From where I was, I glanced over at my bookcase, narrowing my eyes to get a better glimpse of the author names.
I rhymed off a few names but remained unsuccessful.
“Okay, fine. Who is it then?”
“I’m going to let it be a surprise.”
“Is it Stephen King? If it’s him, I’m totally going to have to get him to sign a book for my glass case.”
“It’s not him, and fuck you, you already said that spot was for me.”
“Yeah, but you’re a dick, so you’ve lost your chance.”
He grumbled.
As fast as I could, I packed while Vandal moved around impatiently, forbidden to help after I caught him packing kitchen utensils, photo albums, and toilet bowl cleaner in the same box. Luckily for him, I only owned so much. I also managed to stow my small bag of kink gear in a box with my journals. Taking a chance, I labeled the box ‘private’ and he didn’t demand to see what was in it, thank fuck.
“Is your other stuff already in storage?” he asked when I’d taped the last box closed.
“This is everything I own.”
He raised his brows but didn’t comment further, which was probably the safest bet for him at that point, considering I was getting closer to kicking him in the shin every time he said something particularly obtuse. For a guy who stretched his imagination to write, he was clueless about what relative poverty looked like.
Other than the mattress and loveseat we’d dropped on the curb, everything fit in the box of the pickup, and then we were off to some swanky food market across town that I’d never set foot in.
I helped him shop the best I could, but he seemed to find my sticker shock annoying and unhelpful. Even when the cart was pretty much full, he showed no signs of slowing down.
“I hope you’re not buying this much food because of me,” I finally said, a little worried he was going to buy all of the produce in the store. The upper-class suburban moms who filled the store were making me feel shabby and out of place. Even Vandal seemed to be beneath their notice, which was strange. As handsome as he was, it made no sense that women weren’t falling over themselves to flirt with him. It took me time to realize he was adept at keeping the peak of his baseball cap low enough so even if someone glanced over, they wouldn’t see his face.
“If the two of you are going to be staying with me, I’m going to be shopping like this pretty regularly. As for you, it won’t kill you to eat something good for you. For someone so scrawny, you owned a lot of refined sugar.”
I ran the tip of my finger over an avocado, wondering what it tasted like. “Why buy such expensive fruit when other things are cheaper?”
He raised a brow at me and tsked in mock despair. “There are things in the world other than oranges, and bananas, little monster. An apple isn’t an avocado.”
Nonplussed, I followed him around until he finally headed toward the front of the store. I sighed in relief, but then he turned off to the fancy butcher section I hadn’t noticed earlier. Men dressed like old-fashioned butchers from TV helped Vandal choose the cuts of meat he wanted, then wrapped them in paper as though we were shopping for European groceries instead of regular Canadian ones.
“What’s wrong with the meat they sell at the grocery store? And why do you need so much of it?” I asked, gazing into the cart, then back at him in a mixture of disgust and dismay. I’d never seen meat for sale that wasn’t covered in plastic, and the idea that it might leak onto the other food was completely grossing me out. “If you and your friend are secretly werewolves, I think that makes the contract I signed null and void.”
He stopped walking and glared at me.
“I don’t care if the motherfucking Pope shows up and tells you I’m a blaspheming mass murderer. Nothing is going to get you out of that written agreement, capiche?” His mouth twisted in what may have been a smile. “Nothing.”
Chapter 3
Moving my belongings into my new room and Vandal’s mostly empty shed only took a few minutes, then I watched him put groceries away in his immaculate kitchen. There was a flash of movement at the window. I peered through the old lace curtain and glimpsed long dark hair.
“Are you expecting a woman to come by?”
Vandal looked over his shoulder at me, a dark brow raised.
“A woman?”
The back door that led into the kitchen swung open and a strange man stepped into the room.
How had I thought he was a woman? Sure, the hair was long and a gorgeous reddish brown, pulled back from his face in a topknot, but the face and body were all male. The man was handsome almost to the point of prettiness under his scruff, and his lithely muscular body was hugged by a tight, raggy old T-shirt and a pair of beat-up jeans. He looked wild and hard, like he raided villages for fun when he wasn’t barging into kitchens.
Maybe he was here to raid us.
Was there a line for the wenching? Because I’d get in line.
His silver-gray eyes took note of me, but he didn’t greet me.
Without bothering to say anything at all, he walked through the kitchen and headed upstairs, taking a bag with him.
“That’s Zero.”
“Zero Thompson?”
“Know a lot of guys called Zero?”
So that’s who his mystery accomplice was. I had several of Zero’s books. He didn’t look at all the way I would have expected, if I’d ever stopped to wonder.
When we moved into the living room a few minutes later, Vandal’s houseguest was already sprawled in a chair, typing with unnerving speed on a laptop that looked like it had been spray painted. Was he the artist who’d done the pieces on display in Vandal’s cottage? The two men were close then. Then again, if they weren’t, Vandal would hardly be dragging Zero into this mess.
“Hello,” I said uncertainly, since he still hadn’t acknowledged me.
Vandal waved me toward the couch. “Sit there and be quiet. Both of us are on deadline.”
He grabbed his laptop from a chair and sat where it had been, then started to type.
For what had to be a half hour I watched them work, fascinated by the expressions on Vandal’s face as his fingers moved. His brows were lowered, and his dark eyes had a positively satanic gleam in them.
Eventually, though, the charm of the experience wore off and I sat there bored, trying not to distract them. I couldn’t spend the next few months sitting around with nothing to do. Instead, I watched Zero for a while. His books were well written, but zombie horror had never been my favorite. The way he stitched prose together was crude and sexy, and he had a decidedly lascivious look on his face as he typed. His lips were parted slightly, and he was looking at the screen with a sexy half-smile, as though someone was sexting him.
Was the A/C out? Because I was getting overly warm…
“Piece of shit.” Vandal snapped his laptop closed and got to his feet, stretching his back.
Zero glanced up at him, then reluctantly closed his laptop too.
“Problem?” I asked.
“Fucking Jamison.” He gestured irritably at his laptop. “Keep going, Zero. Don’t mind me.”
“You need to get the girl something to do,” Zero muttered. “She’s a distraction.”