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Scorched(22)

By:Sarah O'Rourke


“I get that,” Devil agreed readily as both he and Molly watched Samantha cover a slack faced Armando with a cashmere blanket from the back of one of the wingback chairs. “I suppose what I’m asking from all of you is to not purposefully add any fuel to Mannie’s flame right now.”

“So you want us to delay him with a lack of support on our end,” Vivian clarified.

“All I’m saying is maybe don’t be so eager to help him start canceling plans if he asks you. I’ve been texting with Nick and the poor guy is a wreck. He doesn’t want to lose Armando any more than Mannie wants to let Nick go. This can be fixed, ladies,” Devil assured the roomful of doubtful women passionately, looking from one hesitant woman to another.

Glancing in Sami and Vivian’s direction, Molly gave a small shrug. “I guess we could give Nick a shot to make this right, couldn’t we?” she asked her friends in a small voice. The idea certainly didn’t thrill her, but this was Mannie’s future happiness on the line. If there was even the slightest chance that this major fuck-up could be repaired, didn’t they owe it to Armando to do what they could to insure his future with Nicolas? “What do you guys think?” she asked the girls.

Sami ran a frustrated hand through her long blonde hair. “As much as I despise agreeing with Satan’s son,” she began, offering a nod toward Devil, “I gotta say, if I was in Mannie’s position, I’d want some answers. And the only person that’s gonna have those answers to give is the pecker packing son of a bitch that we all wanna skin and skewer over an open flame.”

“Not all of us. I, for one, know this is all a big misunderstanding that can be straightened out if I can convince you people to not shift into the overly-emotional psycho mode you all seem to favor when times get a little rocky,” Devil announced belligerently.

That’s when Molly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt….

She’d married the smartest idiot on the planet.





Chapter Six


Devil

“I’m telling you both, I barely escaped that house of horrors with my life, assholes!” Devil yelled at the two men sitting in the darkened corner of the local sports bar they regularly frequented when the need to flee their significant others became too much of a temptation to resist. “Stop laughing at me, you hyenas! I thought those she-beasts were going to maul and devour me before I ever made it to my own front door, dammit! Even the lion gave the gazelle a thirty second head start, but not those women. Hell, no! In fact, not only did they not give me a head start, but I’m pretty sure it was Vivian that tripped me on the way out. And I know it was Samantha’s shoe that caught me on the temple once I was down. And all the while, my so-called loving wife just freaking watched! That was until she decided to participate. Thank God her aim hasn’t improved with time,” he yelped above the chuckles of his contemporaries.

Christ, but he needed to find better friends. The ones he had wouldn’t be entirely happy until one of his stories ended with, ‘and then, the paramedics shocked my heart back to life’. Evil bastards, the lot of ‘em, he thought as he looked between the faces of his oldest friend and his beleaguered vice president.

Hell, last night hadn’t even been a catastrophe of his own making. Which reminded him, blame still had to be rightly and justly placed on somebody else’s head. Narrowing his gaze as he looked at his company’s youngest (and most successful) vice president, Nick Santino, he growled and pointed one long, tapered finger to his left. “Look, I had to sleep in my car in the garage last night because I was too afraid to go back into the lion’s den, guys. I don’t want another night like that. Besides, this isn’t even my fucking war to fight. This is your battle, Kemo Sabe, so I suggest you take your ass home and suit up for the game.” Taking a hard look at his normally pristinely dressed employee, he shook his head at the man sitting next to him now. Nobody would accuse him of being a fussy dresser today. Clad in baggy jeans sans belt and an oversized red flannel long sleeved shirt, Nick Santino had completed the ensemble with a battered baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. “What the hell are you wearing anyway?” Devil asked. “You going for that fresh-from-the-forest lumberjack thug look?”

“Shut up, Devil,” Nick grumbled under his breath, reaching for the glass of Shiraz he’d ordered from the bouncy scantily-dressed waitress that had been by their table earlier. “I’m trying to fly under the radar. That’s kind of hard to do wearing a Gucci suit.”