Chapter 10

Harlan lowered himself to the edge of my bed and cast a tired glance at Rebecca. “Are you sure you don’t mind, Rebecca? It can wait if you’re tired.”

She kicked off her shoes and sunk down on the oversized chair in the sitting area of the large garden-level space my parents had turned into a small apartment for their children to live in as they got older. Both Florin and Elizabeta had used it even after getting married, a way to save some money so they could buy a true home, my parents insisted. It had been my space for the last seven years.

Rebecca waved off Harlan’s concern. “I’m fine. I’m good for four or five people a day, and you’re my only patient today. Just so you know, I can’t cure addiction, mental illness, or cancer. I’m also hit or miss with bacterial infections and viruses, those little assholes. But I’m great with physical injuries. Is there anything I should know besides the obvious?”

Harlan winced slightly. “I might, um, have a mild concussion.”

Oh, for the love of…“Really?” How had he survived so long on his own?

Harlan had the grace to look embarrassed. “The doctors at the urgent care said might.”

Rebecca swallowed the last of her ?uic? and stood up. “We’ll find out. Lay down and take off those casts. Or vice versa.” She dragged my desk chair over to the side of the bed.

It didn’t take long for Rebecca to do a quick inventory of Harlan’s injuries. Though she hadn’t gone to medical school, she had made a study of the human body and knew what she was doing. “Okay, these are easily healed.” She laid her hands on Harlan’s leg. “Ready? This is going to hurt a bit, but it will be quick.”

He nodded.

Rebecca’s warning was accurate. The healing was quick and it was painful. By the end of it all, Harlan was white and sweating. My legs felt a little weak, as well.

Rebecca leaned back and shook out her hands. “Better than new. You could run a marathon tomorrow. And if anyone asks, I was never here.”

Harlan pushed himself up, smiling when the anticipated pain in his wrist never came. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“Excellent.” She stood up. “Dash, good to see you again. We should get drinks one night.”

“Are you paying?” As much as I loved Rebecca’s company, I couldn’t afford a night of drinking at the kinds of places she preferred.

“Of course. You know I love playing your Sugar Momma.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Call me soon.”

“I will.” I hugged her.

She waved and went back upstairs, leaving Harlan and me alone. He sat on the bed and I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“So,” he said.

“So. Um. How do you feel?”

“Better than I have in a while.” He stood up. “Thank you so much for, well, everything.”

I nodded, stuck my hands in the pockets of my sweatpants, then kept nodding like an idiot. What the fuck were we supposed to do now? There was no part of me that wanted to go upstairs and join the family, but standing awkwardly in my room wasn’t much better.

This was the first time Harlan and I had been alone since he’d come back into my life. All the things we needed to say hung in the air between us, but neither of us wanted to be the first to break the unspoken and fragile truce we’d been living under since he’d popped back into my life.

We both spoke at the same time.

“Could I take a shower?”

“Do you want to take a shower?”

Harlan laughed nervously. “I would love to. It will be my first one without casts in a while.”

“Of course. The bathroom’s over there.” I pointed to the only other door in the room just in case he thought the bathroom was hiding behind a bookcase or something. Quickly, I stuffed my hands back into my pockets. “Towels are under the sink.”

Harlan had his hands in the back pockets of his jeans as he looked around my room “So, you finally got the room? Looks like you changed it a little.”

“Seven years ago. But I’m going to move out soon.” For some reason, I couldn’t stop looking at his bare feet. I took a step toward him.

His gaze roamed all over my face, studying me. Was he looking for the boy he had left behind in the face of the grown man I was now? I know I was doing it to him.

I crossed my arms and tucked my hands under my armpits to stop myself from reaching for him. Harlan had always been the more confident one in our relationship. He was the plan-maker, the one to reassure me when I worried about the future. That was one of the reasons his sudden change of mind had blindsided me.

To see him so vulnerable and alone that the affection of an ancient cat was enough to bring tears to his eyes made it very hard to stay angry with him. Who had been in his corner these last ten years?

Harlan’s chest lifted as he inhaled. Then he blew the air out and ran a hand through his hair. “Dash, I…” He shook his head. “I have so much to say and I don’t know where to start. I’m sorry doesn’t explain anything. But I am. Sorry.”

I nodded. I knew that. He’d said it every one of those letters that I finally opened and read after that thirtieth birthday. What I’d come to realize over the years was that he never explained to my satisfaction why he did what he did. I knew bullshit when I smelled it.

“I know.” Part of me wanted to be angry and hurt, but a bigger part just wanted him back in my life.

The door at the top of my stairs opened and DT’s feet and legs appeared. “Yoo hoo. Everyone decent?”

Harlan and I both took a step backward before turning to watch DT come down, holding a very full glass of wine.

“I was just going to take a shower,” Harlan said. And then the coward rushed to the bathroom.

DT watched him go. “All healed then?” I nodded. “Did I interrupt anything good?”

“No.”

“Too bad.” He sauntered over to the bookcases lining one long wall.

“Did you think we’d be screwing?”

“Either that or fighting. The UST is off the charts. Besides, he’s in love with you and you’re in love with him.” He took a keychain with a tiny Magic 8-Ball off a shelf.

“He’s not in love with me.” Whether or not I was still in love with him was a moot point.

DT crossed the room, dropped onto my bed, and stretched out on it without spilling a drop of wine. I guess you learned a few things when you had lived over two hundred years. “Sure, he is. And you’d be stupid to throw that away just because your feelings are still hurt over something that happened ten years ago.”

