Page 39 of Transfiguration
“Can I?”
“Yes,” Con said, resolving to make it work. The thing he was best at in life was making things work. He stuffed the rest away and took the print to the cutting table before making a few trips back in to move other supplies.
Sam and Luca were back. Luca looked a little flushed, but Sam didn’t appear flustered at all. Con tried not to be sad that he’d missed out. Sam tugged him to a stop, setting the box Con was carrying at his feet, and catching his face for a kiss that wasn’t PG. Okay, that was good. Con sighed, relaxing into Sam’s touch. “I wish we could all just chill on the couch with some games or an anime?” Con whispered when they broke the kiss.
“Later,” Sam promised. “Gotta go look hot on TV.” He pointed at Luca. “Behave and you’ll get your reward when I get home. Maybe spend somequalitytime with Con?”
Luca’s smirk said he had a lot of naughty plans. But if Bella was asleep as Sam rarely got home until early morning, that would give them some time, right? Con hoped he had time for a nap to be ready for their play later.
“You have a phone now, Bella?” Sam asked.
“Yes. Mr. Harding programmed everyone’s numbers into it.”
“Good. You call if you need me. You’re stuck with these two clowns for a few hours.” Sam held out his hand for a low high five. “Make sure they don’t do anything silly, okay?”
Her eyes widened. “Yes,” she agreed.
“Love you,” Con said to Sam as he finished hauling boxes. “Stay safe.”
“Keep the wards up,” Sam said as he left the apartment. Con felt the ripple of the wards resettle around them. Luca pulled out a container with the cake in it and Bella rushed to the counter. Con turned his focus to Bella’s bag. He had a cutting machine that did a lot of the main cuts for him, leaving him only with the heavier inside bits to portion out.
“You want some of this cake?” Luca asked. Bella sat on one of the barstools, chomping on a giant piece. It looked like some triple layer fudge thing.
“Did you already eat all the fudge I brought home last night?” Con asked.
Luca flushed. “You said you brought it home for me.”
Con was pretty certain the only reason Luca stayed skinny was because he was always sexing them up or fighting in cage matches. “Did you eat any vegetables today?”
“There were veggies on the pizza you brought me, right?”
“Tomatoes are a fruit and basil is a spice.”
“Basil is green like a vegetable,” Luca said. “You brought me pizza. What else was I to eat?” Luca did not cook. Con could cook, though nothing elaborate. He was big into steak and broccoli for an easy night. But he was home and didn’t want to argue when he needed to think and work at the same time.
“You can have my slice of cake if you feed my paperwork through the data reader,” Con offered.
Luca blinked at the pile of paperwork. It was a foot thick. The scanner did the bulk of it. All he had to do was put a stack of the paper in, and let it feed, shuffling through them as they were all added to Con’s private online server. The reports were from a dozen different sources. Things that could have been researched with advanced algorithms and technology, but Con’s brain didn’t work that way. He had to read and sort them himself, shuffling the data into boxes that made sense and would lead him to his next clue. It was why he had his own private server. No one else could make much sense of how his brain worked, and that was okay with him.
Con could do a voice read option while he cut and sewed to go through all the documents. The sooner he found Matthew’s body and brought that piece of shit to an end, the better they all would be. He needed to sort information first, define some leads, if they had any, to even know where to look.
“Okay. Cake for manual labor. You owe me at least two busted nuts later. That’s one enormous stack,” Luca complained.
“That’s what he said,” Con teased.
“What’s a busted nut?” Bella asked.
Con glared at Luca.
“Ever broken a peanut when you opened the shell?” Luca asked Bella. “That’s a busted nut.” He wasn’t wrong, but Bella didn’t look convinced. “Do you like anime? Mostly we have classic stuff, super violent stuff, or boy love stuff.” Luca offered as he took a huge bite of the last slice of cake.
“Boy love? Is it kids?”
“No,” Luca said. “It’s boy love,” he waved a hand at Con and back to himself. “Men. But this sort of stuff is very romantic. Bromance type stuff. They don’t really even kiss or anything. More’s the pity.”
“Cause being gay in China will get you killed,” Con muttered. They had some anime gay porn, but he didn’t think Luca would show her that. “How aboutMy Hero Academia?”
Luca sighed; it was not one of his favorites. “How aboutTian Guan Ci Fu? I’d worship Hua Cheng any day. Climb him like a tree and make sure his branch was nestled deep.”