“Yeah, me too,” I tell him with a little snort.
He looks intrigued. “What does that mean?”
“It means I have no idea what I’m working on. Usually I know exactly what I’m going to paint, but this time I’m just painting like my life depends on it, but I don’t know what it is I’m painting. Weird, right?”
“Genius is weird,” Jaxon answers with a shrug. “Everyone knows that. I say keep embracing it, see what happens.”
“That’s what I figure, too. The worst thing that can happen is it’s trash, so where’s the harm?”
“It’s not trash,” he tells me.
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
It’s such a simple answer, but it has me swooning a little anyway, because it’s just what I need to hear right now.
“You’re entirely too charming,” I tell him with a soft smile. “You know that, right?”
Jaxon just grins and leans in for a kiss before sitting back down, and Hudson gags. Again. And I can’t stop myself from turning to glare at him.
“Hey, is Hudson still talking to you?” Jaxon asks, and he doesn’t sound happy.
“He’s always talking to me,” I look at Jaxon and complain with a roll of my eyes. “I swear, he never shuts up.”
“You know, that mean streak of yours is getting a lot wider recently,” Hudson grumps.
“It’s because you’re rubbing off on me,” I shoot back. But the second the words are out, I can feel myself blush scarlet. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant,” Hudson interjects, but the grumpiness is gone, replaced by a slyness in his dark-blue eyes that makes me distinctly nervous, though I’m not sure why.
“My brother sure knows how to ruin a mood,” Jaxon mutters as he gets up to clear my dinner away.
“Thank you,” Hudson answers. “I do what I can.”
“Could you please just shut up for five minutes?” I demand as I stand to follow Jaxon.
“Now, where’s the fun in that?” Hudson walks across the library and climbs on top of one of the shorter bookshelves, dangling his feet down the side as he picks up the mini gargoyle Amka has sitting on top of it and loosely wraps his arms around the statue. “Besides, if I’m quiet, who’s going to point out the error of your ways?”
“Wow, condescending much?” I stick my tongue out at Hudson, who pretends to catch it like I blew him a kiss and dramatically holds it up to his heart before I can turn away.
“I’m sorry,” I say as I catch up to Jaxon and wrap my arms around his waist from behind. “I know you wanted tonight to be special, and Hudson keeps messing it up.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he answers, turning around so he can hold me, too. “It’s not your fault.”
“It feels like my fault.” I squeeze him more tightly.
“Well, it’s not.” He leans down a little, brushes a kiss over my temple. “But since our date isn’t exactly turning out as planned, why don’t we at least do something useful with the time?”
“Like what?”
“Like find out more about gargoyles? I know you were trying to do that before everything went wrong with Hudson the other day.”
“Nothing went wrong with me,” Hudson growls at him. “I was trying to help her.”
“That sounds amazing,” I reply to Jaxon, and he gestures for me to sit back at the table while he fetches the books from the back table where Amka left them for me.
I turn to glare at Hudson. “Because body snatching is so helpful?”
“Are you back to being mad at me about that again?” He sighs. “Even now that you know why I had to get the athame?”
“I’m never not going to be mad at you about that,” I shoot back.
“It figures. I was trying to help, and this is what I get.”
“Trying to help?” I make a disbelieving noise in the back of my throat. “Trying to help yourself, don’t you mean?”
“Are you ever going to get tired of making me the bad guy?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know. Are you ever going to get tired of being the bad guy?” I answer.
In the middle of all this, Jaxon walks back to the table and deposits three books I remember from the pile set aside for me. My fingers are itching to read them, and I quickly grab the top book, Magical Creatures Big and Small.
Jaxon doesn’t sit down like I expect but instead walks over to the bookcase where Hudson is perched and bends down to grab a book from the bottom shelf. For just a second, it looks like Hudson is going to kick him full-on in the face—completely unbeknownst to Jaxon, of course.
Don’t you dare, I mouth at Hudson.
Hudson gives me an arched brow, but in the end, he leaves Jaxon alone. “Overprotective much?”
I narrow my eyes at him. From a murderer? Damn straight.
“You do know that Jaxon’s the one who killed me, right?” He shakes his head as he hops off the shelf, turns away, and mutters, “This is my limit for abuse for one night. I’ve got more important things to do.”
And just like that, he disappears down one of the narrow rows between shelves toward the back of the library. It takes a minute for me to realize he’s following the same gargoyle path that I did the first time I’d entered the library. The first time I’d met Lia…
43
Even Homicidal
Maniacs Have
Their Limits
More important things to do? The words ricochet in my head. “What does that mean?”
Hudson doesn’t answer.
“I’m serious, Hudson. What exactly are you planning to do?”
Still no answer. The jerk.
I try one more time, yelling down the aisle toward where Hudson disappeared. “You can’t just go around saying things like that and expect me to—”
Jaxon sits down and sighs. “Maybe we should do this another time.”
“Why?” I snap, my anger exploding out at him.
He raises a brow at my tone but keeps his voice mild when he answers. “I was asking if you want to try out the research thing another time, since you seem a little…preoccupied…yelling at my brother.”