Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [127]
Without taking his eyes off Frankie, Jess said, “I’m going to hold you to that promise you made. If he looks like he’s wearing out, send him home.”
“I will,” Adam said, making a sincere attempt to keep the impatient growl out of his voice. “I don’t want him chopping off anything vital or catching himself on fire any more than you do.”
Jess finally tore his gaze from Frankie to look Adam in the eye. The kid had that bruised look around the eyes from not getting enough sleep. His eyes, those so-familiar blue eyes, looked old and tired.
“I know,” Jess said. “I worry because I’m not sure I can stand to lose anyone else right now.”
It was Adam’s turn to look away. “Have you talked to her?”
“No. I told her not to call.”
“I’m surprised she listened.”
“Me, too, actually.” Jess sounded concerned rather than pleased. “I still don’t understand why she wrote those things, or why she allowed them to go public.”
“Don’t look at me, kid.” The harshness of his own words grated in Adam’s throat. “I’m the last person she would’ve opened up to.”
Jess looked startled. “But I was sure the two of you were—”
“We were. Sort of. But she never told me much of anything personal, really. I guess she figured, why expend the energy on a fake relationship?”
The kid’s eyes darkened with something that looked an awful lot like pity. Adam abruptly needed this conversation to be over.
He coughed. “I think Grant’s out front, if you want to find something to do before everyone else gets in.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Jess said. “Leave you guys to get on with it. Frankie? See you later.”
“Later, Bit,” Frankie said. “Oi, wait a tick.”
He dropped the knife and whetstone with a clatter and bounded over to Jess, pressing a quick, hard kiss to the young man’s mouth.
Jess did a fair impression of a lobster on the boil, but his eyes were shining when Frankie straightened up.
“I guess I’d better . . . Grant’s probably . . . um, okay, seeyoubye!”
Frankie surveyed Jess’s flustered escape from the kitchen with smug satisfaction. “He needed distracting.”
“Nice work,” Adam commented.
“What can I say? I’m a master distracter. Matter collapser. Masturbator. Ah, it’s so damn good to be back!”
“It’s damn good to have you.” Even Adam was surprised by the wealth of feeling in his voice. Frankie didn’t miss it, either, curse him, but turned a speculative eye on Adam.
“Rough week?” was all he asked.
“You could say that. We’ve had more business than we can reasonably handle while short staffed—no, no jokes about the shortness of my staff, thanks—even with Wes to help pick up the slack, and everyone’s walking on eggshells around each other. I mean, bad enough to deal with the fallout from goddamn Rob and his pop gun, but that book . . . ”
“Yeah,” Frankie said musingly. “That was a weird night. What I remember of it, anyway. Don’t actually remember getting shot, although I’m sure I was very brave and heroic about it.”
“You whimpered like a kicked puppy,” Adam said crushingly. He’d missed Frankie a lot.
“A kicked boy puppy, though,” Frankie said. “One of those manly breeds, like a mastiff or a bulldog.”
Adam broke, snickering. “Shit, at least you didn’t cry. I think all matter in the universe might actually have collapsed if you’d shed real tears. Or at least all the matter in my head.”
“Violet cried. I remember that.”
Adam lost his smile. His chest squeezed tight. “Bitch-on-wheels, tougher-than-nails Violet.”
“Yeah. I could see her at her station from where I was standing. She didn’t sob or anything, but it was still strange. Like watching that bit in Terminator 2 when Arnold cries.”
“All kinds of wrong,” Adam agreed, knowing exactly what he meant. “Well, we haven’t had any more tears in the last week, thank Christ, but we haven’t had a lot of laughs, either.”
“ ’Course not, you were all too busy missing me,” Frankie crowed with a smirk and a twinkle in his black eyes.
“Frankie’s back!” The shout came from the door to the back staircase where Milo and Quentin were just emerging, still buttoning their white jackets.