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And that kiss... All the things she’s said and done since she arrived to help Manny and Rhea, to prove herself to me...
I break.
I’ll go... and I’ll figure out how to make her some damn cookies, even if I have to cook them one at a time in my frying pan.
“I don’t know what she’d even like, Manny. If I make something, I’m not doing it for the rest of these happy, shiny people. I’m doing it for her. ‘Cause maybe she is a friend. And you guys need her.”
“We might need her sooner than you think. All right. What to make? Hmm. Women seem to like chocolate. Chocolate with something. Chocolate and peanut butter, chocolate and raspberry, chocolate and mint, chocolate and caramel. In my experience, chocolate with mint is the biggest gamble, and chocolate and peanut butter is the sure thing.”
“How much time with women have you clocked, old man?” I tease, and then I feel like shit, because Manny and Rhea were literally made as a set, and they were separated for over a century before finding their way together again.
“Two years of married bliss, plus a couple of weeks. But I’ve also been around happy couples and in the candy aisles enough to know what’s what.”
“You’re right. Well. Uh. I’m going to figure it out. Nothing like a problem to solve to keep me out of trouble.”
“You can go to the library and check out cookbooks.”
I know what they’re not adding on. “And maybe run into Victoria, since that’s the only other place she goes besides the shopping center and her borrowed RV.”
“Yep.”
When Manny leaves, I just pull out my phone and search recipes instead. Libraries are for old people—and sexy brunette assassins that I need to avoid as much as possible so I don’t do stupid things.
I smirk, because if I said that to the hot Latina MILF who runs the library, she’d hit me with a reshelving cart. Her ghostly husband, the OG librarian, would probably haunt me, too.
I type in “Cookies you don’t have to bake.”
Healthy raw crap with coconut oil and chopped cashews comes up.
Ughhhhhh.
“You’re a man of science.” Rhea comes out to the shop and puts a sandwich down in front of me.
My frown turns to a soft smile. “Thanks. I was going to go to the coffee shop.”
“You don’t have to. I cook for my boys. Well... I stick bread together.” She ruffles my white hair. I don’t know why my hair is white, and Manny’s is black, and hers is black with thick white streaks.
“For a man of science, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know,” I grumble.
“Sometimes, it’s okay to be a man of faith. To take a leap. Or ask for a push in the right direction.”
I nod. The only thing that makes me a man of science is that I was put together by a crazy-ass doctor who also had a fucked-up sorcerer sidekick on the payroll to bring his sewing projects to life.
“You know how you were made for Manny?” I say, and I wish I hadn’t. Rhea goes stiff right away. They don’t like to think about the man who made them.
“Yes.”
“Sorry, but... I killed my doctor before he could make another one of me... whatever I am. Maybe he would have made me a bride. What if I’ll always be alone now? I’ll never have—what you have.” I hurriedly take a bite of the BBLT (beef bacon, lettuce, and tomato) she made, hoping that if I swallow enough, this sudden lump in my throat will leave me.
What if things don’t feel right with Victoria because she’s not my soulmate? What if I can’t ever have one because I ruined that chance when I killed Lazenby?
What if I don’t have a soul to find the mate of? Before, I was sure I didn’t, but then Victoria made me question it.
She even made me believe that I might, somewhere, somehow, have a little sliver of something soul-like.
“They were not making mates, honey. They were making death machines. You saved someone a life of pain and self-torment, and that means the woman for you is out there, somewhere. You know, in a way... wasn’t Victoria sent after you to ‘make you pay’ for going rogue and killing that mobster’s underlings?”
“Pazcuso’s head doctor and his dark arts dude.Yep.” And his nephew. And some other people who were holding me back.
