House of Payne: Rude (6 page)

“This morning you came in whistling. That was disgusting enough, because I fucking hate morning people.”

“Havlik, you hate everybody. It’s part of your charm.”

“Yeah, but people chipper enough to whistle in the morning go to the top of my hate list.”

“People who use the word
chipper
in a sentence go to the top of mine.”

“And if the whistling wasn’t bad enough,” Havlik went on after pausing just long enough to flip him the one-finger salute, “you then laughed at Weitzler’s stupid-ass story about how birds find a way to take a shit on his car no matter where he parks it.”

Rude waited a beat. “And?”

“That was when I came this close to killing you.”

“What the fuck, dude.”

“You don’t laugh at Weitzler’s stories. Shit,
no one
laughs at Weitzler’s stories. You know why? Because he’s not funny. In fact, he’s the most unfunny human being who ever ponderously droned his boring ass across God’s green earth. Not even
he
was laughing, but you were.”

“Birds shitting on cars is my brand of funny. So what?”

“Okay. But what about right now?”

Rude stared at him, starting to get pissed. “What
about
right now, you dumbass?”

“Just now, you were grinning into your locker like you were watching internet porn. You got a tablet in there or something?”

“It’s scary to think you’re in charge of securing peoples’ lives.” Rude pulled on his jacket and aimed toward the exit, not at all surprised when Havlik followed. “Don’t you have anything better to do than get your tighty-whities in a bunch over everything I do? Keep going like this and I’m going to tell your wife you’re thinking of leaving her for me.”

“My wife is the reason I have to live vicariously through you for now,” came the put-upon reply as they headed toward the parking lot. “Nesting behavior has reached full-tilt madness. Anna’s reorganized all the closets in the house, ironed every teeny little piece of baby clothes she got last week in that baby shower to end all baby showers, and she’s given me a list of things that need to get done around the house before Junior arrives. Apparently our child’s life will be in mortal danger if I don’t get the clutter cleared out of the garage before he arrives. Is it any wonder I’m looking to you for some distraction?”

“Just as long as you don’t take her crazy and spread it around to
me
.”

“I’m trying to avoid the crazy by focusing on your disgusting chipperness.”

“That’s not a word.”

“And that’s not the issue.” Havlik waited while Rude took his ID card out at the door leading to the lobby, swiped it and typed in the passcode. “You got laid, right? Was it awesome?”

“No.”

“C’mon, man, even shitty lays are awesome.”

“I mean, no, I didn’t get laid.” A sad state of affairs if there ever was one, but he had hope.

Havlik’s scoff of disgust seemed to agree with him as they headed out to the lobby, an open, lofty area that retained the industrial feel of the building, while still offering a welcoming atmosphere with cream-colored chairs and sofas set at right angles from each other in the waiting area. Long pendant lights hung from the high ceiling, highlighting the reception desk manned by Mary Jane Fogelmann-Case, daughter of their employer, James “Cap” Fogelmann, retired US Marine Corps colonel and Rude’s former XO.

When Rude made the decision to return to civilian life six months earlier, he hadn’t been in Chicago a day before Cap had reached out to offer him a place in his new private security company. It was a full-service operation, from private contracts overseas to corporate security, cyber security, and even bodyguard detail. Everything a Marine was trained for was exactly what Cap needed, so it didn’t take Rude long to decide that PSI would be a good fit for him.

“As your friend, I feel it’s my duty to tell you straight-up that you don’t know how to bachelor.”

“God help me.” Rude waved a hand at Mary Jane before pushing out the front door and into the waning sunlight. “Do you have an off button?”

“See, before I settled down,” Havlik went on, blithely ignoring him, “
I
knew how to bachelor.”

“You don’t say.” Out of habit, Rude scanned the street up and down… then up one more time.

Hello.

“I stayed out all night. I knew every bartender on a first-name basis at all the cool clubs in the city, and they knew me. I had a woman waiting for me at each of those clubs and they never knew about each other.
That
is how you bachelor.”

“No, that’s how you get every STD known to man and a rep for being a douche.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you.”

“Apparently I’m the only thing you haven’t fucked.” Idly pulling his keys out, he turned to face Havlik. “Keep smiling and look natural, okay?”

Like a switch being thrown, Havlik’s easygoing eyes turned into a killer’s. “What’ve you got?”

“Dark blue Caddy, ten o’clock, single occupant.”

