Page 32 of The Hard Way (The Kinky Bank Robbers #5)

The four of us were sitting out on the grand patio of our Northern California woodland Airbnb hideaway when the call came in.

Or maybe I should say that Thor and Odin were sitting; I was lying between the two of them with my head on Odin’s lap and my feet on Thor’s lap, a favorite configuration of mine.

Thor was massaging my feet.

Odin was feeding me the occasional champagne grape, my favorite kind of grape, what with that bright burst of flavor.

And Zeus was sprawled in the big patio chair, which we’d taken to calling his daddy throne, watching with lazy satisfaction, because he loved when things were right with us almost as much as he loved making things right.

Everything stopped when Zeus’s phone did its chirpy little tone.

We all came to attention; I even partly sat up. It really was weird when a call came in, being that we cycled through new burner phones every month.

Who would call us?

Zeus grabbed the phone off the rough-hewn outdoor coffee table and answered it.

He listened to whatever the caller was saying with a thoughtful expression, then, “That is a really tempting offer, yes…yes…no, we have a shindig in L.A. we’re committed to.

” The person on the other end talked some more and Zeus nodded and mumbled more thanks.

Of course we weren’t committed to any shindig in L.A.

, and we never would be. A major part of the job description for “internationally wanted fugitives” was to not let people know where you'd be ahead of time.

We would never commit to anything or RSVP to anything, and we hardly even ever attended parties, unless you considered traveling the world, robbing banks, having group sex, and staying in posh hotels while solving the occasional mystery to be a party.

Which, if I'm going to be honest, could very much be a party at times.

“What was that all about?” Odin asked when Zeus ended the call.

“The owners had the next week suddenly come available and were asking if we wanted to stay on.”

“And you said no?” Odin asked, sounding a bit outraged.

“Of course, I said no,” Zeus said.

“We love this place,” Odin said.

Zeus gave him a hard look. “Yet we've been here ten days already.”

The four of us had solemnly agreed never to stay more than ten days at a place.

To be fair, at the time we agreed on that rule, we'd just narrowly escaped grisly deaths at the hands of Denko, our mortal enemy. There’s nothing like narrowly escaping a grisly death to make you get serious about safety measures.

“Maybe so, but this is one of the safest places we've ever been,” Odin said. “And one of the best. A few more days. We could at least discuss it.”

I waited to see what Zeus would say, because I, too, loved this place.

A lot.

It was rare that we felt truly safe for long stretches of time, but this place was out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees as tall as skyscrapers, making for a “highly defensive layout,” as Zeus called it.

Even the birds helped in our defense, being that they tweeted when there was any kind of weirdness out there—an amazing alarm system, even better than Odin, who was always so wildly hyperaware of our surroundings.

The nature was spectacular—we saw moose and deer and even a few bears. There were definitely lots of woodland animals around, not the least of which were Thor, Zeus, and Odin, when we got to re-enacting my very favorite cartoon porn fantasies.

I'm happy to report that playing out a torrid capture fantasy never got old, even though it always ended in the same way.

Moreover, it was one of the poshest places ever—surprising, I know, considering we stayed at the finest hotels in the world, and also surprising considering the fact that there was not even a hot tub on the premises.

But it was like a beautifully furnished Cabela’s, and that suited us at the moment.

The guys and I had gotten into mountain biking around the mountainside.

After a number of races and challenges, Thor was the champ in the category of long-distance mountain biking, meaning that he had the best endurance; however, Zeus held the award of fastest mountain biker—he had the most explosive athletic power, what with his tree-trunk legs and incredible muscles.

And if there had been an award for the most creative mountain biker, Odin and I would’ve shared that, considering how often we snuck out of the races to hang out and enjoy the scenery or take a naked dip in one of the pristine mountain streams.

The four of us would spend our nights grilling elaborate feasts, which we’d devour on the porch that overlooked rugged mountains. Then we’d go on to devour each other, and I don't mean that in a praying mantis way.

“Why not cancel the next place and pay the penalty?” Odin asked.

