"You owe me, McCoy," she declared by way of greeting, giving him small eyes. "A little warning that the elevator is out would have been nice," she added, shaking her head. "I have a car full of shit I might not have brought had I known."
"Hence why I didn't mention it," McCoy said, giving her a ghost of a smile.
"Babe," she said, looking over at me. "Tell me you have some coffee you can throw on ice for me. I'm gonna need it after this."
"I can do that," I agreed. "But let me hel—"
"Nope," Ayanna cut me off, shaking her head. "The way I hear it, you need to be staying inside. Same with the dead man over here," she said, jerking her head toward McCoy. "I've been with a man in the security business for long enough that I know when you fuck up for even a minute is when shit goes wrong. So you guys hang tight. I will get the shit. I guess this is one way to drop those extra few baby pounds," she added, shrugging. "I mean, did you really need a whole set of TV dinner stands?" Ayanna added on her way out, shaking her head at McCoy.
"You made her get TV dinner stands?" I asked as McCoy grabbed the bags in the hallway, and moved back inside.
"We might be in here for a while. I figured we should make shit as comfortable as possible. She's gonna haul up a new blow-up mattress too," he added, dropping the bags on the counter.
He wasn't lying. And by the fourth trip, Ayanna was letting out a string of curses that would make a sailor blush.
There were TV dinner stands, a blow-up mattress, sheets, pillows, and two rolling suitcases that—I imagined—held McCoy's clothing and personal care items.
"Is this really necessary?" Ayanna grumbled on her final trip in the door, carting a box for a brand new TV along with her.
"You brought your TV?" I asked, brows furrowing.
"He bought a TV for this," Ayanna corrected.
"You don't have one in the living room," McCoy reminded me.
"Oh, right. I usually watch TV in bed."
"Might be tight with the three of us," McCoy said, eyes bright.
"Oh, right. Yeah. Duh."
"Don't worry," McCoy said, sliding the box against the wall. "We will move all the shit back into the bedroom when you have clients over."
"Sounds like you guys are all getting cozy," Ayanna said, moving over toward the kitchen where I was grabbing her some of the coffee I'd brewed extra strong so it didn't taste watered down with the ice.
"It's a small apartment for three people," I said. "But we will make it work."
"Oh, I bet you will," Ayanna said, eyes doing a lot of talking.
"It's not like that," I insisted, holding up coffee syrup selections for her.
"No? He looks at you like it's like that."
"He hasn't looked at me at all," I told her. And I knew. Because I'd been watching him a hell of a lot more than I should have.
"Then you're not paying attention. Every time your gaze slipped away, his eyes were on you. I've seen that look more than a few times in my life."
"I shot him."
"I know. It's great. Practically the opening to a romance novel, don't you think?" she asked, eyebrows wiggling.
"What are you talking about?" McCoy asked, coming up behind Ayanna.
"Mind your business," Ayanna demanded. "We were just getting to know each other. Right?"
"Right," I agreed.
"You're a shit liar," McCoy declared, shaking his head. "But I know Ayanna too well to think I could get anything out of her. Christ, the times you covered for Gus and her antics over the years."
"Please, if you only knew how many times I got that girl out of her antics before any of you even knew about them. She never did tell you about the time she accidentally joined a gang, did she?" Ayanna asked, and the look on McCoy's face was one that had both Ayanna and I bursting out laughing.
Clearly, at some point, Huck's little sister had been like a sister to him as well. She sounded like a handful.
"That woman is the reason for all of our future gray hairs," McCoy said, sighing.
"Oh, please. By the time you start going gray, you'll have a little girl of your own to stress you out," Ayanna said.
McCoy didn't deny that. And I found myself way too invested in whether or not he wanted children for a man I barely knew, one I was absolutely not going to get involved with.
I mean, sure, the apartment was small, but how hard could it possibly be to avoid being alone with or too close to him?
Chapter Eight
McCoy
"Cat, give it a break," I demanded from my position on the air mattress on the floor.
Shy's cat, Franklyn, was perched on the arm of the couch, screeching at me.
All said and done, he'd been a relatively quiet part of the household. He spent half his day sunning in the front window, and the other half eating or cleaning himself. The only time I'd heard him say a peep was when Shy was opening a can of cat food for him. But even that was just a couple soft meows, almost like he was thanking her.
This, though?
This was practically demonic.
I felt like I owed Remy an apology about his new rescue, Oscar. I was pretty sure I would prefer that hellcat trying to suffocate me in my sleep than screaming at me when I was trying to pass out.
"Your mother and aunt are trying to sleep," I reasoned with him. "Seriously?" I asked when he ramped it up even more. "What's your problem, man?"
"Mouse Baby," Shy's sleepy voice said, making my head whip over to find her padding her way down the hallway in bare feet, pink silk pajama shorts, and a white tee.
It wasn't a sexy outfit.
But, fuck, did it look like it on her.
I'd managed to go all of ten minutes without thinking about her thanks to the damn cat. Now I was pretty sure I was never going to get her out of my head now.
"What, baby?" I asked, hearing a thickness in my voice as she made her way into the living room.
"Mouse. Mouse Baby," she told me.
"Mouse. You got mice?" I asked, body stiffening.
"Oh, my God. The look on your face," Shy said, laughing at me. "The big, bad biker is scared of a tiny little mouse. But no. I mean, yes. But it is a fake mouse. Franklin only screams like this when he can't find it."
"He's got a toy mouse?" I asked. "Isn't he supposed to chase mice, not befriend stuffed ones?"
"He sleeps with him. I actually have like fifty-thousand pictures of him cuddling that stupid mouse on my phone," she told me. "Last Christmas, I put little matching Santa hats on him and the mouse, and used that picture for cards. But he probably got stuck under the couch or something," Shy told me as she moved between the coffee table and the couch, got onto her knees, then leaned forward.
And fuck if the scoop neck of her tee didn't fall as she bent over, giving me a hint of the swells of her breasts beneath.
Reaching up, I rubbed my hands roughly against my eyes as if it was possible to scrub the image out of my brain.
"Damn it, Franklin, I am looking," she grumbled, making me look again, finding her back on her feet, looking behind couch cushions then in the bags that Ayanna had brought that no one had organized yet. "You're going to make that nasty ass old lady across the hall come banging again," she added as if the cat understood what she was saying. "Shush," she demanded, stopping to look at him again. "Hm."