What the actual fuck? “Something that happened ten years ago? He dumped me, destroyed the future we had planned, and broke my heart. I think that’s a little more than something.”

DT rolled his eyes. “Look, I’ve seen a lot of relationships. Been in a lot of relationships. Trust me, people do stupid shit in the name of love, even self-destructive shit. I only met this guy yesterday, but he feels like someone who would be a martyr for love. I bet he thought he was doing the right thing.”

I knew he thought that. He’d only said it dozens of times in those damn letters once I finally let myself read them. Too bad he never explained why him staying in the army was the right thing. And the right thing for me or for him? Because it had definitely not been the right thing for us.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s not as if he burst into my office, declared his undying love, and then begged me to take him back now, is it? As a matter of fact, he hasn’t mentioned it once. Not even in a text. Beyond solving the mystery of who wants him dead, I have no idea what he wants from me.” My voice had been rising throughout and I practically yelled that last part. I shot a look to the bathroom door. The water wasn’t running anymore. I really hoped Harlan hadn’t heard that.

DT was giving me a puzzled look. “Of course, he wants you back. Why else would he have come? Besides, this whole discussion is moot. We know you’re going to get married.” He shook the little ball and held it up for me. “It’s fate.”

“We’re not getting married. I don’t care what the ball says.”

Harlan picked then to come out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but his faded jeans. With one hand, he was rubbing a towel across his hair. He held his t-shirt and underwear in the other hand. “Who’s not getting married?”

“No one.” Seeing Harlan’s naked chest should not have knocked me off what little game I had, but there were drops of water sparking in his thick blond hair, and one was making its way in starts and stops down his torso. Was I supposed to not watch?

“No one is not getting married?” Harlan asked with a grin in his voice.

“I like the outfit.” DT made no attempt to hide his staring as he took a pull on his wineglass.

“I forgot to grab a clean shirt and underwear.”

“Don’t get dressed on my account.” DT sat up on the bed.

Harlan looked me. “Dash, can we talk?”

No sense putting it off. “Yeah. We probably should.”

We both looked at DT. “Pretend I’m not here.”

Yeah, no. “How about you go back upstairs and we’ll pretend you are here?”

Before he could answer, something big smashed through my bedroom window in a flurry of shattered glass.

All three of us dropped to the floor as a brick landed on the ground. A second object flew through the window, hit the floor, bounced, and then rolled twice before exploding with a huge bang into a cloud of glitter and bits of paper.

I lifted my head and met Harlan and DT’s wide-eyed gazes. “What the fuck was that?”

In less than a second, the entire family, including Aunt Agrippina and all seven of my nieces and nephews, ran down the stairs into my room. All of them were shouting questions except for Freddy, Florin’s youngest daughter. She was crying. I pushed myself up and held out my hands out for her and she practically leaped into my arms. “Uncle Dash! Are you dead?”

I kissed her head. “It’s okay, Freddy, sweetie. No one’s hurt.”

“Is anyone cut?” my father asked.

“Why is Harlan shirtless?” My sister gave me a pointed look.

My mother looked around the room, aghast. “Is that glitter?”

Harlan stopped Constantine, Elizabeta’s oldest son, as he made a beeline toward the brick and the box and the mess. “Don’t touch it. It’s evidence.”

He stopped dead. “Are you going to call the police?”

Harlan and I exchanged glances. Were we going to call the police? I raised one eyebrow and he shook his head in reply.

“No,” I told the room.

DT bent down and picked up one of the pieces of paper. “Do you think this is connected to the person who wants to kill you?”

“Someone is trying to kill you?” Freddy’s eyes opened wide, and a frog appeared and hopped over my foot.

“No, they’re trying to kill that guy.” DT pointed at Harlan.

“God, I hope so,” Elizabeta said.

“What?” several people asked at the same time.

Everyone looked at her. “Well, better one than two psychos.”

She had a point.

The room was much too crowded, and the draw of the glitter and piece of paper were beginning to prove too hard to resist for the kids. I handed Freddy back to my brother.

Harlan, still shirtless, was crouched over the remains of the box. He poked it with a pencil and took pictures of it with his phone.

“Harlan,” my mother called. When he looked up, she tossed him a t-shirt and a pair of slippers I didn’t know I’d had. “Watch the glass.”

“Thank you.” He put the shirt and slippers on.

DT continued gathering up some of the pieces of paper.

Another frog leaped out from under my bed. I ignored it. “Okay, everybody back upstairs. Clear out.”

“Is that a shark or a dog? Or a shark-dog?” My oldest niece, Camelia, was leaning over DT’s shoulder to look at the paper he held.

“I have no idea.” DT turned the paper sideways and then back to its original position.

Camelia took the paper from him. “I think it’s a poorly drawn wiener dog with extra legs.”

Harlan stood up. “The explosion was just a noise-maker and a spring-loaded package of glitter.”

“What about the box?”

He shook his head. “Amazon box.”

One of my nephews picked up another piece of paper. “I think this one is a banana.” He turned the paper to show the room a stick figure drawing of a person holding what did look like a banana.

“I think it’s a hair dryer,” Camelia said.

“Do they all have drawings on them?” Harlan asked.

Everyone who was near a piece of paper picked them up.

A frog leaped from a bookshelf onto Aunt Agrippina’s head. She reached up and gently removed him.

That was enough. “Where the fu—hell are those frogs coming from?”

“I think it’s Freddy,” one of my nieces said.

Freddy squealed and clapped both hands over her mouth. Another frog popped into existence by her feet. “I have a power!”