Page 74 of Huntsman

I scowl in reply.

“What?” Jamari chuckles, dipping his oar back in the water. “You weren’t thinking it?”

“No.”

Eshe peeks back toward the shore we just left. “I mean… it is kinda givingLord of the Rings.”

I groan. “Don’t encourage him.”

Quiet falls between us.

Then a snicker.

Shit.I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“I heard it as soon as I said it. Fuckers,” I mutter, just as they laugh uncontrollably.

Warmth bubbles up in my chest, and maybe it’s the night, the rush of the near-death experience, or the release of stress, but I loose a low, soft chuckle. The shit’s so foreign, so weird, it feelslike rusty nails scraping over my throat. Sounds like it, too. And yet, it feels… good.

Eshe’s and Jamari’s laughter abruptly cuts off, and they both gape at me.

“The fuck?” Jamari whispers.

“What’s happening right now?” Eshe frowns, looking two seconds away from setting the back of her hand over my forehead as if checking for a temperature like an old-school mama.

“Fuck both of you.”

More cackling, and then we row across the Charles River to safety.

“Bunking down in the same place twice? Isn’t that breaking some unspoken rule of yours?” Eshe asks, as I punch in the code to the rear entrance to the warehouse on the waterfront.

Leaning forward, I wait for the retinal scan to finish and then push the door open.

“Only your stalking ass knows about my other properties,” I remind her. “And there were just two people who knew the location of my main place. Abena found it because she paid someone off for the information.”

We reach the second level, and I repeat the same process on the reinforced steel door, then enter the loft.

“I’m going to assume that person has been efficiently and painfully unalived.”

I don’t reply. Because what’s understood doesn’t need to be explained.

“Who was it? No offense, but you’re not just antisocial and extremely mistrustful of the human race as a whole but paranoid as fuck. Who did you allow to have the info of where you laid your head?” she presses, striding across the living room, her usually graceful, confident stride almost disjointed, jittery.

Frowning, I study her as she crosses her arms over her chest and restlessly paces from one side of the room to the other.

“Derrick.”

Her head pops up at my answer, confusion wrinkling her brow.Join the club.I don’t know why I’m telling her any of this. Shit. I don’t know why I’m talking, period.

“Derrick,” she repeats. “But he’s been dead for seven years.”

“Yeah, he has been.” A splinter of old, dusty pain pulses beneath my skin. Funny how I haven’t thought of him in years—haven’t allowed myself to—and now he’s been on my mind a few times in as many days. “He was the one person I trusted for years. Not since…”

I duck my head and start for the kitchen. It’s going on seven o’clock in the morning now, and the only sleep I’ve had was those couple of hours after Eshe and I fucked. I need coffee, a shower, then to crash for at least two more before getting up and hunting down Abena to finish the job we fucked up.

“Before he died, he spent a lot of time at my place. We were damn near roommates because he didn’t have family. Never risked getting seriously involved with someone or having kids because that only gave his enemies easy targets.”

I fall silent, what Eshe relayed about my own family jumping to my mind. God, I wish my own father had been as fucking thoughtful as Derrick. Not being born would’ve been a blessing compared to being abandoned and watching my sister die in front of my eyes. Shaking my head as if that can eject my thoughts, I round the island and open the cabinet door over the stove. I pull down the box of coffee pods and pop one in the machine.