I blink a few times. “He’s not down here?”
“Haven’t seen him,” Leo says. “We got home about three hours ago, so he must’ve left before then if he wasn’t upstairs with you.”
“Is his car outside?” I ask, stepping into the living room, walking over to the window to look out. The black BMW is still parked in the driveway. “Guess he walked, or maybe he took the subway...”
“Or someone picked him up,” Leo says.
Weird.
Staring at his car, I try to ignore the strange feeling brewing inside of me. Ugh. Lorenzo is an adult. He’s under no obligation to check in with anyone before he goes out, much less tell me his business.
Frankly, I’m not sure I want to know half of the places the man has been.
But still, a feeling twists my gut, something dangerously close to worry, like I’m concerned about his well-being.
“Can I ask you something, Morgan?”
Leo’s voice draws me from those thoughts before I can dwell on them too much. Turning, I glance at where he sits on the couch. Melody is reading something out of a thick textbook, while he eyes me peculiarly from beside her. “Ask me something?”
“Yeah, something, I don’t know... personal?”
Oh no.
Inwardly, I’m on edge about that, because personal questions never lead anywhere good, but I plaster on a smile. “Sure.”
“What’s up with you and my brother?”
Uh... “What do you mean what’s up with us?”
“I’m just wondering what your plans are,” he says. “Do you see this thing with him actually going somewhere? Do you want it to go somewhere? Or is it just, you know, convenient—”
Melody slams her book closed, interrupting him with a glare. “Leonardo! I know you are not trying to have the ‘what are your intentions?’ talk with her!”
My eyes widen. Is he?
Leo turns to his girlfriend. “What? I’m just asking...”
“You can’t just ask somebody that,” she says. “Don’t you remember when we first started dating and you got the third degree about your intentions? Didn’t like that so much, did you, buddy?”
“That’s different.”
“No, it’s not,” she says, rolling her eyes. “They’re grown ass folk, so mind your beeswax.”
“But—”
She points him in the face, her finger jabbing him in the nose as she makes a screeching noise to cut him off, loud enough to startle even herself.
I step closer, perching on the arm of a chair near the couch, as Leo grabs her finger and playfully pretends to bite it.
“I get it,” I say. “I show up out of nowhere, and here I am, doing all the crap he complains about, like eating his food and breathing his air, yet he tolerates it.”
“Yes!” Leo throws his hands up, shooting Melody a smug look. She scowls, shoving his face away as he laughs. “It’s just not like my brother.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I say. “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t really have an answer. I’m just trying to survive, and your brother? Well, I don’t even know what to say about Lorenzo. He’s an asshole a lot of the time, completely unyielding, but in a refreshing way... I kind of like it. As for why he puts up with me? He’s been bored and the sex is good. Or well, that was his reasoning when I asked.”
Leo doesn’t look disappointed. Quite the opposite, in fact. He grins like a maniac. Melody, on the other hand, opens her book again, muttering, “talk about romantic.”
“Anyway...” I stand back up, holding Buster out. “You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a sewing kit around here anywhere, would you? A needle? Some thread, maybe?”
“Check the kitchen,” Leo says. “Or the library... or the bathroom... or maybe Lorenzo’s room...”
“So check everywhere?”
“Pretty much.”
I go to walk out when Melody glances up, her brow furrowing. “Is that a teddy bear?”
“Yep,” I say.
“It’s, uh...” She hesitates. “Nice.”
“It’s falling apart,” I say. “I need to fix it back up.”
“Why do you have a teddy bear?” Leo asks before turning to his girlfriend. “Wait, am I allowed to ask that?”
Melody just rolls her eyes at him.
“Oh, it’s not mine,” I say. “It belongs to my daughter.”
I step out into the hallway just as my words seem to strike Leo. “Your what?” he shouts, but I don’t answer, hearing Melody stop him from following me with another line about ‘beeswax’.
I scour the kitchen, finding a hell of a lot of utensils, enough knives to potentially qualify Lorenzo as a one of those Doomsday preppers, but no sewing kit anywhere. I move on to the library, scanning the shelves, squatting down to search a row of built-in cabinets beneath them, and am about to give up and move on when a loud voice cuts through the room. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I jump up, banging my head on a cabinet, and wince as I get to my feet, rubbing my scalp. Shit, that hurt. Lorenzo stands in the doorway, dressed impeccably in a fitted suit, wearing black from head-to-toe, looking... whoa.
“Yo, bro, what the hell?” Leo hollers, coming down the hallway. “Was that a cop that dropped you off?”
Before Leo can barge in, and without acknowledging his question, Lorenzo grabs the library door and slams it right in Leo’s face. I wince again, this time from realization. I was so distracted by the look of Lorenzo in a suit that it didn’t strike me that he just caught me searching through his library.
His library.
You know, the room nobody goes into without his permission?
He caught me all up in the cabinets, digging through his shit.
“I’m looking for a needle and some thread,” I tell him, shutting the cabinet doors. “You know, a sewing kit?”
He watches me incredulously as he comes closer. “Do I look like I fucking knit?”
“Actually, you knit with—” I cut off abruptly when he raises an eyebrow. “Well, you don’t knit with anything, because you don’t knit, but needle and thread, come on... you’ve never had to sew up a cut? Give yourself a few stitches?”
“No,” he says, “that’s why we have doctors.”
“Whatever,” I say, holding up Buster. “A doctor’s not going to perform surgery on this guy.”
Lorenzo pushes his chair around to face me as he sits down. His expression wavers, some of the anger melting as he reaches down to untie his shoes. “I’ve got duct tape.”
“I’m not so sure that’ll work, but thanks.”
He kicks the shoes off, leaning back in his chair. “Suit yourself.”
“Speaking of suits...” I wave toward him. “What’s got you looking so snazzy tonight?”
He undoes his suit coat, shoving it off, and starts rolling up his sleeves. “Had a meeting.”
“With a cop?”
“There was a cop involved, yes. A detective.”
My stomach sinks. “Gabe?”
Lorenzo shoots me a confused look. “Who?”
“Detective Jones,” I say. “You know, the one you call my cop friend?”
“Ah, no, not the one you’re fucking.”
I cringe at how he says that. “Fucked. Past tense. Not currently fucking, nor will there be any future fucking. That battleship has sunk.”
“Fucked,” he repeats, running his hands down his face, letting out a deep sigh. “This is one you’ve never fucked. Name’s Jameson, works Organized Crime in the city.”
“And that required a suit? Not that I’m complaining, because whoa... just haven’t seen you wear one before.”
“Sometimes you’ve gotta play the part, Scarlet. You know that. When most people think of guys like me, they still imagine someone like Michael Corleone, so that’s what they get. It’s kind of funny, really. They’re more terrified of me in a suit with shiny dress shoes than they are when I’m wearing combat boots and carrying a loaded gun.”