Havlik’s glance over Rude’s left shoulder was barely discernible. “Got it.”

“What cases are hot right now?”

“Nothing, really. Cap and Luke are in negotiations for a security contract for the G-7 summit. Echo, Nix and crew are in Venezuela protecting one of the world’s most epic assholes until the end of the week, and Xander, Steele, you and I are wrapping up the details for the Science Expo in Canada. And Weitzler is just… Weitzler.”

“So, there’s nothing that would warrant a personal visit, at least as far as I know. You?”

“Nope.” Havlik slid his hands in his pockets and made a production of looking up at the sky before glancing back down. “Can’t get the features of the driver—car’s facing away. All I’m getting from the side view mirror reflection is a Caucasian male with aviator sunglasses. Dark hair, late-twenties to mid-thirties.”

“Got the license plate?”

Havlik nearly choked. “What the fuck am I, an amateur? But even if I forget it from here to Mary Jane—which I
won’t
—our CCTV should have it, as well as the time when our friend arrived.”

“Could be nothing.” But the hair on the back of his neck told him otherwise.

“Yeah, this is just your way of dodging the question of why you were such a fucking ray of sunshine today.” Despite the lightness of his tone, Havlik’s body language communicated alert readiness and violence held in check. Even though his back was to the car, Rude knew he was communicating the same, because the sudden start of an engine reached his ears.

Fuck it.

With nothing left to do, Rude turned fully, hiding nothing as he stared hard at the man behind the wheel. He was mildly surprised that the driver, instead of pretending they weren’t there, stared right back.

And smiled.

And waved.

Chapter Five

So, you and Rude eating together didn’t start World War III? You’re sure?

Sass sighed as she stared at her phone’s screen. It was official. News that she and Rude had managed to have a civil meal together had now made it around the world. Scout hadn’t seen the picture immediately, no doubt doing much more interesting things on her honeymoon than checking her text messages.

But now apparently her new husband had let her come up for air, and despite the fact that it had to be in the wee hours of the morning in the south of France, Scout had finally answered.

“Unless the peace reigning outside my window is a mirage, I’d have to say no to WWIII.”

After sending the text, she opened a can of cat food, plopped it on a paper plate and set it under the breakfast bar, removing the empty paper plate that was already there.

“Soup’s on, Red.” She glanced around the big living space and couldn’t find any sign of the cat she’d begun to think of as Red The Skittish. Then she spied a flash of calico sneak down the hall and into the powder room to peek out toward the food. Carefully Sass backed away, making sure she didn’t make eye contact with the semi-feral cat Ivar and Scout had tamed. “I’ve got some nice kibble for you too, so you can snack whenever you want. Interested?”

No movement down the hall, just one glowing eye trained on her.

“Yeah, I think you’re interested.” She got another plate out and poured some kibble onto it. The sound made Red vanish entirely into the powder room, and Sass sighed as she set it down next to the wet food and a stainless steel bowl of water. She understood Red. Shuffled from her home into a strange place she didn’t know, with a person she didn’t know would have made her hide too. In fact, she
had
hidden many times in the past, even when she’d gotten to the Panuzzis. It had taken a lot of patience for them to get her to come out of her Nowhere Place.

But they’d done it, because they hadn’t given up on her.

So she wasn’t going to give up on Red The Skittish.

Once Red’s meal was taken care of, Sass dug out the makings for her favorite orange-ginger stir fry. As she brought the wok over to the stove her phone rang and the downstairs buzzer sounded almost simultaneously. Glancing at the phone she’d left on the counter, she plucked it up when she saw it was Scout, thumbing the screen as she headed for the intercom’s panel by the front door. “I have someone downstairs buzzing to be let in,” she announced by way of greeting. “What time is it there? Shouldn’t you be asleep by now, Mrs. Fournier?”

“Ivar and his magical penis powers don’t know the meaning of sleep,” came the static-laden response, but Sass could still hear the happiness ringing in her former foster sister’s voice. “It’s about one in the morning here in the Riviera, and we’re just now thinking about dinner.”

“Sounds like you’ve already had each other for dinner, so maybe you should just skip right to dessert.”

“He is my dessert, babe, trust me on this.” The buzzer sounded again. “Go ahead, see who it is. I’ll wait. Ivar’s downstairs arranging some kind of ride for us. If it’s a limo, I’m totally going to jump his bones in the backseat.”

