Lift You Up (Rivers Brothers 1)

"Well, I have to get going. Nixon will keep an eye on you until Kingston gets back."

Rush informed me, giving me a small smile before moving off.

"Don't forget your copy of Raven and the Rake," I called to his back as he moved toward the door, making his body stiffen, his footsteps stall. "You know, your dirty romance novel," I added, hearing Nixon's laugh - full, guttural, the kind you rarely heard from him.

Rush would never live it down.

And that was my plan.

"What'd I ever do..." Rush started, looking over at me, then remembered. "Oh, right. Nicely played."

"It's not quite Nair in your shampoo. But you're going to be hearing about your bodice ripper for years to come. Your children will know about it."

"You know, all that cute you got going on is really just camouflage covering the wicked creature beneath."

"Remember that the next time you want to torment me with an arachnid," I told him as he shot me a smile and moved out the door.

"You good hanging here today? King needs me to check over some surveillance. It would be easier to just do it in my office." He moved toward the door Rush had just left through, sliding the lock, plugging in the security code. "There's a TV in Kingston's office if you're bored," he added, waving over his shoulder as he disappeared.

Alone, save for the two dogs in the middle of the floor - Paddy on his back, legs flailing as Hannibal lunged playfully, tail threatening to wag straight off - my eyes drifted around.

I'd never been in Kingston's office building before.

I'd known that at the time he set the money down on the mortgage, it had been an ancient, crumbling building, left abandoned for at least as long as my memory served, the windows knocked out by bored teenagers who thought they had something to prove, the holes making easy access for any form of wildlife to trot in, get a feel for the joint, grab the missus and the three-point-five kids, and move right in.

You wouldn't know any of that by looking at it now, of course.

That was thanks to the endless hours of work, the buckets of sweat that Kingston had put into the joint. He'd had his brothers come in occasionally too, of course, and the Mallicks had lent expert hands for things like the electricity, and extra sets of hands for the sheetrock and new windows. But as a whole, it was King. All by himself, working his ass off on his dream.

You expected offices - especially those belonging to men - to be sparse, stark, a bit jarring in a way. The kind of rooms that made it clear that you weren't supposed to settle in, get comfortable.

It was like the warmth King had in such abundance inside somehow seeped out, filled the place.

The front wall still had the original brick, cleaned up, re-mortared, lime-washed to a cozy off-white color. The other walls had been painted a champagne color - all except the ones in the hall leading to the three offices. Those had been paneled with wide-planked wood planks in varying colors - dark cocoa, nutmeg, golden oak, birch. The floor - which I imagined had originally been poured concrete at best was now laid with gleaming chestnut hardwood.

There was a sitting area in a small cove on the left - long, low dark brown couches with stiff, neat cushions flanked three sides of an oversized wooden coffee table that held an assortment of magazines and a few short novels.

The walls had large framed photography from the area - the bridge you had to cross over to get to the beach, the sandy shorelines with a rough tide, the docks flanking the Navesink River. All were turned from their original colors to a warm sepia to match the office.

I couldn't help but wonder if he had maybe taken them himself. If he had a hobby for photography. If he really liked the area that much, enough to explore it, capture it, frame it, tack it to the walls. Or if it was simply there to make locals feel a little more at home.

Walking out of the seating area, I looked at the reception desk that I figured was more ornamental than anything else, just put there to make clients feel comfortable. Kingston, as far as I knew, didn't employ anyone.

On the wall behind the desk was a long, low, wooden coffee station with a Keurig, an electric kettle, a small fridge, and a bowl on the counter with an assortment of pods, teas, and sugars.

To the far right was a door with a simple brushed bronze plaque marking it as the bathroom.

In a lot of ways, I could see Kingston here more so than in his apartment. Maybe it was because he spent most of his time here, because he had known he would, had made it as homey as possible.