Page 19

Chapter

Nineteen

GRACE

T he next time I opened my eyes, it was dark save for a single light burning in the corner. Or maybe in the bathroom? Squinting, I turned my head. I hadn’t gone back to bed, had I? Awareness trickled back in and the thump of a tail pulled my attention to the floor where Goblin wiggled across the carpet toward me, toward the bed.

“Hey,” I whispered a greeting. Wherever I’d woken up, it wasn’t my room. Goblin’s wiggling seemed to intensify and he went from sliding on the carpet to standing up. “How you doing boy?”

Then he had his paws on the side of the bed and I ran a hand over his head.

“Want to come up here with me?” He hadn’t slept in my room once since I’d been here, but that didn’t mean I didn’t get to play with him and hang out. I loved dogs. Always wanted to have one, but my job took me everywhere and that wasn’t fair to a puppy.

Goblin swiped his tongue over my face repeatedly, giving me kisses even as he did a full body wiggle of happiness. A soft laugh escaped me because he was determined to give me lots of kisses.

“Come on,” I invited him, patting the bed as I scooted backward to give him room. I froze when I pressed against a warm back. I wasn’t in the bed alone. Before I could even process that information, Goblin was on the bed and wiggling against me in between slurpy kisses and me petting him.

It was wild, how swiftly he would slide onto his side, but kept drowning me in kisses and I couldn’t go anywhere. Even when I tried to pet him, it barely slowed him down. Goblin was just so damn happy. Laughter spilled out of me as I tried to avoid getting his tongue in my eye or my mouth. Though I swore he was gonna go up my nose with his enthusiasm.

Masculine grumbles rising in volume behind just added to my amusement as I half-wrestled, half-just played with Goblin. We were definitely not in my room. I guess I fell asleep in his office while he worked. That meant he’d have to have been the one put me in his bed? Not that I could focus on that very much. Not when I had a wiggling pile of canine joy just demanding everything from me.

Laughter bubbled out of me as I alternated between petting Goblin and defending myself from them. When the bed shifted behind me, Goblin’s whole body just seemed to vibrate at a higher frequency. Then he was climbing on me to wiggle and slurp at Alphabet.

This time, I didn’t try to smother the sound as I cracked up under Goblin’s full frontal assault. He was acting more like a puppy than he had at any other time since I’d met him and it was just…

Wonderful .

“Goddamn, Goblin,” Alphabet said, the faint raspiness from sleep adding a deeper dimension to his voice and a subtle sensuality to the way he enunciated the syllables. “You’re soaking Gracie down and I didn’t sign up for a bath.”

Despite the denial, he didn’t sound all that upset. Though he threaded an arm between me and Goblin to help create some room. The drape of him against my back sent a wave of warmth over me that would probably suggest I was blushing if I hadn’t been laughing so damn hard.

The wet kisses really were drenching me, but I wasn’t remotely upset about it. “He’s in a good mood,” I managed to say from behind the shield of my hand to keep Goblin’s tongue at bay.

“Clearly, he likes waking up with you, Gracie-girl.” The relaxed confidence resonated in his sleep-husky voice. I could listen to him all day. Probably why I’d drifted off when he was talking to the guys.

“Maybe,” I said, still smiling so hard it made my cheeks hurt. “Or maybe he’s just happy that I’m not blocking him from you.”

His snort was deliciously derisive. “He wouldn’t even be on the bed without you, Gracie-girl. He makes me get my ass up when he wants me up.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “Should I have not…”

“Shh,” Alphabet shushed me, and shifted to push himself up on one arm. “You’re fine, Gracie. Goblin and I have a deal, he makes sure I don’t hang out in bed when I’m down and I get up when he asks me for it.”

I turned that revelation over. It was kind of sweet that he and Goblin worked together, but it also made sense. Goblin kept depression at bay? Or maybe his trauma? I didn’t know enough about it, but I loved that Alphabet had him. Goblin’s happy squirming settled as he rolled onto his back, legs spread wide, with a look of ecstasy on his face as we both rubbed his belly.

“This is kind of nice,” I said, aware that while he was present, he wasn’t grinding on me or anything else. It was just “comfortable.” Probably not a word I should share with him. Most guys I’d ever met didn’t like being told they were comfy or even friendly. A sigh escaped me.

“If it’s so nice, what’s making you sad, Gracie-girl?” The soft question hinted at intimacy and asked me to trust him. The damn thing about it was I wanted to trust him. I wanted…

“It’s—” Before I could just sort of shrug off the concern, he shifted his hand from Goblin to press a finger to my lips.

“Don’t lie. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But let’s just make it a rule to not lie to each other.”

That had me blinking and I twisted, laying against the pillow to look up at him. He met my studying gaze with a kind of quiet patience.

“Yes, I know what I’m saying. You don’t have to tell me everything. Do I want to know? Yes. I wouldn’t ask otherwise. But…” He shifted his attention to Goblin for a moment and blew out a breath before glancing to me again. “But,” he repeated. “I want to trust what you say to me. I want you to trust what I say to you. I want there to be no questions about that. So, if you don’t want to answer something, just say you don’t want to and I’ll do the same.”

“So if I ask you what the guys were doing last night?”

“I’d tell you I don’t want to answer it until they are back and we debrief.” He scratched at the scruff on his jaw. The tousled hair, blue eyes, and rough stubble gave him this kind of rugged charm that had me curling my toes. “Not everything I don’t tell you has to do with you or your sister, directly. We’ve involved you in a lot, it’s better that we all have consensus before we involved you in more.”

