“We figured it out,” he said. “And I don’t care what he says; he was trying to shoot Beckett. He just got unlucky and missed.”
“I know, baby. Grady will sort it all out.”
Elwood caught my eye from across the room. He gave me a small nod.
I nodded back.
Outside, somewhere above the roofline, a raven let out a call.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Espresso Martinis and Other Signs of Love
Declan
I chewed on my fingernail and watched Az read through the contract Janis had given me. Honestly, I hadn’t expected this to take so long, but Az was apparently very thorough. He’d already slashed his red pen through two clauses, rewritten a third, and added a fourth.
How much longer would this take?
Not that I was in a hurry exactly. After all, I was stuck here until the last batch of jalapeno cornbread finished baking. The scent of sweet bread and hot peppers filling the room told me it wouldn’t be too much longer.
Good. Because I couldn’t seem to sit still. It’d been hours since I’d seen Gideon, and ever since we’d returned from confronting Fletcher the other night, I didn’t like being parted from him for too long. I knew he hadn’t even been in danger, not really, but tell that to my nerves. I expected everything to settlesoon as we slipped back into our regular routines, but I wasn’t quite there yet.
As if sensing my unease, Licorice looked up at me from where she was preening on her new perch in the corner of Gideon’s kitchen… well, I guessed it was my kitchen now, too.
“There,” Az said after another few minutes. He pushed the contract across the table toward me. “If Janis has questions, tell her she can contact me directly.”
There were phrases I didn’t really understand, but I trusted Az. Demons always got such a bad rap, but they were really quite brilliant. But what was most surprising was Az’s crisp and legible printing. It wasn’t what I’d expected.
“What?” he demanded.
“Hmm?” I glanced up from the contract to find him staring at me. “Oh, nothing really. I was just thinking about how your writing is very neat.”
“Contracts are important. They need to be precise. Any room for misinterpretation or error should be eliminated if possible…” Then he tilted his head, as if considering that. “Unless it serves a purpose.”
“Thank you for doing this,” I said. “I didn’t know what to watch out for. I mean, it isn’t like I don’t trust her…” Although, I wasn’t really sure I did.
“Her contract was written to protect her best interests, not yours. Most contracts start that way. It is always important to negotiate.”
“Thank you,” I said again, because it needed repeating. Before I could say anything more, the timer beeped. I jumped out of my chair and rushed to look in the oven. I’d baked in Gideon’s oven before, but this time felt different since it was sort of my oven now, too.
I officially moved into Gideon’s apartment two nights ago. It’d only taken twenty minutes—I didn’t own much. But afterwe’d confronted Fletcher, I didn’t want to sleep away from my gorgeous wolf shifter another night.
Damn it. Now I was thinking about Fletcher again. And right on the heels of that thought, I once again envisioned Gideon bursting into the hotel room to find Fletcher with a gun, looking ready to kill Donny…
Fletcher could have so easily hurt Donny or swung the gun toward…
I swallowed hard.
No. Gideon was safe. Everything was fine.
Really.
I tried to think of better things—like how Gideon had looked in the shower this morning—but my stomach was still twisting and churning. Hopefully, I’d kept my thoughts under control enough when baking the cornbread because I couldn’t imagine what kind of nightmarish magic I might unleash while imagining Gideon being shot.
Although Az might not have cared either way. My magic didn’t seem to influence him the same way it did other people.
Steam curled up from the pan as I dished up a piece for him. He hadn’t said he wanted anything spicy, but I was still trying to figure out what he enjoyed. But like Gideon, he was ridiculously difficult to get a straight answer out of when it came to feedback.