“Good plan.” Pulling the phone slightly away from her face so she wouldn’t create feedback, she hit the intercom. “Yes?”

“Sassy, it’s Rude. Have you eaten dinner yet?”

Just like the first time he’d shown up on her doorstep, Sass’s brain came to a crashing halt, and all she could do was stare at the intercom liked it had just spewed gibberish.

“Answer him, dummy!”

With a jolt, she glanced at the phone she still held and took Scout’s sound—if vaguely insulting—advice. “Uh, Rude? No, I was going to make stir fry.” Great answer. Really witty. Next she’d wow him with her after-dinner plans of painting her nails.

The intercom engaged once more. “Great minds. Let me in and put the wok away. I’ve already got stir fry, veggie and shrimp, sweet and sour pork, fried rice and my favorite, Kung Pao Chicken.”

Her growling stomach had her pressing the door-release button before her brain could tell her that she was a moron. “So,” she said into the phone she belatedly remembered she still held, “that was Rude.”

“Yeah, I heard every freaking word.”

“I guess we’re not done tempting fate. World War III might still be on the horizon.”

“This is unprecedented. I mean, you and Rude sharing two meals in the same day? If I didn’t know better—and seriously, I
do
—I would say you two were kind-of dating.”

“Bite your tongue. Better yet, have Ivar bite it.”

“I like it when he uses his teeth, but not there.”

Sass snorted. “TMI.”

“Are you opening the door yet? I want to hear how he greets you.”

“I’m thinking of hanging up on you, actually.” But she did as Scout suggested and hauled the door open, braced her free hand on the doorjamb, and stuck her head out into the hallway.

No Rude… yet.

Footsteps echoed hollowly in the lobby below. Masculine. Determined.

Coming closer.

For no reason at all, a swarm of butterflies attacked her stomach.

Weird.

“Sass.” She heard Scout’s infuriated intake of air. “Don’t you
dare
hang up on me when things are about to get interesting.”

“How could anything possibly be interesting between Rude and me? We can’t stand each other…” Her words faded out as Rude suddenly rounded the brass-topped balustrade, a couple of white sacks hanging from one hand. His ebony hair was wind-ruffled and falling onto his brow. His lean face, dominated by that chiseled jaw, was shadowed with a five-o’clock shadow that hadn’t been there this morning. Somehow his shoulders seemed bigger in his leather jacket as he moved with slow deliberation toward her. When he caught sight of her, his eyes sparked to vivid life as if a fire had been lit from within, and the heat of that fire spilled into the strangely hungry smile that appeared.

“Aggressively masculine,” she muttered to herself, trying to remember that she didn’t like men like that. Nope. Not at all. Men who were over-the-top manly and vibrating with heart-stopping surges of testosterone left her completely and utterly cold.

She had to stifle a shiver as he closed the distance.

Yeah. Cold.

Sure.

“Sass, what did you say?” Scout’s voice came to her from far away, figuratively as well as literally. “Our connection’s terrible.”

Her connection with Rude had always been terrible, that was for sure. Everyone knew that. So it was a complete mystery to Sass why she couldn’t tear her gaze from him as he slowed down when he got to her door. He didn’t come to a complete stop the way she’d expected him to, however. Instead of waiting for her to move aside or ask to be let in, he gently nudged her back, his free hand wrapping around the wrist she had braced on the doorjamb and moving her arm aside when it should have been an obvious deterrent.

Maybe Marines were taught to ignore things like obvious deterrents.

“Who’s on the phone?” Rude’s low rumble bounced her out of her thoughts, and suddenly all she was aware of was him. With his fingers still wrapped around her wrist in a hold that she instinctively knew she wouldn’t be able to get out of, he shut the door with the sacks of food hanging off his wrist, before he locked it for good measure.

“Um.” He’d asked her a question, she was sure of it. But it was hard to focus on answering when she’d just gotten a woodsy, spicy whiff of him. “It’s Scout. I was going to hang up on her when you arrived, but for some weird reason she said she wanted to hear how you greeted me.”

“Yeah?” A sudden devilish light danced among the flames in his eyes, and he leaned into her so that his face hovered near the phone she still held to her ear. She stilled, stunned to have his face within inches of hers. “Sass, you’re more beautiful every time I see you. I almost can’t believe you’re real.”

“No way,” Scout breathed. “No
fucking
way.”

