Page 130 of On the Double
“Yeah, I got that,” I muttered.
“So, shall we go to your house?”
“Uh… definitely.”
She slid her arm through mine and started dragging me away, but it was faster than I was hoping we would move. Plus, I’d been standing for too long and the pain was starting to ramp up. My legs started wiggling as I walked and I panicked that I was going to fall to the ground.
“Lock!” I shouted, not thinking clearly.
He was by my side in a second, wrapping his arm around me to hold me up.
Harper cocked her head at me, giving me a strange look. “What’s going on?”
“Uh…nothing,” Lock laughed. “It’s just…we’re so close. And…after a mission, we like to…stick together.”
She laughed, but I could tell she thought this was weird. “You guys grab beers or something?”
“And just hang out,” Lock said, gripping me tighter.
“Yeah,” Brock laughed, taking up Lock’s other side to make it look less weird. “We stick together. We’re one big happy family.”
“Great,” she chuckled. “But you’re not going to be around the whole night, are you?”
Lock looked at me and laughed nervously. “Who knows?”
Before long, we were back at my house. I was sweating hard, but I covered it as best I could, gripping the couch hard as I struggled to stay on my feet.
“Maybe you could get us some beer,” I called out to Harper as she set down her stuff.
“Sure.” She looked at me weirdly.
Yes, I was putting off sex, and she knew that wasn’t like me. As soon as she was gone, I nearly collapsed on the floor. Brock grabbed her purse, digging through it.
“You look like shit. Does she have any makeup?”
“I’m not putting on makeup,” I hissed.
“Would you rather her see how pale you are?”
I cursed under my breath as he grabbed the powder compact and took out the pad in the case. He quickly dabbed the makeup across my skin, hopefully making me appear less like the zombie I felt like. Lock cleared his throat and Brock stepped back, hiding the compact in his hands behind his back.
I grinned at Harper, taking the beer with a shaky hand. “Thanks, Pookie.”
“Pookie,” Lock chuckled under his breath.
I would have hit him if it weren’t for the fact that I was barely standing. “You wanna watch a movie?”Please, God, let her want to watch a movie.
“I was actually thinking we could…move this into the bedroom.”
I had no words to explain to her how bad an idea that was. The seconds ticked past, and thankfully, Lock rushed around me, grabbing me by the arm. “Actually, the uh…evening rituals haven’t concluded yet. We still have to…perform the…nightly ceremony.”
“The nightly ceremony,” she repeated.
“Yeah, we uh…sit on the couch together and…” His eyes flicked to Brock.
“We massage each other’s feet,” Brock continued. “I have a special lotion we use. It helps promote healing.” He pulled the numbingsalve out of his pocket and jiggled it slightly in front of her face. “See?”
“You…rub each other’s feet?”