Page 47 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

NEW FRIENDS

Alix

When I walked into the living room, I started to get it.

There was a huge vase of flowers on the dining-room table.

I mean, huge. Exercise-ball huge, to put it in Sebastian terms. They were pink, they were frilly, and they were the lushest, most unabashedly feminine flowers I’d ever seen.

Like peonies, but they smelled better. They smelled amazing, more like rose perfume than rose perfume itself.

“Are they for me?” I asked.

“Duh. I doubt he bought them for me,” Ben said from the breakfast bar, where he was working his way through a mixing bowl of cereal and milk.

“Happy birthday. I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten it was today, but Sebastian said I couldn’t say, because you were supposed to be surprised that he knew. ”

“Since you didn’t tell me,” Sebastian put in.

“You’re eating, though, Ben!” I said. “It got so late, I know, but I wanted to have this?—”

“I can eat more,” Ben said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world .

“Oh. And hey. You put away the groceries.”

“I told you,” Ben said, “I’m not a kid.”

“No,” I said, overcome with affection for him.

My hand went out to ruffle his still-damp hair, and he jerked away and said, “Hey!” But when I laughed, he did, too.

After which I went to Sebastian, put my arms around his waist, kissed his mouth, smiled into his eyes, and said, “Thank you for my flowers. What are they?”

“French roses,” he said, looking a little embarrassed, too, but gratified.

“Roses are roses,” Ben said. “They don’t have, like, nationalities.”

“Now, see,” Sebastian said, going to the coffeepot and pouring a cup, then adding a generous dollop of half and half and handing it to me, “that’s where you’re wrong.

French roses are bigger and shaped differently, with more petals, and they smell better, too.

I know that, because it was on the website. ”

“There must be two dozen of them,” I said, fingering the huge, heavy pink blooms.

“Thirty,” he said. “I wanted you to feel good. Like you were having a birthday.” And shrugged.

“Well,” I said, giving him another kiss, “you succeeded. And if you give me just a minute, we can have quiche and salad and berries. And possibly a chocolate croissant, because I’m sorry, but I bought one, plus an almond croissant, since I couldn’t decide which one I wanted more.

If my lack of discipline bothers you, look away, but hey, it is my birthday. ”

A wonderful birthday on which I did my cooking-ahead for the week, Sebastian helped me with the chopping and stirring, and Ben sat at the breakfast bar and complained about his schoolwork. In particular, English.

“Why do I have to read Shakespeare?” he asked.

“It makes no sense. I mean, it makes no sense to have to read Shakespeare, and Shakespeare also makes no sense. A twofer. And it’s Romeo and Juliet , which is all these people talking over and over, using about a million words, about how they’re dying of love. People don’t die of love.”

“Have you finished it?” Sebastian asked.

“No, but I won’t understand it any better once I have finished it.

Why? Nobody actually does die, do they? It’s, like, a romance.

Romances always end with a big speech from the guy and the girl crying and then the couple probably getting married.

My mom says they’re a tool of the patriarchy, to convince women that getting married will make them happy, when actually, not living with men makes women happy. ”

“That’s one opinion,” Sebastian said, continuing to chop onions.

“I pointed out that I’m a man,” Ben said, “and she said, ‘That’s different. You know how to clean a toilet and run a washing machine.’ Like that’s some kind of big accomplishment.”

“I have a question,” I said. “Has anybody heard of Sonnet 116, since it’s Shakespeare?”

“No,” Ben said. “You mean there’s more?”

“Oh,” I said, “there’s so much more. My grandmother mentioned it on the phone this morning like everybody should know it, that’s all. I’m glad nobody else does.”

“I do,” Sebastian said. “It’s pretty famous.”

“Oh,” I said. “Then it’s just me. Oh, well.

I’m not romantic. Sue me.” And sautéed my ground beef as I wondered what to wear tonight.

I’d worn the blue dress on Christmas in front of the same exact people, and I didn’t have it with me anyway.

I wasn’t exactly Miss Beauty Treatment, but I could at least …

I almost burned the spaghetti sauce.

They were seated at a banquette table at the far end of a big, dark, extremely cozy room dominated by a roaring fire at one end, with a brick wall and six or seven tiers of wall-to-wall shelves stretching all the way up to the ceiling behind a gleaming bar, the two library ladders on rollers providing access to the contents.

The furniture was all leather and polished mahogany, too.

