Page 121 of Nothing More

Raven forced a laugh, forced it to be musical, too. “We’re working on that part. Aren’t we?” She elbowed Tenny.

Greg blinked, finally tore his gaze away, and looked positively crestfallen when he turned back to Raven. “I see. But.” He hedged, toying with the salad on his plate, turning over tomato slices as though he might find something like logic beneath. “I thought that you two weren’t…”Together, he finished with a gesture of his free hand.

“We’re not,” Raven said.

Tenny said, “I’m fucking my assistant.”

Reese coughed again, but not in subtle censure; more of a startled choke.

Greg blinked again with fresh shock, but seemed mollified, after, as their entrees arrived.

Lunch finished without further event. Raven agreed to email Donovan’s secretary with details, and Greg said he hoped they were able to have lunch again together soon. His pointed gaze added,Without company.

“Maybe if you shag him, he’ll stop being so fucking annoying,” Tenny said, once they were safely inside the car.

“Are youencouragingme to be promiscuous?”

“Aren’t you already?”

Reese cuffed him before she could reach for him.

“Ow! Bastard. I’m just saying: he wants in your knickers, and that’s the sort of tosser who overhears stuff he shouldn’t.”

“He’s not getting in my knickers, and the only way he’ll overhear anything he shouldn’t is if you open your fat gob when you shouldn’t.”

Either he was tired, or she’d worn him down, finally, because he glanced out through the window and didn’t bother with a retort.

Raven caught Reese’s eye, and he gave her a small, secretive smile she was helpless but to return.

For the rest of the trip back to the safehouse, she called to check in with Melanie at the office, and then returned emails. Both boys resumed their playacting roles as they stepped out of the Rover, and didn’t drop them until they were walking through the door of the flat.

Raven hadn’t been aware of feeling anxious, but felt something in her stomach unclench once the door was shut and she was inside the flat. It still smelled faintly of the sausage and eggs Bennet had whipped up for breakfast, now overlaid with a newer, fresher note of sautéing onions. Not Bennet’s work, clearly, because he was ensconced in an armchair, gesturing at the TV with the remote. American football, she saw, and then noted that Cass wasn’t present.

“Where’s our sister?” she asked Miles as she passed him, pausing long enough to tousle his hair over the back of the sofa.

“In her room on the computer again.” She unwound her scarf as she moved on, and he called after her: “Toly’s in the kitchen, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” she lied, set the scarf aside on a table and went through to find the source of the onion-smell.

Late afternoon light fell in silver shafts across the floor of the eating area, glinted along the chrome cabinet handles. Toly stood at the cooktop set in the island, stirring something in a skillet, steam lifting around him in sinuous curls. Shep sat across from him on a stool, sipping a beer.

Her thoughts swung first toward the knowledge that Toly and Shepherd didn’t like one another, and she wondered if they’d come to an understanding, or if Shep was hassling him. They swung next to the way everything inside her leaped up like a happy dog, wagging tail included, at the sight of pushed-up sleeves, and intricate tattoos, and hair curling against a smooth brow from the heat of steam rising off the pan.

There was no denying it at this point: she was hopeless. An absolute goner, as the Yanks said.

Shep noticed her first, and paused with his bottle to his lips. He swallowed, then slid off his stool. “Gonna go check on the score,” he said, and headed for the living room. He had the audacity to wink at her as he passed, and she didn’t try to hold back the disgusted look she offered in return. She heard him chuckle under his breath before he slipped out.

Toly lifted his head, clocked her, and nodded. His expression didn’t exactly evidence gladness, nor a proper greeting, but his brows weren’t furrowed, and his mouth was set in a relaxed line, full and soft, dark lip ring catching the light with a flash. He looked peaceful in a way he hadn’t this morning, and that pleased her. Staying here all day, feet kicked up had clearly done him some mental good.

“Hello,” she greeted, quietly, and slid onto Shepherd’s abandoned stool. They were alone in the room, but speaking softly was her first instinct. Even if the others knew, this thing between them was still tender and green as the first shoots of spring. She wanted to nurture it, rather than treat it as a given.

“Hi.”

“What are you making?”

“Chicken pie.”

“Can I help?”