Chapter Sixteen

Griffin

I smiled when the knock on my door came at gone eight in the evening. Ben and I had visited a restaurant the previous night, my stressed-out lover managing a couple of hours without the case consuming him. Or at least he'd faked it. I assumed a few thoughts might have crept in unbeknownst to me.

At the end of the night, we'd treated each other with an old-fashioned courtesy, sharing a kiss goodnight and nothing more, and then going our separate ways. I hadn't drunk, either at the restaurant or when I'd gotten home, the burning need for alcohol seeming to have disappeared now that Ben was back in my life. Ben would no doubt comment on it once he realized he wasn't waking with the stale taste of second-hand whiskey in his mouth.

To continue our old-fashioned—and completely unnecessary courtship—we'd agreed to spend tonight apart, but it seemed Ben had other ideas. Hopefully, he'd brought pizza. I opened the door with a flourish. "Couldn't stay away from me, could you?"

Flynn tipped his head to one side and appraised me with a slightly raised eyebrow. "I wouldn't put it quite like that, but if you want to believe that, who am I to disabuse you of the notion?" He had a pizza box in his hands. Right food. Wrong man.

"I thought you were…"

"Someone else. Yeah, I got that." He lifted the pizza box in a gesture that said I might not have noticed it. "I had the night off, so I thought I'd drop round and see if you wanted to share this with me? It's pepperoni," he added with a smirk that said he didn't think I'd be able to resist it.

Flynn pushed past me, the excuse I'd been going to give about being tired dying on my lips. I followed him into the kitchen, my uninvited guest already helping himself to plates and fishing a sharp knife out of the cutlery drawer. "I should have known you'd be one of those men that don't own a pizza slicer."

"Why?" There was no keeping the slightly defensive tone out of my voice.

Flynn shrugged as he sliced the pizza and divided it up between the two plates. "I don't know." He peered up at me from beneath his fringe. "A simple man with simple tastes, maybe. You're very straightforward."

"And you're not?"

He smiled like I'd said something funny. "I own a pizza slicer."

"Maybe you should have brought it with you."

"Maybe I should have done." He shoved the plate at me before taking off toward my living room and making himself comfortable on the couch. I tamped down on a feeling of disquiet as I took a seat on the other end. It was just pizza. Ben couldn't have an issue with me sharing a pizza, could he?

Flynn chewed and swallowed before fixing me with a curious stare. "Where've you been? I haven't seen you for a week. I rang you a couple of times, but you didn't pick up."

"Yeah, sorry." I felt genuinely bad about it. Flynn and I might not have been friends for very long, but he deserved better than for me just to ignore him. "I meant to call you back, but…" With an adequate excuse not coming to mind, I settled for a shrug.

He dipped his chin toward my plate. "Eat your pizza before it gets cold."

I did, contemplating Flynn's question while I chewed. What was a tactful way of saying you were back with your ex, and as a result, I probably shouldn't have let Flynn through the door?

"You got any beer?" Flynn asked.

"In the fridge." I'd been going to tell him to help himself, but he already was, his pizza momentarily abandoned while he headed back into the kitchen.

"Want one?" he called back.

"No, I'm alright."

"Want something stronger?"

I laughed. "I thought you were having a night off?"

A muffled groan. "I guess some habits are hard to kick."

My phone beeped, and I looked down to find a message from Ben. Pizza. There better not be any olives on it.

I'd just typed No olives, I promise , and sent it when Flynn came back from the kitchen clutching a bottle of beer. "I'll take that as a no to the whiskey then?"

I nodded, my mouth too full of pizza to provide an oral response .

Flynn regaled me with the story of an awkward customer a few nights ago while we ate the rest of the pizza, not seeming to mind the conversation being distinctly one-sided. With his plate empty, he sat back and watched me finish mine. "You never said where you've been for the past few days."

"Manchester," I said, while wiping my mouth. "For one night at least. I had to see a man about a dog. Although, it was really a professor about a…" I stopped short before I said demon.

"A…?"

"Doesn't matter." Whether or not Flynn believed in them, it wasn't the best topic of discussion. Hearing that an eight-foot demon might descend on the streets of London wouldn't put anyone's mind at rest.

Flynn smiled. "Let me guess, it's confidential."

"Something like that."

Flynn cleared his throat, the gleam in his eye too little warning for me to take avoidance measures as he lunged at me. Shit! When his lips came down on mine, I froze, panic seizing hold of me. Ben was going to kill me. We'd been back together a matter of days and already I was giving him good reason to regret letting me back in his life. Even the knowledge that he felt arousal and I was a long way from aroused didn't make me feel any better.

I was about to push him off when Flynn sat back anyway with a confused look on his face, the kiss only having lasted a matter of seconds. "Huh! I was hoping for a bit more enthusiasm from you. I'd think it was the garlic, but you just ate the same as I did."

"I…" Grow up, Griffin. You're in your thirties, not a teenager. "Remember, I said I'd be working with my ex?"

