Vicious Rebel (82 Street Vandals #2) - Heather Long Page 0,31

when he’d had to help me while I recovered and the one time he tackled me in the garage on the way to the theater, Kestrel didn’t touch me.

Something electric slammed through me. Like the connection jolted from a supercharge, lighting me up from where Kestrel held my hand to where my hand rested on Rome’s forearm. Before Kestrel could take a step though, Rome twisted his arm under my grip and grasped my forearm as well.

“If she doesn’t want to go with you,” Rome stated coolly, “she doesn’t have to. You had her yesterday. Let her come play with me today.”

“We already have plans today,” Kestrel said smoothly. “Come to the shop with us. You can work on the back wall. We finally finished patching it, so it’s free for you to paint.”

Then I could have company and divide my time between the shop and the back. I glanced at Rome, mentally crossing my fingers he’d agree. I loved watching him paint. After meeting my look, Rome glanced past me to Kestrel.

“You took her yesterday.” He slid his hand down my forearm until our fingers tangled together.

“And I’m taking her today. Sparrow and I have plans. You can come or you can stay,” Kestrel told him, and I raised my eyebrows.

“What if she doesn’t want to go with you?”

“What if we don’t talk about me like I’m not here.” I squeezed their hands, both of them, and then pulled away. Only neither let me go, and I rebounded right back to where I’d been standing—firmly between them.

“It’s fine,” Kestrel soothed, but the corners of his mouth kept twitching upward. “Rome’s just fucking with us. He wants to go, but he doesn’t want to want to go, and it’s better if we make it hard for him so he has to agree. That way when Liam bitches about it, Rome can just flip him off because it’s not like he makes it easy for anyone.”

The assessment spilled out of him so easily, I had to wonder how many times he had actually said it. Or at least thought it.

Rome lifted his free hand and very slowly raised his middle finger at Kestrel.

“See?” Kestrel said, and I laughed. It was ridiculous and kind of adorable. And oh so human.

“Food,” I announced. “Then come with us?” I offered the invitation to Rome again. “Please?”

His eyes locked on mine, and he gave the barest of nods. “If you want. Will you dance later?”

The question surprised me, but they both started walking and pulling me along with them to the kitchen. I managed to free myself and pounced on the coffee already sitting on the table waiting for me. Kestrel diverted over to the side and started putting cream cheese on a bagel.

My stomach was quite enthusiastic about that idea. Rome gave my gurgling tummy an amused look, and I ignored him as I took a long swallow of the coffee. We’d lingered in the hallway so long, it wasn’t hot anymore, but it was still more than warm enough for me to just drink.

It wasn’t until Kestrel slid the bagel in front of me and said, “Not to push, but we’re running a little tight on time if you want your coffee.”

“We don’t have to,” I offered. “I mean, the coffee at the shop is terrible, but you have the soda machine.”

“We’ll make time,” he insisted. “Eat your bagel. Not much else in here. We need to send the rats shopping.”

There was that name again. “I don’t know that I’d trust a rat with my food.”

Rome chuckled, but he never stopped staring at me, and then it hit me—I hadn’t answered his question yet. “I was going to use the studio tonight when we got back. I didn’t have time yesterday and I was tired after all day in the shop. It’s a lot more work than I expected it to be.”

That earned Kestrel’s frown. “What is?”

“Doing nothing.” I lifted my shoulders in a half shrug before I took a bite of the still warm bagel and closed my eyes as the cream cheese half melted in my mouth. A little moan escaped me. This was way better than I’d imagined and I was starving.

They were both eyeing me as I polished off the bagel and the coffee. Rome had a bagel in front of him, and he slid it over to me.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Kestrel was busily eating his own bagel, with peanut butter on it that actually looked interesting, but I preferred