The Cougar's Bargain (13 page)

“Interesting. We know Lola distrusts them and would kill them on sight if she could, so we can assume they're not up to any good, not just in our mess, but in general.”

“I need to get into the office.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “What specific parts of the few words I just uttered planted a seed of that idea in your head? No fuckin' way am I letting you go in there.”

The words didn't seem right. She was used to admonitions of
Get it done
and
Make no excuses
, not protective overtures that started with, “No way am I.” He didn't make any sense.

“I have to, Sean.”

“Why?”

“Because it's my
job
. I
have
to. I need to figure this out and fix it. I need to … I
have
to so the nightmares'll stop.”

The small smile he'd worn drooped at the corners, and he sat up. “What sort of nightmares?”

She stood, and glanced around the room, looking for any spot she could stand in where she wouldn't feel so closed in. She'd been fine before—comfortable, even—but questions made her nervous. Having to explain things in such careful ways so people didn't think she was hysterical
exhausted
her. “I …”

The door to his room was open, so she started for it. He was faster, and put his body in the doorway before she could cross the threshold.

“Goddammit, Sean.” She grabbed the end of her braid, and he grabbed her wrist.

“Stop. You're going to pull every strand of it out, and then you'll be bald, and then I'll be sad because I
really
want to call you blondie, and that's what I call you in my head already. Are you going to disallow me one of the few pleasures I have in life at the moment?”

It took a moment for all the words to settle into Hannah's brain in an order that made sense. She mulled over the parts again and again, looking for the bit she should take offense to, because there certainly had to be something there for her to snap back about.

But he let go of her wrist, and her hand fell along with his.

I'm supposed to say something here
.

But what? She didn't know the appropriate response. He was standing so near her, violating her bubble of personal space, and there were so many possibilities. Step back with some angry retort. Make a joke. Sigh. Flirt.

The last one was out of the question. It just wasn't something she did, even if she wanted to. She didn't know how.

Do I want to?

She did move back, and dragged her tongue across dry lips, struggling to meet his gaze. It shouldn't have been so hard. He wasn't challenging her, but all the same, she had to perform. People expected her to behave a certain way, and if she didn't, they'd think something was wrong, but in truth—there was always something wrong.

“The dreams are bad, but they'll stop. Or change, anyway.”

“You're sure of that?”

“Once this little mission is over, I think they will. I won't have a reason to think about
Los Impostores
anymore.”

“So you're dreaming about
them
?”

She shrugged. “My dreams are about things I'm supposed to pay attention to.”

“As the glaring's avenger, you mean.”

“Right. I know that some of the imagery is metaphorical, and that not everything needs violence, but it's hard to compartmentalize what's what when gory scenes are playing through your mind.”

“I guess the only way to not have the dreams would be to not sleep.”

“And that's out of the question. Look how well that worked in the
Nightmare on Elm Street
movies.”

“I hated those fucking movies.”

“They scared you?”

“They did their jobs. The worst part of them was being in the same room with my brothers while I was watching. Having all that Cougar adrenaline spiking at the same time makes some scenarios seem worse than they really are. But then again …” He grinned. “I can't watch game shows with my brothers, either. We get frustrated at people making stupid decisions, and that'll amp us up just as well as Freddy Krueger can.”

“Remind me to never watch television with you.”

“What do hard-ass nurses watch when they're off-duty, anyway?” He crossed his arms and smirked as he leaned against the doorframe. That smug expression told her that no matter what she said, he'd find a joke in it.

And so what if he does?

He never seemed like he was being malicious when he laughed at her. It was almost as if he found her entertaining somehow.

She blew a raspberry and retreated to the bed. “Not telling ya.” Sitting on the side nearest the adjacent wall, she opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out the dog-eared area guide. She needed a good map, and a store directory. Contrary to what Sean had said, she was going into that office, or at the very least, arranging a meeting with whoever was in charge. If she had to pretend to be a client, so be it.

“Tell me. I'll tell
you
what I watch when no one's around.”

She raised an eyebrow and licked her fingers to turn the stubborn pages. “I bet I already know. Starts with
p
and ends with
n
.”

“Nah, I don't watch that so much as listen to it.”

She whipped her head and watched his grin spread farther. “You're not joking.”

“Well, I'm not gonna
lie
. I'm not ashamed of it. You gonna tell me, or are you gonna make me guess?”

She
was
the slightest bit curious about what the guy did in his downtime, and she did need to know more of this basic stuff about him so she could tell who might be compatible with him. The best she could tell, he hadn't had much downtime the past few months. She really didn't know much about him at all, but what little she had known had been enough for her to summarily reject him. She cleared her throat and fixed her gaze on the book again. “I feel like your guesses would be scandalizing, so fine. I'm game. You tell me, and I'll tell you.”

