Lover At Last(15)
Tohr murmured something back, but damned if he heard it. And damned if he could see anything but Blay. Not for a blink. For a breath. For a beat of the heart.
Staring across the swirling snow, he marveled at how someone you knew everything about, who lived down the hall, who ate with you and worked with you and slept at the same time you did…could become a stranger.
Then again, and as usual, that was about the emotional distance, not the same job, under-the-same-roof shit.
The thing was, Qhuinn felt like he wanted to explain things. Unfortunately, and unlike his slut cousin, Saxton the Cocksucker, he had no gift with words, and the complicated stuff in the center of his chest was making that mute tendency worse.
After a final grind, the Hummer was up off the ground on the bed, and Blay started running chain in and out of the undercarriage.
“Okay, you three take this piece of junk back,” Tohr said as flurries started to fall again.
Blay froze and looked at the Brother. “We go in pairs. So I need to leave with you.”
Like he was beyond ready to bounce.
“Have you looked at what we got here? An incapacitated hunk of junk with two dead humans in it. You think this is a play-it-loose situation?”
“They can handle it,” Blay said under his breath. “The two of them are tight.”
“And with you they’re even stronger. I’m just going to dematerialize home.”
In the stretch of silence that followed, the straight line that ran from Blay’s ass up to the base of his skull was the equivalent of a middle finger. Not to the Brother, though.
Qhuinn knew exactly who it was for.
Things moved fast from then on, the SUV getting secured, Tohr departing, and John hopping behind the wheel of the flatbed. Meanwhile, Qhuinn went around to the truck’s passenger-side door, cranked it open, and stood to the side, waiting.
Like a gentlemale might, he supposed.
Blay came over, stalking through the snow. His face was like the landscape: cold, shut down, inhospitable.
“After you,” the guy muttered, taking out a pack of cigarettes and an elegant gold lighter.
Qhuinn ducked his head briefly in a nod, then shuffled inside, sliding over the bench seat until his shoulder brushed John’s.
Blay got in last, slammed the door, and cracked the window, putting the lit end of his coffin nail right at the opening to keep the smell down.
The flatbed did all of the talking for a good five miles or so.
Sitting in between what used to be his two best friends, Qhuinn stared out the windshield and counted the seconds between the intermittent swipes of the wipers…three, two…one…up-and-down. And…three, two…one…up-and-down.
There was barely enough snow loose in the air to require the effort—
“I’m sorry,” he blurted.
Silence. Except for the growl of the engine in front of them and the occasional clang of a chain in back when they hit a bump.
Qhuinn glanced over, and what do you know, Blay looked like he was chewing on metal.
“Are you talking to me?” the guy said gruffly.
“Yeah. I am.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” Blay stabbed the cigarette out in the dashboard’s ashtray. And lit another. “Will you please stop staring at me.”
“I just…” Qhuinn put a hand through his hair and gave the shit a yank. “I don’t…I…I don’t know what to say about Layla—”
Blay’s head snapped around. “What you do with your life has nothing to do with me—”
“That’s not true,” Qhuinn said quietly. “I—”
“Not true?”
“Blay, listen, Layla and I—”
“What makes you think I want to hear one word about you and her?”
“I just thought that you might need some…I don’t know, context or something.”
Blay simply stared at him for a moment. “And why exactly do you think I’d want ‘context.’”
“Because…I thought you might find it…like, upsetting. Or something.”
“And why would that be?”
Qhuinn couldn’t believe the guy wanted him to say it out loud. Much less in front of someone else, even John. “Well, because of, you know.”
Blay leaned in, his upper lip peeling back from his fangs. “Just so we’re clear, your cousin is giving me what I need. All day long. Every day. You and me?” He motioned back and forth between them with the cigarette. “We work together. That’s it. So I want you to do us both a favor before you think I ‘need’ to know something. Ask yourself, ‘If I were flipping burgers at McDonald’s, would I be telling the fucking fry guy this?’ If the answer is no, then shut the hell up.”