“We'd be breaking our ten-day rule,” Zeus said.

“What's the fucking-g problem with staying a few more days?” Odin said—unsurprising, being that he’d never met a rule he didn’t want to break.

“Procedures and rules keep us safe, and breaking them makes us less safe,” Zeus said, also not surprisingly, being that he’d never met a rule he didn't want to enforce, marry, and possibly even tie up and fuck in a long and delicious way.

“I'm tired of us being so rigid and brittle,” Odin said. “Let's stay for a while longer just this once. Why not?”

“Because we can't.” Zeus’s harsher-than-usual tone surprised me.

“That's a bullshit answer,” Odin bit out.

“Yeah, well, that's the answer you’re getting,” Zeus growled. “We leave tomorrow. End of story.”

I cringed—this was exactly the kind of response that Odin hated.

Thor and I had a nonintervention policy when Odin and Zeus went at it, but honestly? Odin had a point.

And…woodland adventures!

“Screw that,” Odin said.

“Hey, I’m tired of being on the run, too,” Zeus said. “I want it to be different, too, but do you know what I don't want? For us to die.

That’s what the rules are there for.”

“Rules are not smarter than us,” Odin said. “They don't know that this is a good safe place where we can stay a bit longer.”

“God!” Zeus thrust himself up out of his chair. “You know what I'm tired of? Having to fucking enforce the rules when you act like a goddamned teenager. I can't go back and change the past, so you're gonna have to deal with reality, and that includes following the rules.”

Odin swore and stormed into the house.

Zeus stormed in after him.

A lot of fights came down to this same basic struggle—Odin wanted flexibility, and Zeus wanted law and order. But the two of them were being more intense this time.

Maybe because this hideaway had been so amazing.

When you've been on the run for so long, safety is a beautiful feeling.

Never having to look over your shoulder, never having to paste a really stupid nose onto your face and then glue the nose ruffle all over your cheeks, and then it itches, and then when you pull it off, it leaves red marks on your face.

I sighed dramatically and looked over at Thor, because Thor and I sometimes bonded when Odin and Zeus fought, but Thor was staring grimly into the middle distance, face ashen.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head like it was too awful to verbalize and stared into the gloom some more.

Had I missed something? I hung back, giving him his space.

With his bright blond hair grown to his shoulders, he looked like a slightly feral Nordic reindeer herder, a look I definitely approved of, but something was off with him lately.

Thor was the peacemaker of the group, but in certain moods he could be the wild card, going from stable to recklessly unhinged in two seconds flat.

This mood felt different. New, somehow.

I’d had this sense lately that being on the run was grating on him.

I sometimes forgot that he hadn’t always been part of an armed-to-the-teeth, bank-robbing squad whose members all took their names from comic book gods.

In fact, he’d been a nerdy doctor. A science geek.

A man who dedicated his life to helping others.

Healing was in his nature, and I knew he missed doing that.

Odin burst out the door, bottle of scotch in hand. He grunted unintelligibly and headed into the woods, disappearing into the gloom.

Moments later, Zeus burst out and stomped after him.

They did that sometimes when things between them were rough—they went out, talked about everything and got really drunk.

I heaved myself off the couch and went up behind Thor, wrapping my arms around him and setting my chin on his shoulder. “There goes OZ to do manly score settling,” I said, trying to cheer him up. I’d even used his snarky nickname for Odin and Zeus—OZ.

He didn’t crack a smile.

“No, wait, excuse me— stalking off. They definitely stalked, wouldn’t you say?”

Thor had recently observed that Odin and Zeus always stalked around.

He remained silent, sullen and stiff under my embrace.

“Come on, the heavy, deliberate steps? The trunk-like legs of manly men, the sense of great purpose. If that's not stalking…”

“This is bad,” Thor said, shaking me off and doing a little stalking of his own—into the house.

I followed, pulse racing.

He went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.

“What’s up, Thor?”.

“This can’t go on, that’s what.” He twisted off the top and chucked it angrily across the room.

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