Molly let out a sigh. “Fine, fine, lesson learned. It’s a good thing it’s Vancouver and it’s seventy-five degrees outside. If I’d chosen to do this in August, I’d totally forfeit the job to get this thing off my head.”
They departed while Grace was muttering, “It wouldn’t suck so bad if she didn’t have a fuckton of hair under it. She should let people pretend that is the wig and then put a wig on and disappear.”
“Grace, darling,” Julia murmured, coming to sit beside him, “what are you so interested in?”
“This box is not an ordinary jewelry box,” Grace said, frowning. “See that?”
“Hinges,” Julia said promptly.
“Yes, but what’s that on the other side of the box that also looks like hinges?”
“Oh!” Her breath caught, and Hunter bent over to take a closer look.
“You are an elephant in front of the sun,” Grace snapped at him as his shadow loomed large. “This room has barely enough light to not kill us all. Get out of the way.”
“Okay, okay, ok—”
Grace took a very deep breath and remembered Hunter’s sweetness as he’d been doctoring Grace’s feet. He looked up to meet Hunter’s gray eyes and felt like shit. “And I am sorry for being an asshole. Pull out your phone or something and you can look at it too.”
A smile flitted across Hunter’s lean mouth, and he pushed a button on his phone and shined the light on the box so Grace could see. The position put him at Grace’s shoulder, the heat from his body radiating comfortably out. Grace found he was leaning back against Hunter’s thigh and chest, trying to cling to some of that warmth as he worked.
“Contacts,” Hunter said, which was, of course, why Julia had gasped. He glanced up, eyes searching first Grace’s, then Julia’s. “The kind that could trigger an alarm or even a bomb. What happens when the contact is broken without the magic password?”
“We don’t know,” Grace said, frowning. “Stirling, don’t suppose you’ve got a portable X-ray machine in your luggage.”
Stirling grunted. “What am I, an amateur?”
With that, Stirling went to the closet and started rooting around. He came back with a little handheld device that had a wide circular shield on one end and a handle on the other with a trigger.
He also had a dongle, which he plugged into his computer. After a little bit of tapping about—and some explanation, which Grace ignored, because duh—he turned one of his monitors around, showing a blank screen.
“Okay—let’s see.” Stirling fiddled a little, obviously in his happy place, and then aimed the X-ray gun at the box as Grace was holding it.
“Wait!” Grace cried, suddenly in the now. “You’re going to shrivel my balls!”
Stirling stared at him. “With an X-ray gun?”
“There’s radioactive Godzilla stuff in there! You’re aiming it right at my balls!”
“It’s only the smallest amount of X-rays—”
“I like my balls!”
“Okay, okay, okay!” Hunter grunted. “Hang on a minute, Stirling. I’ve got this.” He went to the entryway for his jacket and paused before going into the closet for a different, slightly longer, oxblood-colored duster-style coat. “Here, Grace. Put this on your lap. You’re right—it’s Kevlar. It’s not lead, but it should keep your balls safe.”
Grace looked at him suspiciously, because he’d never heard of the X-ray–repelling properties of Kevlar.
“Are you putting me on?” he asked.
“Well, even if the Kevlar doesn’t do it, the leather will,” Stirling soothed. Hunter laid the coat over Grace’s body, where it sat, smelling like leather and sweat and man—specific man, Hunter—while Stirling set the package up on one of the tails to Grace’s side and took the X-ray with the coat as a backdrop. A couple of clicks, some hums from the laptop, and the blank screen was now eerie blue light against a black background.
“Ooh,” Grace said, knowing his mouth was drawn into cupie-bow and not caring. “Sparkly.”
“You don’t even know that,” Hunter chided. “For all you know, it’s a rock!”
“No,” Stirling murmured, adjusting something on the monitor. “It’s most definitely a gemstone of some kind. Possibly man-made.”
“It’s very bright,” Julia said. “I… dammit. Of course Danny would be offline now. Stirling, love, could you forward that to Danny and Felix? There’s something… odd about that. Do you see those lines there? The dark lines in every facet?”
“It’s like somebody wrote on the diamond in black pen,” Grace said, and his thief’s heart grew outraged. “Who would destroy a perfectly good diamond?”
“Or cubic zirconium,” Stirling reminded him.
“A perfectly good fake diamond!” Grace continued. He didn’t care if it was cubic zirconium or not. There was something very pure about gemstones, something that implied after the buffing, the polishing, the faceting, the gem has been made worthy of admiration. They were sort of static divas that way—they achieved a thing no human dancer could: long-term perfection.
“But why would they do that?” Julia murmured. “Stirling, have you sent the pictures?”
“Yeah. Done.” Stirling started putting away the equipment, and Hunter reached for his coat.
Grace had, inexplicably, curled his hands into the collar of the thing and was clutching it to his chest.
“Uhm, Grace—”
“It smells good,” Grace said, looking at him helplessly. He was at a loss. Even when he stole something, he usually had no problem relinquishing ownership. But this—this—felt very personal.
“I was going to hang it up, tho—”
“It’s warm,” Grace said, nodding repeatedly and clutching the coat tighter. It was heavy, like a weighted blanket. Was that why Grace found it so comforting?
Hunter blew out a breath and returned to his closet. He came back with a much-worn black hooded sweatshirt, washed so many times it had gone frayed a little at the wrists, and the fleece inside had worn thin. He leaned into Grace’s body and whispered in his ear.
“I haven’t washed this since I wore it last.”
Grace buried his face into the collar and inhaled.
Mm. Fabric softener instead of leather, but still warm. Still comfortable. Still full of manly man smell. Hunter’s smell.
Reluctantly Grace let go of Hunter’s coat. Hunter moved to hang it up, and Grace pulled the hoodie over his head without even bothering with the zipper. Hunter was at least two sizes bigger than he was in the arms and shoulders; it slid over Grace’s head easily, and he felt like he could breathe.
“Better?” Hunter asked.
Grace nodded, feeling pathetic but unable to find words. “Thank you,” he murmured. He rarely thanked people because most of the time he could take care of himself. But he couldn’t have stolen this much-laundered hoodie. It had to be given.
“Course.”
Hunter made space next to him and then sat at the edge of the bed. Grace pretended he didn’t feel Hunter’s body heat seeping through their clothing, but he definitely did. He may even have leaned into it a little. Maybe.