“I’m no expert,” a voice said from my side. “But I don’t think you’re supposed to water down the paint,” he added, making me aware that a couple helpless tears had fallen down my cheeks.
It wasn’t Cary or even Dezi.
This was a new guard for me.
Seth, he’d been introduced as.
If I flipped through my little mental Rolodex, he was one of the Legacy members. The one who could shoot really well. Like his father.
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head.
“I’m supposed to get an apology when a girl cries in front of me? I gotta tell all my cousins they owe me then.”
“Yeah,” another voice said. “Do that. But give me a heads up first, so I can film them whopping your ass.”
That was Finn, another Legacy. If I had the family tree straight, he was the brother of Fallon, the current president, and son of the former president, Reign.
They’d shown up as a pair since it was the one day that both Cary and Dezi were needed at the club.
“Ha-ha,” Seth said, shaking his head. “You’re just pissy because you’re thinking about all those women you’ve left tearfully unsatisfied after taking them home.”
“As much as I would love to see you two go a couple rounds,” Louana, the new prospect, someone who’d been dragged along for manual labor because—apparently—that was part of the prospecting process, said as she stood up from lining the window in painters’ tape, “the walls are wet, and I don’t think Abigail wants your ugly mugs pressed into the final product.”
Seth’s hand flew to his chest, mock hurt, as Finn let out a laugh.
“You talk a lot of shit for someone who is beneath us in rank,” Finn said.
“Oh, what are you going to do? Tell Brooks on me?” she asked, smirking at them.
“Maybe we could tell Valen that we caught you peeking in on him when he was in the shower,” Seth said, clearly trying to be teasing, but overstepping a line.
Because Louana went from laid-back and playful to dark and scary in a single blink.
“Listen here, you fuck,” she said, charging at Seth, and grabbing the front of his shirt. “My dad might be retired from the family business, but make no mistake. He taught me the skills. I know where the tools are. And nobody would find a single strand of your fucking DNA. Remember that when you think about telling lies about me.”
Seth’s hands raised. “Was just fucking with you, Louie,” he said, shrugging. “That’s what we do around here.”
“I hate being called that,” Louana said, releasing him, and making her way back toward the window.
“Well, we can’t call you Lou. We have an aunt with that name already. And Ana doesn’t seem to fit you.”
“How about just using my name?”
“It doesn’t have a, you know, biker ring to it,” Seth insisted.
“Right. Because ‘Seth’ is such a hardcore name. Or ‘Finn’ for that matter. There’s a guy in the club that goes by the name Virgin for fuck’s sake.”
“It’s his street name. Because he doesn’t give a fuck. Maybe that’s what you need. A street name,” Seth mused.
“Or, what was it that I heard Valen call you?” Finn asked, and I could tell from the way Louana was stiffening that Finn really needed to shut the hell up. But, of course, he didn’t. “Lulu, I think it was.”
“Call me that again and you’ll be eating through a straw,” Louana said, dropping the tape, then making her way to the door. “I’m going to get coffee,” she declared before disappearing.
“Might want to ease up,” Seth said, looking contrite. “She’s a fucking lunatic. You’re gonna wake up on fire some night.”
Finn must have agreed with that assessment because he quieted down for the next hour or so while we all worked on our respective projects.
I’d insisted several times that they didn’t have to work, but they’d been just as insistent that they’d be too bored just sitting around and watching me work. And, honestly, I was thankful for the hands. Because painting board and batten was even more tedious than painting a plain wall.
And by the time all our arms had started to feel like Jell-O, the whole main living space had a fresh coat of paint on it.
It was starting to feel just a little bit more like home than a vacant apartment.
“That’s probably the couch,” I said, shooting them all a guilty look because the delivery company had been very clear. They would only bring the couch into the living space if it was on the first level. If it wasn’t, they would drop it on the curb. I figured it would be me, Cary, and Dezi who would be doing it, so I hadn’t felt bad about it at the time.
But I barely knew these three.
It was asking a lot to have them help me bring a couch up a pretty steep set of stairs.