Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Logan patted his pockets. “Got it all right here, and I don’t wear Chapstick.”

Just as we got to the door, DB used the bullhorn one last time. “Sorry about your gag r

eflex, Bex. Bananas aren’t your enemy!”

And, for the second time, I walked out of the building feeling like the world’s biggest dickhead in history.

Garrett, who was walking toward us from where he’d just parked up, pulled a banana out of his pocket and pointed it at me. “Kapow, kapow!”

I ground my teeth together so hard it was a miracle I didn’t need an expensive visit to the dentist.

“You work with a mean bunch of fuckers.”

Logan stopped and looked at me in disbelief. “You just saw what my boss did to me, didn’t you?”

I wouldn’t have stopped walking away from them all if you’d paid me a thousand dollars, so I continued to where I’d parked Pops’ car. “Yeah, but you’ll have done something to deserve it. All I did was get drunk and accidentally do it on camera.”

There was a pause, and then he sighed. “Yeah, I probably do deserve it.” I’d parked next to his truck, so we were getting into our vehicles when he added, “And we need to talk about that damn video. Your dad’s making me do it.”

As I drove behind him toward Papa’s house, I gave serious consideration to taking a detour to Canada.

I also thought about calling up my dad to kick his ass for making Logan do it, but then I looked at the clock and thought about how he had a meeting today with a big supply chain in France and couldn’t do it. If he got an offer to ship to them, he’d be celebrating, and I couldn’t ruin it. If he didn’t, he’d be disappointed, and I didn’t want to add to his shitty day.

So, I stayed fuming and stewing over it all. I also resigned myself to the fact that the middle of the night humiliation parties were going to involve the whole of the P.V.P.D. now, too.

Again.

Fucking joy!

“Thank you for plastic wrapping the rest of the house while I was away,” I teased as I waved him through the front door, having run in ahead of him first to let Doyle out into the backyard. “You should’ve seen Ava’s face last night when we walked in and she saw a psycho’s dream house.”

He was quiet as I talked, only smiling or giving me one of those irritating chin jerks men sometimes did. Okay, it was also a hot mountain man type of gesture, too, but right now, I wished he’d just say something instead.

“Do you want a beer?”

Still no words, just a shake of the head as he followed me into the living room. Granted, he could be exhausted from work, but this seemed more than that.

I could feel the pressure building inside me, wanting to explode out. This was even more awkward and strained than it’d been when I’d first come back here, but as far as I was aware, nothing had happened to warrant it.

Well, aside from the kiss.

Was he that upset over it? I refused to let my old crush dictate how crushed I was at the possibility that’s what this was, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t hurt at the thought.

Unfortunately, that all added to the nuclear explosion boiling under the surface inside of me, and just as I was opening my mouth to let it all out, I took a breath in and smelled something that’d been confusing me since I’d gotten back last night.

It wasn’t anything I’d describe as sinister—not that I knew what a decomposing body smelled like or anything—but it wasn’t pleasant, either.

“Do you smell that?”

A faint blush spread across his cheeks under the scruff on them. “Uh… we all do it. I thought maybe you’d had to use the bathroom before you left today, and that’s normal. I sometimes go in the en suite, and if I don’t close the door, the smell goes into my—”

I felt my head jerk at the implication of what he was saying. “That wasn’t me, you dolt. I smelled it last night and wondered if one of you had been in the house before we got back, but it isn’t going away.”

The smell was kind of shitty, but the most powerful thing to hit me was ammonia.

“Did y’all use any kind of chemicals while you were shrink wrapping the place?”

He looked to the side as he thought about it, but then he shook his head. “No, we used those dusting and polishing wipes you left out to get the dust off the furniture before we took it out, and then we vacuumed the floors because there was a shit ton of crap under it. That’s all.”