Hawk & the Lady - Elizabeth Stevens Page 0,43

all my life.”

“Wrong,” Chaos said. “We’ve come up with far more outrageous bullshit. This, though…”

“Is bona fide truth, mate,” Rollie finished for him.

“‘Struth,” Chaos said with another nod.

Fed up with trying to convince a bunch of morons, I huffed. “You lot don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said as I made to leave.

“You watch who you’re lying to, mate,” Chaos warned me. “Lying to yourself isn’t going to help any.”

“What would you know about it?” I shot at him.

“I’ve got firsthand experience with your sister.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t need to know about any experiences you have with my sister.”

“I’m serious, Hawk. I told myself I wasn’t in love with her and it bit me square in the arse.”

“More like got you a shot in the kidney,” Nico said and I looked up to see him walking by again.

“You can shut up,” Chaos said as I asked, “Have you got nothing better to do than offer drive-by quips right now?”

Nico looked around at us all and shrugged. “Yeah, not really.”

“Do you need me to find you something to do?” Chaos asked in his best boss voice.

Nico shrugged again. “Yeah, not really.”

“I’m just going to pay you to stand around and be unhelpful?”

Nico nodded. “It does seem that way, yeah.”

“How many of those have you had today?” Chaos indicated the giant mug Amber had given Nico because she, quote, understood the nerds’ need for caffeine.

Nico looked like he was thinking about it. “Uh…maybe four? Could be five.”

“This would explain the full sentences before noon,” Rollie commented.

Chaos nodded. “It would. It will also explain the mood-swing crash at about four.”

Rollie pointed at him. “Not wrong.”

“Hawk’s new emotional boner is surely more interesting than my caffeine intake,” Nico said sullenly.

“It’s probably less relevant to my immediate person,” Rollie countered.

“I dunno,” Chaos mused. “Looks to me like the dude’s on the verge of an epiphany.”

And, damn him, it kind of felt like I was.

I wasn’t about to profess my undying love for Leah. That was stupid. But – just maybe – I was feeling a little more for her than a meaningless fling. I wasn’t expecting it to last any longer than it needed, but I did enjoy spending time with her. She was funny and smart and she had a dirty streak to rival mine. It was like I’d found my best mate in a chick’s body…just with an actual sense of humour.

That was allowed. Right? I could definitely feel a little something for her?

And maybe this was just the stepping stone I needed. If I was turning into a romantic sap and feeling like maybe one day I’d be kind of interested in the sort of thing Chaos and Bert had, then I wasn’t going to want to rush into anything. I needed to work out how to go from one-night hook-ups to the whole forever thing.

Leah seemed like the perfect way to explore that without the risk of it blowing up in my face.

Step one was admitting I actually was capable of attachment of some kind.

I mentally checked that off the list, feeling less scared than I’d expected about such a revelation. I was kind of proud of myself. Thirty years on this Earth and I was possibly starting to grow up a bit.

Definitely less scary – and disappointing – than I’d thought that would be.

“Yeah, I think he’s moved onto the actual epiphany bit,” Rollie commented and I blinked as I looked at them in focus.

“What?”

“Lightbulb!” Nico chimed in.

“Shut up,” I muttered.

“Enjoying that emotional boner, mate?” Chaos asked, failing to hide his shit-eating grin behind his mug.

“I could maybe, possibly, be thinking about the fact I might indeed like her a little more than nothing,” I conceded.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Nico intoned, “Hallmark’s bestselling Valentine’s inscription next year.”

Chaos snorted and Rollie packed out laughing.

I appreciated a good dig, even at my own expense, but it wasn’t quite good enough for me to award it to the nerd.

“It wasn’t that funny,” I said, feigning more exasperation than I felt.

“Hallmark!” Rollie cried amid laughter and that set Chaos off chuckling.

Even the dour Nico’s eyes were shining and he was so very close to a smile. It was almost enough to make me relent. But it was also enough to make me double down.

So, instead of complimenting Nico on a good one, I shook my head and started walking to my office. “You guys are so immature.”

That elicited a strangled huff of an almost-laugh out of Nico as I passed him. I