Zach snorted and offered me a handshake, then reached into his bike and pulled out his cut before whipping it over his shoulders.
The two women that came out of the CrossFit gym saw the move and gasped.
Zach ignored them and mounted his bike.
His eyes were all for Blaise.
“The thing is, Blaise, we had nothing else to do but train for the last few years. All day every day if we were bored. They couldn’t catch us if they tried.” He started his bike up with a roar and headed out of the parking lot in the next minute.
The drive home I explained what I’d found out from the owner, and then explained that I thought he was innocent, but would still need to do a little more digging.
By the time I was showered, and had finally gotten a chance to get my coffee fix in, it was time for me to go to work.
“I gotta go to work,” I grumbled. “Do you?”
She batted her eyelashes at me.
“Beckham is expecting me.” She sighed as she ran her hands up my side.
Reluctantly I pushed away from her, groaning when my sore muscles made themselves known. Today, although fairly easy, was still a workout that I hadn’t done in the six weeks I’d been out of prison.
I needed to get back on it.
“I’ll see you tonight?” I murmured, pressing my lips to hers.
She grinned. “Of course.”
Then I was headed out of the house and to a job that I was still learning the ropes of but also finding that it was fun as fuck to do.
All the while I was at work, though, a certain blue-eyed blonde stayed on my mind.
Even after my day went to absolute shit.
CHAPTER 18
Throw pillows are the stuffed animals of grownups.
-Blaise to Sin
BLAISE
Two weeks ago, when we’d found out about Ames being our mail carrier, I’d known without a shadow of a doubt that shit wasn’t going to continue being good now that she knew we were here.
And I was right.
About three days later, I’d realized that I wasn’t getting the mail that I was supposed to be getting.
Starting with an electric bill that hadn’t come in the mail but had come to my email. Then there was my car insurance. Which wouldn’t be a big deal bill-wise since it was on autopay. Except for I needed my new insurance cards, of which I’d called about for a second time today.
Which now prompted me to getting a new PO Box, for which I needed freakin’ Sin’s driver’s license because I didn’t have an updated freakin’ driver’s license with my current address.
Or some bullshit excuse that the man behind the counter—again the one that grossed me out—had come up with.
So, killing two birds with one stone, I’d decided to head to Sin’s office and call the insurance office at the same time.
“I’m sorry, but what?” I asked, frowning.
“The check’s already been cashed,” the receptionist said. “It shows on our end that you cashed the check last Friday.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I didn’t.”
“But it shows that you did,” she explained. “Would you like to receive a copy of the signed check?”
Actually, yes. Yes, I sure the fuck would.
Because the check in question was for twelve hundred dollars.
“Yes, please,” I said as nicely as I could.
I’d canceled my car insurance because I didn’t drive my car anymore.
And I’d been waiting on that check so that I could buy Sin a present for his birthday.
That check hadn’t ever come.
Along with several other bills lately.
“Okay, I’ll be sending it to the email that we have on file,” the woman said.
“What do I do now, though?” I asked. “Do you reissue the check even though it was forged?”
“That would be something you have to take up with the bank, ma’am.” The receptionist was losing her cool. She now sounded like she’d rather kill me than be nice to me.
“Thank you,” I paused. “I’m sorry to cause you trouble. But we have a mail carrier that’s not delivering our mail and it’s getting really freakin’ old.”
She hadn’t expected an apology from me after all that bitching I’d just done.
I winced.
I shouldn’t take it out on the good guy.
That wasn’t fair.
“Have a good day,” I tried for cheerful, but it came out as reluctantly polite.
“You, too. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” she murmured softly.
I hung up without replying to her.
I wouldn’t be having a good day.
In fact, today was already shaping up to be a bad day.
I hung up then and stared at Sin’s business.
The front door read ‘Revenants Investigations, Inc’ and the building itself was very circumspect. There was nothing special about it. Hell, one could walk past it a hundred times and still not realize it was an investigations office.
Not with the wing store to the left of it with all their patio seating, and the trendy clothing store on the right with their sidewalk sale going on.