It did look like a library, one of those English ones in stately homes.

It wasn’t a book library, though. It was a whiskey library.

There had to be well over a thousand bottles up there, glowing rich and bright, cleverly lit from below, the focus of the room.

We were probably the last ones to arrive, I thought, not reaching to pat my hair or straighten my skirt, trying to look like I visited exclusive private clubs all the time in my hard-hatted life, as three men stood to greet us.

Harlan Kristiansen and Owen Johnson, both of them looking like actors playing NFL stars, they were so clearly cast for the part.

And another man, too, as tall and nearly as good-looking as Harlan but even broader across the shoulders, as dark as Harlan was fair and as tough-looking as Harlan was surfer-cool.

I’d better not let my grandmother catch sight of him, or she’d be kicking Cary Grant to the curb.

Tech bros these guys were not. Harlan said, “This is Alix … uh, I’m sorry, I don’t know your last name. And Sebastian Robillard.”

“Blake Orbison,” the new guy said, shaking both our hands. “And my wife, Dakota Savage.”

“Glucksburg-Thompkins,” I said. “My last name. And Dakota Savage the artist? Really?” She was as striking as her husband, and as dark, with cheekbones that looked sculpted and dark-framed glasses that looked severe.

She’d stood, too, and was shaking hands with both of us, not kissing cheeks the way some women did.

Her grip as firm as mine, her palm as tough.

She said, “That’s the first time anybody’s said that to me. Or did you know I’d be coming and look me up?” She laughed. “Wait. That sounds terrible, like I’m full of myself. Sorry. I’m just surprised.”

“No,” I said, sitting down beside her and smiling at the other woman, the one I knew.

Jennifer, Harlan’s wife, who waved and gave me her sweet, sunny smile.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” I explained to Dakota.

“I just—I saw a feature on you and thought how beautiful the pieces were, not like any stained glass I’d ever seen, and then I was shopping—well, shopping for the dress I wore to meet all these people for Christmas, in fact, since I only had jeans at the time and I was intimidated—and I walked by a gallery and they had a piece of yours hung in the window, with a little blurb about you.

It was sort of abstract, but I thought it could be—but I’m probably wrong.

” I was flustered. I’d never met a well-known artist before, and her dangling earrings were complicated and rich-looking and geometric, her skin gleaming bronze, her whole self exuding a sort of effortless cool in the most stylish sort of jeans, a scarlet sweater, and a wide belt made of hammered silver metal.

I didn’t get intimidated that often, but she was doing it.

“What did you think?” she asked. “I’d love to know.” She smiled, and her face, which looked somber in repose, lit up again.

“Was it a shell?” I asked, a little timidly. “The inside of one? It looked to me like abalone, that electric green and bright purple and all those curving lines.”

“It was,” she said, her smile blooming. “My shell series. I’d been doing a lot of ferns, so Blake took me to New Zealand, and we did some sailing and some open-water swimming and hiking and eating from roadside stands, and …

” She shrugged and laughed. “I’ve kept being dragged back to shells ever since.

The paua is the most beautiful abalone species, and then there are scallops in all these different co lors, shading into each other in the most fascinating ways.

And, of course, ferns. And birds. I love birds. ”

“All her work is amazing,” Jennifer put in.

“Harlan bought me a crane for our master bedroom. That curving neck and those white wings with those long, slim feathers, reflected in the water as it takes off?” She put a hand on her chest. “It just stops my heart. All that delicacy and grace. Cranes are a symbol of peace and hope. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?

Exactly what I want my home to be. Exactly.

” She smiled at Harlan, and he smiled back.

“Peace and hope is what we go for,” I agreed.

“Well, excitement, too,” Dakota said, and I laughed.

“How do you know each other?” I asked.

“Blake’s my boss,” Jennifer said. “Extremely demanding.”

“You know it,” Dakota said.

“Hey,” Blake protested. He had one of those rich Southern voices, the kind where every word takes twice as long to come out, but no part of him looked slow. “I am a considerate employer.”

“Oh.” I was confused. “So you guys don’t—I mean, it’s a couples friendship? Or …” Oh, wait. This was totally tactless. My mother would be screaming inwardly about now. “I’m sorry, it’s just that you all look really comfortable together.”

The guys looked at each other, then Harlan laughed and said, “Owned. Purely owned.” And they were all chuckling, not least Blake.