Wrong Question, Right Answer (The Bourbon Street Boys #3) - Elle Casey Page 0,8
when we celebrate, he makes sure we get home okay. Usually, it’s him driving us in his truck, but I guess he had other plans with his girlfriend tonight.
I try not to be bitter about that. May’s a nice enough person, but my life was a lot easier when she wasn’t around. I had a lot more of Ozzie’s attention and focus and someone I could talk to when I had stuff on my mind. I don’t have the hots for him; he’s too much like an older brother for me to feel that way about him. But he’s kind of the center of my universe as my boss, because my job means everything to me. It rescued me from a really dark place, and it keeps me busy enough that I don’t think about my past all that often, and that’s a really good thing. I have an army of skeletons in my closet, and they’re each ten feet tall and always banging to get out.
A second door slams behind me and I speed up my front walk, knowing what that sound means.
“Wait!” Lucky is coming from behind at a good clip.
“No!” I’m practically running by the time I get to my front door. I’m scrabbling in my bag, looking for my keys, when I hear the taxi drive away. I look up to confirm that it’s leaving the curb and find Lucky halfway to my front door. Dammit! Where are those frigging keys? I need a smaller purse.
I don’t even look at him as I speak. “You’d better just keep on walking around the side, Lucky.” My brother lives in a cottage behind the main house and Lucky can hang out there. He knows where the key is. We inherited the entire property from our parents, but Thibault let me have the larger dwelling. I didn’t protest much, because I like having a lot of space around me. And maybe someday when I’m fifty years old I might get married and have a bunch of dogs or something. No kids, though, thanks.
Kids and I don’t really get along. They make me uncomfortable. I never know what to say to them or do when they’re standing there just staring at me like they do. Jenny’s son Sammy is probably the only child I’ve ever felt comfortable around, and that’s maybe because he acts like a strange man in a little body. He’s more a character than a kid. Dev’s son isn’t so bad either, but I don’t see him much. Sammy, however, has almost become a regular fixture at the warehouse. His mother comes by to drop files off or pick them up and often has him in tow. I see him at least three times a week, and he always shakes my hand and calls me Miss Toni. Kid cracks me up.
Lucky’s voice forces my head back into the game. “I’m just making sure you’re okay.” Sand crunches between his feet and the concrete as he approaches. He’s smart enough to stop ten feet away.
“If you come any closer, I’m going to send your nuts up into your throat.”
Lucky shakes his head like he’s disappointed in me. “Why the hostility, babe? All I did was give you a kiss. There wasn’t even any tongue involved.”
I narrow my eyes to try to get a better look at him. He thinks he’s being funny, egging me on. This is so not like him. “Babe? Since when do you call me babe? Who are you, stranger, and what have you done with Lucky?”
It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen him act like this. Normally he’s subdued and keeps mostly to himself, but tonight he’s not only stealing kisses, he’s playing guardian angel and teasing, too, but only after moping at the bar looking like he wanted to drown his sorrows in alcohol. It must be the beer messing with his head. Or maybe it’s an aftereffect of working with Jenny.
May’s sister Jenny joined the team a few months back, and she and Lucky work together a lot. I think he was bored before she joined, but now he and Jenny have their own little team that’s kind of separate from the bigger one. These days, he comes to work earlier and stays later, and I’d be willing to bet she’s been psychoanalyzing him every other second she’s been with him. She’s the kind of person who likes to crawl into people’s heads and figure out what makes them tick.