Page 127 of Puck My Life

“Just watching?”

Her eyes glimmer with amusement. I catch Vae waving out of the corner of my eye, but I ignore her.

“Not just watching, sometimes I like to play rough, too.”

“Oh, really?” I purr up at her.

“Mmhmm.”

“Well, we’re having a party tonight, why don’t you drop by…”

“Indy.”

“Indy. Come to the party, and we can discuss how much you like playing.”

When I look at Vae, her face is closed off.

“What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head and smiles, though it doesn’t look quite right.

“Nothing, Deacon,” she says and turns away. “I have to get ready for work, so I’ll see you later. Good game, though.”

“Now, what did I do?”

PRESENT

I sit on Indy’s couch and bounce around. “This isn’t going to work for me. We’re going to need to get a new couch.”

“Fine,” Indy snaps.

Seeing her face when we rocked up on her doorstep and told her we were moving in was my favourite Indy moment, but I suspect I’m going to be having a few of them in the coming days.

I open up my phone and send a message to a friend I met at the pub. He sells weed and has the most disgusting couch I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s stained and stinks. He’s waiting downstairs.

I am an alpha fully prepared for war.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Indy snaps. “Don’t touch anything.”

I glance at Malcolm. “You heard her. Don’t touch anything.”

Malcolm goes and starts to cook his favourite dish; stewed meat and veggies with dumplings and fruit cake with homemade ice-cream. Vae used to make it for him every winter. It’s a family favourite.

Mal has no chance in hell of cooking it.

Raynor plugs in the amp and starts learning to play his bass, while I invite everyone I know over for a party.

I hear the doorbell and open the door, smiling as Indy’s present arrives.

“Thanks, man.”

He winks. “Anything for Vae.”

The couch goes in, and Indy’s expensive, cream, low-line couch that probably cost ten grand gets donated to my friend. He is ecstatic.

I start exercising and bump into walls, leaving marks. Then I go to the kitchen and deliberately piss off Malcolm. It doesn’t take much before he’s charging me into the walls. The first hole in the wall goes to him; the second and third are mine.

The smoke alarm goes off, screaming into the apartment when his stew boils over. The noxious fumes really start to worry me. Indy rushes out, her cheeks red, hair a mess, and, wow…I pause and look hard, really hard. I’ve heard of this phenomenon. I believe they call it catfishing.