Page 4 of After The Storm
But something about being out there at the estate they all lived on had begun to make him stir crazy in the past few weeks. He hadn’t been out on an assignment in nearly a month. They went in rotation or based on ability, and since being an expert shot hadn’t been required, he wasn’t next in line.
Not that he necessarily relished the idea of having to go out and work a case.
No, that wasn’t it. He just needed to get away from the people he saw far too much of every day. No matter what time he ate meals, it seemed he couldn’t find time alone. If he ate breakfast before dawn, someone appeared in the kitchen with him. If he waited and didn’t eat until mid-morning, somehow at least one other man showed up to eat at the same time. It had gotten to the point that he almost accepted the fact that he’d never eat alone again.
Added to that, the sound of hammers and saws from morning to night made him feel like if he didn’t get the hell away from that place sometime soon, he’d go mad.
Closing his eyes, he laid his head on the pillow at the top of his bed and tried to push out the sounds of the house around him. He felt like a stranger in his own body. Never before had noise bothered him. He’d done two tours in Afghanistan, so he’d lived through the noise of war, for Christ’s sake. As he lay there wanting to be anywhere else in the world than that bedroom at the end of the house, he wondered why any of this was bothering him now.
Maybe he just needed to keep himself busy. A few hours out at the shooting range might do him a world of good. With any luck, none of the others would be there too.
Roman sat up and swung his legs off the bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he looked around the room for his gun. He and Marius had gone to the range last week, and he thought he’d left it on his dresser.
Nope. Not there.
Had Xavier borrowed it again like the last time he noticed it missing?
Standing, he marched over to the dresser and moved his comb and after shave for no good reason since the gun clearly wasn’t there.
Damnit! This was another reason he’d grown to hate being around all of them.
Roman stormed over to his bedroom door and nearly tore it off the hinges when he flung it open. It slammed off the wall as he headed into the hallway to go find Xavier and his gun. That he had to do this at all pissed him off.
By the time he reached the game room, he wanted to punch something. Or someone. As usual, Xavier and Gideon sat in the leather recliners watching some game. No matter what the season, those two had a sport they watched religiously. It grated on his nerves now for some reason he couldn’t exactly put his finger on as he stood in the doorway looking at the two of them lounged out like two frat boys blowing off class.
The Indians and some other team played on the big screen TV, large enough to make you feel like you were there at the ballpark. He said Xavier’s name loud enough that both men could hear him, but neither one responded.
So he said it even louder a second time. Same response.
“Xavier, where the fuck is my gun?” he bellowed from the doorway.
Both men turned their heads, their expressions showing their shock that someone had dared to interrupt their lounging around. When Xavier recovered from his surprise, he muted the TV and returned the leather recliner to its usual position, letting his feet fall to the floor.
“What? Can’t you see we’re trying to watch the game? What’s with coming in here and scaring the hell out of us like that?” he asked, irritated but nowhere close to how pissed Roman felt.
Taking a step into the room, he stopped and asked his original question again. “Where the fuck is my gun?”
Xavier looked up toward the ceiling to think about it for a moment and then shrugged. “How the hell would I know?”
Roman took another step closer to where he sat. “Because you were the last person around it, other than me, and it’s not in my room. Did you borrow it again?”
The word borrow was the nice way of describing how Xavier had a habit of taking things he liked and not returning them. It made Roman want to beat the hell out of the guy. Often.
Once again, he looked up toward the ceiling, like someone had written the answer up there. Nodding, he looked over at Roman. “Oh yeah. Remember I asked you to borrow it because I wanted to decide if I should get a Ruger and wanted to get a feel for it?”
Sometimes this guy made him want to lose his shit. As if a grown man needed to try on a gun like some shirt or pants he wanted to buy.
“Whatever. Where is it? I want to go to the range, so just go get it.”
Xavier threw him a disgusted look to tell him he felt put out by his demand and stormed out past him. A few moments later, he reappeared and stuck the gun into his hands. “Here.”
Roman looked down at his gun and tightened his fingers around the grip as Xavier sat back down in the recliner and turned the sound back up on the baseball game. Gideon looked over at him one last time before focusing his attention back on the TV.
Disgusted, Roman turned on his heels and walked out, fed up with those two and their frat boy bullshit. He made it two steps into the hallway before Tess nearly ran into him. Persephone and Nick’s very attractive assistant, she was a welcome change to the constant stream of men who seemed to fill his days.
“Roman, Nick wants to see you,” she said, catching her breath from rushing down the hall.
He eyed up the beautiful woman who seemed more a gopher than anything else for Nick and Persephone, the two leaders of Project Artemis. Petite with big green eyes and short brown hair, Tess never failed to brighten up the place with her warm smile, and Roman appreciated the interjection of a female in the overwhelming sausagefest the estate had become.