Flynn returned to the other end of the couch and retrieved his beer, taking a long swallow before fixing me with a speculative look. "Yeah. You weren't looking forward to it. You said it was going to be a nightmare."

"Yeah, well… it was, and then we sorted things out."

"You're back together?"

"Yeah." My throat was tight as I waited to see how Flynn would react to the news. I wished I'd said yes to a beer because at least it would have given me something to do. What would it be? Anger? Disappointment? Jealousy? Irritation? They were all possible.

What I wasn't expecting was the smile that lit up Flynn's face. "Congratulations! I'm assuming you're happy about it?"

"I am. You're not pissed?"

Flynn laughed, almost choking on his beer. "Why on earth would I be pissed? I mean, I'm annoyed you didn't mention it in a text or something. If you had, we could have skipped the embarrassing part where I just jumped on you and you sat there like a statue. I haven't experienced that since high school when I read the signals all wrong and tried to kiss Jack Fletcher, who, just for the record, not only wasn't gay, but had a girlfriend, too." He rolled his eyes. "He kicked up so much fuss you would have thought I'd tried to rape him rather than just give him a peck on the lips." Flynn pointed the beer bottle in my direction. "So if you could refrain from telling all and sundry that I tried to force myself on you, I'd appreciate it."

"I think I can manage that." I was still somewhat stunned he was taking it so well.

Flynn tipped his head to one side. "Don't look at me like that. You really aren't very good at fuck buddies, are you? Rules are that we're just having fun until something better comes along. It did, and you've moved on. It's no biggie, and I'm happy for you." He lay his head back on the couch. "So… tell me about this man of yours. He's a detective, right? Is he handsome?"

"Yes. And very."

"Got any photos?"

It stung when I realized that I didn't, that I'd gotten rid of any I used to have because it hurt too much to look at them. In a last gasp attempt to show something before Flynn thought Ben was nothing more than a figment of my imagination, I logged onto my laptop and googled Ben's name, a news report coming up from a high-profile case he'd been involved in the previous year. Flynn took the laptop off me and studied the photo like there was going to be a test later. "Definitely handsome," he eventually said. "You've done well there." He skimmed the news report. "Bit of a hot-shot detective by the sounds of it as well. Does that mean I can stop worrying when I go out?" He grimaced. "I met this really cute guy the other night. Things developed. You know, as they do."

I did my best not to feel slightly put out about Flynn hooking up with someone else. I really hadn't understood the rules of being a fuck buddy. I'd thought there was some element of exclusivity to the arrangement, but obviously I'd been wrong.

Flynn took another swallow of his beer, his brow furrowed. "I invited him back to my place… because he said he had the decorators in and his place was a mess… and he said yes, and then while we were waiting for the cab, I just couldn't stop thinking, what if this guy was Satanic Romeo and I was about to invite him into my house? I ended up making my excuses and going home alone. It just seemed like too much of a risk. That murderous fucker's going to ruin my sex life. Especially now that you're out of bounds." He held up his hand and stared at it ruefully. "I guess it's just you and me again, pal. "

"What did he look like, this guy?"

Flynn thought for a moment. "Big and stocky." He offered me a coy glance. "What can I say? I've got a type. Blonde hair buzzed really short, like he might have just got out of the army. Maybe he had. I didn't ask before I bailed on him. Brown eyes."

"It wasn't him."

Flynn sat up straighter. "No? Have you had a description of him? The papers haven't said anything about it."

I winced. Anything the press hadn't been told meant it was off limits. Unlike Ben, I wasn't used to having to parse what I said. What harm would it do to tell Flynn, though? He'd just admitted that he was worried enough to be second guessing himself about who he went home with. If you couldn't help your friends out, what good was having inside information? Flynn was hardly likely to go running to the press. "We think he has brown hair and blue eyes," I said.

"Yeah?" Flynn took a moment to digest the tidbit of information. "Guess I'm sticking with blonds or redheads for the foreseeable future, then."

"It might be best."

"What else have you found out about him?"

I gave him an abbreviated version of events, Flynn making all the right noises when I detailed all the failures, such as the last body being found too late. To be honest, it was nice to unload on someone who had no involvement with the case. When I'd finished, Flynn looked slightly shell-shocked, enough that I asked him if he was okay.

"Yeah, it's just… you know, it's a lot. I'm a bartender. I'm used to hearing some crazy shit, but it's not usually demon summoning crazy shit. I mean… what if this lunatic succeeds, and it goes on a Godzilla rampage around London?" He ran a hand through his hair. "Fuck! Should I be packing an emergency bag or something? You know, in case everyone has to evacuate."

"It won't come to that."

"It might if you don't catch this guy." He shook his head. "I once dated this guy who was a huge survivalist, the sort who's convinced the end of the world is imminent. He had blueprints for an underground bunker, and he was saving up to get one built. I should have married him."

I couldn't help but laugh. "I don't think we're at the stage yet where you need to marry someone just for access to their bunker."

Flynn stared at me for a moment, and then he laughed too. "At least I've got friends in high places who can keep me informed. I'm far too pretty to die young."