I ran my tongue over my lower lip as I considered that answer. No deception echoed beneath the words. Goblin sat up and looked at me. Well, looked at us, since neither of us were petting him now.

“I don’t know entirely what is making me sad,” I admitted. “It could be a lot of things, most obvious being my sister and everything that’s happened.” That was the truth. “But that feels almost too simple an answer and I don’t know how to answer it for myself much less for you.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “So… we have a deal?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. I wanted to be able to trust them. Hadn’t I been beating myself up on this for days now? “Deal.” Then I gave it a little more thought. “Caveat?”

“Name it.”

“This is between you and me for right now. I’m not sure the other guys apply yet .”

“Acceptable. We’ll add it to the discussion.”

That—seemed reasonable. I held out my right hand to him. “Then we have a deal, AB.”

Goblin slurped my fingers a beat before Alphabet shook my hand. We both laughed.

“Yeah, I think he wants out…”

“I can do it… unless there’s some code I need to enter to open a door.”

“There is,” he confirmed as he rolled onto his own back and reached for his phone. “But I can key it in here. Just let him out the back door and he’ll take care of business. Then we’ll get him breakfast. Goblin, down.”

The sweet boy hopped right off the bed and sat waiting like a gentleman, tail wagging.

“I’d kill for coffee.”

“I got it,” he said, sitting up even as I slid out of the bed. I was still in the shirt and sleep shorts. The room was a lot chillier out from under the covers and all the warmth. “That hot cocoa, by the way, was the best I’ve ever had. I need to work on points to get you to make it again.”

He shoved the blankets back as I raked a hand through my hair. My first realization was he’d slept in sweatpants and no shirt. There were scars and tats on his back. None of which were any of my business. The second realization came when he reached for something instead of getting straight up. His prosthesis. I’d forgotten about it and he needed to put it on.

And I was staring.

Yanking my gaze off him, I looked at Goblin who sped up the thump of his tail. “C’mon, sweetheart. I’ll let you out.”

I was at the door and Alphabet had just stood when I glanced back to where Goblin waited.

“ Gaan .” The word seemed to galvanize Goblin and he trotted right after me. “I’ll be out in a minute,” Alphabet said to me.

“Sounds good.” I followed Goblin along the hallway—Alphabet’s bedroom was downstairs, not that far from his office, actually. That made me feel a bit better. He hadn’t had to carry me up the stairs or something.

At the door, I trusted what Alphabet had said about putting in the code and unlocked the door. The moment it was open, Goblin took off like a shot. He made it a dozen feet before he peed a river.

Poor baby, we made him wait a long time.

Folding my arms, I stepped down onto the stone patio they had set up. It wasn’t much more than a slab of stone and some edging, but it had potential. I walked to the edge to watch Goblin as he dashed around after he relieved himself and went in search of somewhere else to do some business.

The sun was already up. We’d slept late, it was high and the day was really lovely. The breeze carried something that smelled like sweetgrass on it. It wasn’t cold, exactly, but definitely cooler and I’d want pants if I planned to stay out here.

There was a chattering of birds, but all I really heard was the quiet. It was so deep it was almost frightening how empty it was. It had taken me a long time to get used to the city, the undertone of regular traffic, sirens, and a kind of just—hum of humanity.

None of that was here.

It was just—silent.

Then the sound of the coffee grinder echoed from the kitchen and I had to laugh. That wasn’t so quiet, but it sounded good. Smelled better cause there was already a round of espresso going by the time Goblin dashed back to me and we headed inside.

Alphabet was in the kitchen, gray sweatpants low on his hips, and his foot tapping as he pulled another shot. He hadn’t bothered with a shirt, but then I didn’t have on pants and we’d just shared a bed so this was—cozy.

Comfortable.

There was that word again. Alphabet glanced over his shoulder. “So, tell me, do you have any other hidden talents like magical cocoa making?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Such as?”

“Cooking.”

I shrugged. “I can, it won’t be fancy. I survived on takeout and the basics. A lot of my diet ran to steamed chicken and salad.”

His grimace was downright comical. “That’s not a diet.”

“It is if you need to maintain low body fat. The camera adds plenty.” It was just another part of the job.

"Well, I hope you like cereal.” He motioned to the pantry. “We have a few different kinds. I know we have fruit.”

“You don’t cook either?” But I had to admit I was curious about the cereal too so I headed for the pantry.

“Well, Lunchbox and I have agreed to disagree on that one.”

I poked my head back out as he started the milk steaming. “How is that an answer?”

“Well, I say I can cook. Lunchbox says I can’t—especially not with his utensils or pans.”

I bit the inside of my lip. “What happened to his pans?”

“Could be that I like to blacken sausage and steak… and burgers sometimes. You know—make it extra crispy.”

“Burned?” I mean, it was a way I supposed.

“You say poh-tay-to.” He shrugged, but there was a grin and his eyes were dancing. “I say blackened. Blackened fish is excellent.”

“Uh huh. This is why you and Lunchbox agree to disagree.”

Alphabet winked. “Exactly. So, cereal it is or fruit or we can figure something out.”

I suddenly had a dozen questions. I had no idea what order to even ask them in or if I should ask them at all. Filing those away, I settled for, “What’s your favorite cereal?”