Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,94
a sparkling water.”
Emmy always said that if they split the onion rings, they could also split a dessert afterwards. Calories shared were calories halved. They’d spent hours in this place, talking and laughing about nothing in particular, but tonight, Emmy could barely muster a smile.
“They’ve got chocolate orange cheesecake.” Alaric nodded towards the glass counter at the front. “I bet it’s the same recipe.”
It had been her favourite. If he’d ever mustered up the courage to give her the ring he’d bought all those years ago, he’d planned to hide it in a slice.
“I’m not that hungry.”
“See how you feel later. So, you want to know about Rune?” If Alaric kept talking, that meant Emmy wouldn’t feel pressured to. “It all started five years ago in Phuket. I’d been travelling more or less constantly until then, doing odd jobs, meeting people, but I figured I’d spend the winter in Thailand for a change. The past couple of years before that, I’d headed back to Europe to ski, but diving seemed like a fun alternative. I passed my IDC—Instructor Development Course—and rented an apartment near the beach.”
“At this particular moment, I’m tempted to do the same.”
“Don’t be too hasty, Cinders. Was that the first proper argument you’ve had with Black?”
She nodded.
“Then let the dust settle. It’ll blow over.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“You two were made for each other. We might both have tried to deny that once, but with time comes clarity.”
Emmy looked dubious, then turned away and began rearranging the table accoutrements. The napkin dispenser, the cutlery caddy, the ketchup, the salt and pepper—she wanted everything lined up just so. She only normally got OCD over her weapons.
“Anyhow, I spent my days either underwater or hanging out near the beach, and I hooked up with Ravi.”
“As in hooked up, hooked up?”
Alaric nodded.
“And now? You’re still together?”
“Mostly just for work, but occasionally we fool around. We agreed that as long as we’re both single, it’s preferable to sleep with each other rather than picking up strangers to satisfy a physical need.”
“Thanks. I just won fifty bucks off Dan. She said he wasn’t gay.”
“You’ll have to split it—he goes both ways.”
“Dammit.”
“He broke up with his ex-girlfriend three months before we met. They were meant to travel to Thailand together, but he decided to go alone rather than waste the ticket.”
“And what’s Ravi’s background? A gymnast with a B&E habit?”
“Close. He grew up in the circus. His parents were both acrobats, but now they’re doing life for burglary.”
“Harsh.”
“He’s always been cagey about exactly how they were caught, but I suspect he was there and got away. They’d been forcing him to help out with the family business since he was a kid.”
“And now? He’s gone straight?”
“He had until we started Sirius. When I met him, he was working as a bartender in a dive on the backstreets of Patong. I was there, waiting for him to finish his shift when it all started.”
“When what started?”
When what started? The rest of Alaric’s life.
CHAPTER 38 - ALARIC
“WE’VE TAKEN TO calling it ‘the incident,’” Alaric told Emmy. “Judd and Naz were there in the bar too, drinking. Well, Naz was hunched over his laptop. And Judd was hitting on a girl who was actually a guy. Ravi and I made a bet on how long it’d take him to notice.”
“How long did it take?”
“He never found out because that was when the incident happened. A man walked into the bar with a girl, and I was trying to work out what she was to him. Girlfriend? Daughter? She seemed too young for the former, but who would take a kid out to a shitty bar in the early hours?”
“A bad, bad parent.”
“Exactly. He sat with another man who’d been there for a while, they had a conversation that sounded more like an argument, then the girl left with guy number two instead. And she did not look happy.”
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”
“That’s precisely what I said to Ravi. We didn’t understand a word they said, though. My Thai was limited to diving terms, getting directions, and ordering food, so Ravi asked his boss if he knew the man, and it turned out he did. He came in once a week, once every two weeks, always with a different girl. The bar was a handover point for sales.”
“Shit.”
“I think I said that too. But you know me—I couldn’t just leave it.”
“That was one of the things I always liked about you.”