Grace asked, and for a moment, Hunter saw the sullen loner that Grace liked to project when he was at his most annoying.
Never been anyone’s baby before.
Josh’s voice, harsh and unhappy, kept banging around in his head.
They were important words. They made Grace a totally different creature—when he’d already been fascinating before they were even uttered.
“Not like a kid,” Hunter said gently. “Like a colleague who’s been hurt.” He stood at the sink, ran warm water over a clean washcloth, and looked at the pile of first-aid implements somebody—probably Josh—had dumped on the counter.
Okay. Neosporin with lidocaine and some cloth-covered bandages. They were in business.
He lathered up the washcloth, making sure it was warm and sudsy, and took Grace’s heel in his palm.
Grace sucked in a breath and regarded him with wide eyes.
“I’ll be careful,” he said, keeping his voice mild.
Grace’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. I’m not helpless.”
“No, you’re not,” Hunter reassured him, wiping the toes carefully, being sure to treat the cuts and bruises with gentleness. He smiled a bit at seeing the muted purple, pink, and blue nail polish. “Pedicure much?”
Grace’s guarded expression turned dreamy, and his shoulders rippled in sheer hedonism. “We dancers beat the shit out of our feet,” he admitted, and Hunter could see that. Crooked toes spoke to breaks, and bunions spoke for themselves—all part of a life in service to the beauty of the dance. “Having someone rub my toes twice a month is like my reward for not killing people.”
Hunter chuckled. He could understand that. He’d paid for massages after he’d run ops for the same reason. “And the polish is for fun,” he said with a wink.
The dreaminess faded. Turned sullen. “You think it’s too feminine, right?”
Ouch. “No! Not at all. It’s sort of adorable.” Only stony silence, which told him that Grace didn’t buy it. That was a shame. Hunter was being sincere. Shoes probably hid the nail polish more often than not. This thing Grace did only for himself, because he liked beauty, and Hunter appreciated that. But Grace didn’t want to hear it now. He’d have to try something else. “That move you pulled on Broadstone, that’s pretty damned spectacular.”
Grace’s smile lost the sullenness. “I’m pretty awesome,” he agreed.
“You really are.” Hunter wiped carefully, wincing at some of the rawer places on the balls of Grace’s feet and his heels. “And you knew I was coming for you,” he said, gauging Grace’s reaction carefully.
Grace glanced at him and glanced away quickly.
“You said you were coming.”
“And you trusted that I would get there and not let anything happen to you,” Hunter murmured. In the other room, through their coms, the discussion of exactly what Broadstone and his security guy had been doing in Artur’s bedroom was going on, but Hunter had practice tuning out things on his coms that he didn’t need.
And what he needed right now was for Grace to understand trust.
“You don’t let Josh down,” Grace murmured.
“I won’t let you down.”
Grace shrugged. “Sure. Because I’m Josh’s friend.”
Hunter cocked his head. “Why not because you’re you?”
Grace gave him a bleak, bitter smile. “Only Josh has ever done that. I’m too much of a pain in the ass for anyone else to care about.”
Hunter patted Grace’s foot dry and reached for the gauze, his heart twisting a little. “I’m a trained killer,” he said into the muted silence of the bathroom. “I’m not fun at parties.”
Grace lifted a shoulder. “I’m great at parties,” he said blithely. “People just don’t care where I am afterwards.”
“Except Josh.”
“And his family,” Grace added loyally.
One side of Hunter’s mouth pulled up. “Of course. Maybe, you know, the rest of the crew cares too.”
“They can’t find a better thief,” Grace said, coldly assessing his worth to them in an act of hubris.
“I bet Josh is pretty good,” Hunter told him. “And Danny, for all his talk of being too old.”
“Danny doesn’t age,” Grace said, and Hunter looked into that piquant, young face, trying to gauge whether he was being serious or not. “It’s true!” Grace defended, completely serious. “I used to be the only one who could see Danny. He was sneaking around to see Josh and not run into Felix, and Josh let me see him so I didn’t think he was imaginary.”
“How old were you two?” Hunter asked, a little jealous of Josh, who had known Grace since childhood and had all sorts of secret passwords that Hunter did not.
“I was eleven,” Grace said. He leaned his head back against the mirror