“I’m coming in. We need to talk.”
Thunk. Thunk.
Two more knives right by the handle.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re big, bad, and surly. But I need my hands to do your research, so keep your pointy objects away. I’m coming in.”
There was a lock on his door, but Nero never used it. His knives were usually enough to keep people away, and if there was an emergency, he wanted his team to be able to run in. Clearly that was a policy he’d have to reevaluate. Because Josh turned the knob and opened the door, and Nero hadn’t the heart to stick him with either of the extra two knives he had at the ready. Of course, Josh had done the smart thing and stepped to the wall side of the door before opening it, so he wasn’t an easy target either.
Well, he’d never thought Josh was stupid. But then the guy just walked in and shut the door behind him.
“I could gut you in so many ways,” Nero growled.
Josh actually rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.”
“I could!”
“I know you could! But I’m here to talk, so put away your big, bad wolf act and let’s talk, okay?”
“Go away. I’m watching a basketball game. And you need to figure out magic fire.” He flipped open his laptop as he turned his back on Josh. Why exactly he was being so surly, he wasn’t sure. Truthfully, he was grateful for the guy distracting him from his morbid thoughts, but he kept his jaw locked tight and his back aimed to the intrusion, steadily typing in what he needed to get to the streaming service.
Fuck. The Heat weren’t on. Bulls versus Cavaliers. Whatever. He folded his arms and pretended to watch. Meanwhile, all his senses were tuned behind him. Josh hadn’t said anything. Was he that scared? Good. Except the more the silence stretched on, the more Nero wanted to know what Josh was doing. Why wasn’t he being annoying and trying to get Nero to talk about his feelings or something? That’s what Captain M and Gelpack had both tried to do… which was why he’d taken out his throwing knives and had put more holes in his door.
Except Josh wasn’t talking. There was rustling and poking into things. He was sure of that, but the TV was loud enough that he couldn’t tell for sure.
He finally couldn’t take it anymore. Nero spun around in his seat to glare at Josh. Except the guy wasn’t where he expected him to be. He certainly wasn’t cowering like he should be. Instead, he was poking through the stack of books and magazines littering the floor all around the bed.
Nero’s suite was just like all the other bedrooms in this wing. He had one large room that allowed for a bed, a desk, and a closet, plus a bathroom. In his case, that meant a king-sized bed and a lot of floor space, because he didn’t really have anything else except for some clothes in his closet, a laptop on his desk, and reading material everywhere. He ought to get a bookcase. He kept intending to, but he wasn’t one to keep stuff around. Once he read something, it was in his brain, so he threw out the magazines or gave the books to the library. What remained all over his floor was stuff he intended to get to but hadn’t had the heart.
No need to readCar and Driveranymore because Pauly wasn’t around to discuss engine details. He’d learned cooking from Mother, and weird recipes weren’t fun without her to critique the disasters he created. Coffee’s passion had been sports, sports, and more sports. TheSports Illustratedwas actually his subscription. Which left Cream’s true adventure addiction. They told each other tales of derring-do and tried to get the other to guess if it was true or false. At this moment, Cream was ahead, thirty-seven correct guesses to Nero’s thirty-five.
He’d never get the chance to catch up unless Josh figured out how to defeat magical fire. But what was the guy doing? Squatting down to inspect a long-buriedScientific American. Josh tilted his head as he opened it to the cover article and started singing softly that song fromSesame Street: “One of These Things.” Nero didn’t wait for the rest of the song. “You don’t know jack about what doesn’t belong in my room,” he snapped. “But I’ll tell you, okay?You. You don’t belong in here.”
Josh pursed his lips as he appeared to think. “You know about Savannah. You know she’s my best friend, but I don’t think you know how we got that way.” He plopped down on the floor next to the stack that had held theScientific Americanand kept talking as if they were chatting over pizza and beer. “We’d been dating for a while, but it never quite clicked. I always held a piece of myself back from her. I knew I had to break it off, but I didn’t know how. We were in college, and I’d gone home for spring break, and that’d been a disaster. I came back angry and irrational, holed myself up in my room, and blew things up in a video game. So there I am, hating everyone and everything, and she comes in and sits on my bed.”
Nero sighed. He knew where this was going. The girl had been patient and eventually Josh spilled his guts and all was made better. “Some people actually prefer being alone,” Nero said.
“Yeah, I know. That’s me, most times. But she just sat there for like an hour. I ignored her because I was being childish, and then she got fed up.”
“Turn off your game?”
“Nope. She broke up with me. Said I sucked as a boyfriend and the sex was awful.” Josh winced at that, but he kept going. “Then she said it was time I understood exactly what she thought of me.” He blew out a breath. “And then she gave it to me with both barrels, holding nothing back. It took about two sentences.”
Nero couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy. He’d had a few exes give him the royal fuck off too. “Sorry. That must have sucked.”
“Nope. She was spot-on. She told me that I was running from my father’s tyranny and that I needed to grow a pair or I’d be in his shadow the rest of my life.” He shrugged. “There was more stuff, but that was the gist of it. It was exactly what I needed to hear at the time. We became best friends right then, way closer than we’d ever been when we were dating.”
Nero shrugged back. “And what does this have to do with me?”
Josh dropped the magazine on the floor, then hopped onto the bed, extending his long legs in front of him. The bastard looked like he was settling in for a long comfy chat, and Nero wanted to choke him for his audacity. But he didn’t have the chance as Josh started talking again.
“The thing is, she split me wide open like a can opener. Told me things I didn’t want to see, much less deal with. Kind of like what you did to me yesterday.”
Oh shit. “We’re not going to be best friends,” Nero muttered, except the words came out more like a growl.
“Probably not,” he said, though his tone was a little too casual, especially with the shrug he threw in, as if he was disappointed at that but didn’t want to show it. “The thing is, you said exactly what I needed to hear, exactly when I needed to hear it.” Then he gestured at Nero. “Sorry about your face.”
“It’s fixed.” He’d shifted early this morning and repaired the damage. Although he was still smarting from the chewing out Captain M had given him for forty-five minutes on how irresponsible it had been to risk his own health just so a recruit could get his fury on. She’d given him a choice then. He could talk to Gelpack about his feelings or he could go brood in his bedroom. Obviously he’d picked the latter.
