The house was stinking of bleach when I walked through the threshold, making me gag slightly. I walked to the kitchen, opening every window in my path to see Alex shirtless but wearing my ‘kiss the chef’ apron as he scrubbed the surfaces for what must have been the millionth time since I’d left for my meeting.
“Alex, you know I cleaned the cherries up, right?” I asked with a grimace, the hydrochloride starting to sting the back of my throat.
“I don’t care how thorough you think your cleaning has been, Stevie baby,” he replied in a muffle, then turned to face me wearing a facemask and goggles. I choked on a laugh at the sight of his face squished behind the facemask. “I’m not going to keel over and die just because you hadn’t been careful enough.”
I rolled my eyes and took myself away to the living room for an afternoon of mindless Netflix bingeing. If you asked me, he was being a drama queen. I had been meticulous before, during, and after I had those Belladonna cherries in the house.
I lay on the sofa with Rocky chewing on his paw on the floor beside me and let my mind wonder to the work function Jake was taking me to. This had to be a big deal, right? You don’t take just anyone to a gathering of sorts where all your employees and colleagues would be and introduce them to some girl. So what do you wear as the date of a CEO to a work affair? Various dresses or jeans and a nice top ideas flashed through my mind as I played a reel of appropriate outfits I could wear in my head.
Alex fell onto the sofa beside me, along with the faint smell of bleach that still lingered and had now infused with the scent of soap following his shower and change of clothes. He moved my legs and placed them on his lap.
“What’s that look for?” he asked, clicking off my series and putting on another nature show. The man was such a geek. This one was about crocodiles. “You look all doe-eyed.”
“I’m not all doe-eyed,” I said through a yawn and stretched my arms above my head. “Jake’s invited me to a thing at his work tomorrow, that’s all.”
“Where is it?” he queried, pushing his glasses up his nose and rearranging his Henley that rode up exposing the bottom of his abs.
“Don’t know, he’s sending a car.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm?” I mimicked, watching Alex’s face fall into a scowl. “What does ‘hmm’ mean?”
“Nothing,” he snipped, turning up the volume of the TV in a bid to stop the conversation. I swung my feet around and sat up with narrowed eyes.
“You’ve spoken to Will, haven’t you?” He shrugged and wobbled his head in a non-answer, keeping his eyes locked on the TV screen. Either he had or he hadn’t, but recently every time Jake’s name was brought up, his whole demeanour changed and I was getting more than a little pissed at his attitude.
“Alex,” I said loudly, snatching the remote out of his hand and muting his programme. “What the fuck is wrong?”
He sighed, turned his body to face mine, and ran a hand through his hair. I watched him mull over his words before he asked, “You like this guy?”
I stared at him, unable to comprehend the idiocy of that statement. “I like him as much as I’ve liked all the other targets I’ve had in the past,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew that wasn’t true. Jake wasn’t like the evil creatures I’d taken down before. “I’ve told you multiple times, he’s a job. I’m getting sick of having to remind you of that.”
“You’re fucking dick-blind, Stevie,” Alex bit out. His jaw ticked, along with a crack that came from his knuckles, which were balled up tightly in anger.
“Excuse-fucking-me?” I questioned, my voice laced thinly with a warning.
“You heard me. You’ve not once asked for an update on the background check for the guy or asked about his company,” he snarled. “Did you not think it was weird he just happened to turn up on our fucking doorstep the other week over a forgotten phone, Stevie? Huh?” He jeered while I sat silently. Alex was on his soapbox and there was nothing to get him off once he got started.
“Think it was a coincidence he just happened to leave his phone in his pocket? You were in the house alone! Caught off guard. Anything could have happened to you.”
“I had Rocky with me,” I replied weakly, knowing that was not my finest rebuttal to the suggestion that neither my dog nor myself could have protected me.
“A fat lot of good he’d be.” He gestured towards the big lump lying belly up on the rug, fast asleep. “Maybe if you stopped thinking with your cunt, you wouldn’t put yourself in vulnerable positions with the —”
In a second, I was up from my seat, my fist in the collar of Alex’s shirt, and dragged him forward so we were nose to nose. I guess he had been speaking to his older brother, letting Will fill his head with his bullshit nonsense. But now, he had overstepped and whatever crawled up Will’s ass was not going to be taken out on me.
“Don’t you dare sit there and insinuate I am not taking this job or my safety seriously. That the only thing I am interested in is getting laid,” I growled, looking straight into his dark eyes, although at that proximity, it started to make my head hurt. “I know what I’m fucking doing, Alex. I’ve done jobs like this hundreds of times. Both you and Will can go fuck yourselves if you think I’m not capable.”
Alex pushed me off him, causing me to stumble back, and my calves hit the coffee table as his huge six-foot-one frame towered over me.
“Are you going to be able to steal confidential documents when the time comes, Stevie? Or put two bullets between his eyes?” He taunted.
I stalled.
He was right; would I be able to carry out the last part of the job? Fuck not knowing what phase three was.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said, holding my chin up, trying to mask any doubts creeping in over the endgame.
“The fuck you will.” He curled his lip up and stormed away, returning with Rocky’s lead in hand. He didn’t look at me as he bent down to latch the clip to his collar and led him to the front door, leaving me alone with my blood boiling with anger and a slight pang of guilt in my stomach.
We never fought.
I ground my teeth until my jaw hurt, starting to feel like an idiot standing alone in the middle of the living room as waves upon waves of rage cascaded over me with every passing second.