Offensive Behavior

Holy shit, this place. She could see the moonlit bay and the bridge out the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. Reid made it to an ugly sofa in front of a truly enormous wall-mounted TV; that along with a games console were the only things in the vast room.

Maybe he’d just moved in.

Probably she should get him a glass of water.

She took a quick tour. The place was huge and echoey, barely furnished. Some kind of stone floor. There was a single kitchen stool in the too clean to have ever been cooked in kitchen, and a monster-sized bed in the master bedroom. Another room was full of boxes, half of them sealed, and a glass-topped desk covered in a mess of paper on which two different computers hummed. There was a home gym that was seriously the bomb. All it lacked was a pole.

She moved back into the living room, feeling like she should tiptoe for no good reason. She’d forgotten the water.

He made her jump when he spoke. “You can go. I’m fine.”

She waited to see if that was all he’d say, and it was. “Normally that would be followed by thank you.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled, then he tried to stand and ended up on his knees on the floor.

She went to him as he struggled to get his feet back under him. “I need to call your friend from last night.”

He looked at her with unfocused eyes and recognition bloomed. “Lux.”

“That’s me.”

“Fuck.”

“Thanks for that. Look, I can’t leave you alone because I’m a total sap. Tell me who to call.” She’d taken his phone when she got his wallet in the cab. She waggled it in his direction while putting his wallet on the cabinet that housed the games console.

“No one.”

“Someone.”

“Too much trouble. Go.”

“I’m not leaving you alone, you could, I don’t know, die.” Could you die from food poisoning? It would be just her thing that from Lucky’s brand you could.

“Dying is too good for me.”

She clapped her hands on her legs. “At last, something we can agree on.”

“Get out.”

“Wow. Neither furnishing nor manners maketh the man.”

He got himself back to the seat of the sofa. “I’m offensive.”

“No argument from me.”

“I’m a jerk.”

“I’d have said asshole, but who cares what I think, right?”

“Why are you still here?”

She forced a hard breath out. “I have no idea.”

“Your dress was all,” he waved a hand in front of his torso, “slashed.”

“Yep.”

“Different tonight.”