there’s anything we can do to try to get put back on?”
I nodded. “I think he’ll give it back to us in a week or two when he realizes we won’t give up and will stay pissed at him ‘till he gives in.”
They groaned and dropped their head back, exposing their neck that I really wanted to bite. “That’s too long. We have the lead now.”
“I know, but Kharis and his team are good at their jobs. They’ll follow through.”
“I know they will, but what if… what if they find the top of the food chain without us?”
I grimaced because they were right. If this major lead led the team to the top dog in the ring, then the case would be closed. Sure, we would still need to do our best to track down the trafficking victims and rescue them—and that was a huge job that could take literal years, and we would probably never find them all—but I knew how badly Oakley wanted to find the person in charge and take them out.