The strange tension over the intimacy of the moment fizzled. Damn it. This was nothing but a joke to him. And to her too, of course. She made that clear by nearly spraining her face on an eye-roll, all the while ignoring the odd sense of deflation sinking through her. “Scout, don’t be impressed—”

His nose brushed the hair over her ear, while the hand shackling her wrist pulled her inexorably closer. “Everything about you impresses me, my sweet little Sassy Pants.”

“And you’re about to be impressed with how far I can jam this phone up your ass, my darling little Sugar Britches.”

Rude burst out laughing, and let her go.

“Oh, geez,” Scout said, though Sass could barely hear her through the sound of his laughter. “I get it. Ha-ha, very funny.”

“It would be more than just funny if that was for real. It would be a clear indicator that we were both batshit crazy.” Glaring at Rude—an effort that was completely wasted on him, as he’d made a beeline for the kitchen—Sass sighed into the phone. “I’d better let you go. Have fun with your new hubby.”

“Text me later to let me know how this latest non-date went.”

What the hell, Sass thought as she tucked her phone away and followed in Rude’s wake. There would be nothing to report except the same-old, same-old, as neither she nor Rude could tolerate each other’s presence. The only reason he was here had to be that he had no clue what to do when it came to putting together his parents’ anniversary party. This wasn’t even a non-date.

This was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

“What are you looking for?” Sass frowned as he put the bags of takeout on the counter and pulled open a random drawer by the fridge, clearly making himself at home.

“Forks. Everything came with chopsticks, but I’m too hungry to fuck around with them.”

She pulled open a drawer. “Glad to hear it. It takes me forever to finish a meal with those things.” And the sooner she got him out the door, the better.

“Where do you keep your wine glasses?”

Surprised, she nodded at the small wine rack around the corner by the pantry, where glasses hung by their stems. “I’m not sure what kind of wine I have that would be good with Chinese.”

“No worries. I brought a rice wine that goes with Kung Pao chicken like candlelight goes with satin sheets.”

In the process of fishing out flatware, his words hit her like a Mack truck.

Holy. Freaking. Shit
.

In an instant her thoughts did their best impression of a flock of startled birds, scattering in every direction. Why the hell would he say such a thing? Was he trying to be provocative, or was it just the fact that her mind was a total gutter-dweller? God knew she could twist just about anything into a dirty joke, and she had a special talent for finding ways to use the phrase, “that’s what she said.” But her Jedi-level dirty-mind tricks worked against her now, and made her see provocative statements where there couldn’t be any.

Candlelight and satin sheets, though…

That was one hell of a word picture. She didn’t even have to get creative to go all Barry White on that.

So there was no doubt; he’d drawn that word picture deliberately. And if any other guy had said it, she’d have seen it as a signal to flirt her ass right out of her clothes.

But this was
Rude
. That meant nothing was what it seemed, and if she had to, she’d glue her damn clothes on to make sure they stayed in place.

“Sass?”

She jumped, mortified. Good grief. She was staring at the forks in her hand like she had no idea what they were. “I was just considering the carbs of a serving of
saké versus regular wine. Usually I counsel against drinking your calorie or carb intake on a daily basis, but it’s all right to treat yourself every now and again.”

Oh God, she was babbling. And not just any babbling. She was boring-babbling. Worst of all, she was doing it because she wasn’t thinking about her intake of
carbs
. No. She was thinking about her very personal intake of Rude.

Of all people,
Rude
.

“No work tonight.” He came at her like a force of nature, and she found herself herded toward the dining room table and seated before she knew what was happening. “Tonight we relax, eat some good food and make a little progress.”

“Progress.” She watched him place several food containers on the table before he opened a small bottle of rice wine and poured out equal measures into the glasses. “You mean on your party plans? I went ahead and found a couple venues that would be big enough to accommodate what you need, but all the best places have already been booked. If you were hoping for the Grand Ballroom at Navy Pier or Venue One with all the amenities, you’re shit out of luck.”

He shrugged and sat down opposite her. “Since my hopes were aimed at pasta night with the family and didn’t go any further than that, I think I’ll be able to live with the disappointment.”

“If you were any more of a typical dude when it comes to your man-planning, I’d swear someone was writing your script for you.”

He shrugged and forked in a mouthful of Kung Pao. “There’s a reason stereotypes exist, Sassy Pants. This shit’s way the hell out of my purview, unless we hold the party at a laser tag place. I kick ass at laser tag. And paintball, now that I think about it.”