“Nah, you tell me first. You'll change your mind and leave me hanging.”

“Like a typical woman, huh?”
Fuck
. She cringed at herself, and tried to be casual about turning the pages.

“I don't know much about typical women, to be honest. What does that even mean?”

“You know—quietly bearing the burden of oh-so-much bullshit because that's our lot in life.”

“Tell my mom that, and she'll laugh in your face.”

Glenda certainly would
. Hannah should have known better than to even say it. She pinched the bridge of her nose and forced down that niggling inner voice of pessimism that told her something bad was going to happen with every sentence that fell out of her mouth.

Just take a risk for once
.
See what happens
.

“When I'm not busy,” she said, “I watch teen sitcoms.” They were inoffensive, good for the occasional belly laugh, and they didn't make her think too much. Sometimes she needed a break from thinking.

Go on and say what you've gotta.

She nibbled at a ragged cuticle and looked at the heater beneath the window. Really, anywhere but at him. If she looked at him, she'd narrow her eyes and project an unnecessary dare with her expression. For once, she wanted to try to have a normal conversation with someone, even if it were a trial to get through.

“Belle watches those,” he said. “Or rather, she did up until recently. She refuses to pay for cable, saying something about not wanting to support a monopoly.”

Hannah laughed weakly and turned to look at him. No smarmy leer, no judgment. At least, not over that. “So … what about you? Please don't say NASCAR.” Her brothers loved NASCAR. Having just the one television in the house growing up kind of sucked sometimes.

“Nah, if I wanted to watch things going around in circles again and again I'd just wait for Darnell to get drunk, shapeshift, and chase his tail.”

That laugh came out again, and she groaned at herself.

Dork
.

He chuckled, and his grin was soft. “Well, here you have it. I love those travelogue shows where the hosts go around eating weird stuff and hobnobbing with the locals. Anthony Bourdain is my hero. Every time I watch one of his shows, I want to pack a bag, go somewhere, and eat my way through a city.”

“Providing snarky commentary all the way, I'm sure.”

“Yep. It'd be kind of lame if I were recording myself doing it, though. What kind of jackass would I look like if I were holding my phone out and talking to it while biting into a pierogi?”

“An
epic
jackass. A douchebag, even.”

“Yup. Though, I would probably make more money from uploading shit like that to YouTube than I do making furniture at Woodworks.”

“I want a cut of the ad revenue.”

He chuckled again and retreated through the door into his room. “I'll give you ten percent,” he called out.

“For holding the camera and not laughing at you? I deserve way more than ten percent.”

“How about fifteen percent and you can have my fortune cookies whenever we record at Chinese food places?”

“I'm not getting out of bed for less than thirty percent.”

“How about … oh, twenty-five percent and all the cupcakes you can eat?”

He returned to the doorway carrying a white box. A familiar sort of box, and before he could pull back the lid, the smile that had at some point hijacked her face relaxed and the burn started behind her eyes.

“Everything but red velvet.” He pointed to the three tidy rows of fancily frosted cupcakes. “Red velvet is an abomination. Sorry if you happen to like it, but I …”

His words fell off when he looked up at her, and his smile went away, too. “I … offended you. Mom thought … she said to get you cake.”

She swallowed, rubbed her stinging eyes, and shook her head. “No. You didn't offend me.”

Her internal processors were at peak capacity. They were very nearly overloaded with too much input, and she wasn't sure what response was supposed to come out.

Most people didn't cry when someone bought them cupcakes for their birthday, but it was the only thing Hannah could do.

She was so used to her surprises being disappointing ones.

The last time Sean had made a woman cry had been immediately after his father's funeral. His mother cried because Sean hadn't. And Sean just couldn't. He'd been too overwhelmed to, but eventually the tears came—during some random conversation months later. Some small trigger set him off for an entire afternoon. He'd had to tell Mason he'd overdone it with the pepper sauce, and that he'd make up the work later. But really, he sat in his basement in the dark and let the pain out.

He didn't know Hannah well, but he didn't get the feeling that a box of silly cupcakes reminded Hannah of a dead loved one. He didn't know what he was sensing from her at all. Her hormones were spiking all over the place, her body temperature was up, and the part of her that was cat was repressed. The cat didn't know how to help the woman part of her. Sean knew all too well what that was like, even if he didn't know what was bothering her.

He set the box on the dresser and approached her at the end of the bed.

She eyed him warily as he crouched.

He draped his forearms over his thighs and fixed his gaze on the garish pattern of the comforter—hoping it'd make her more comfortable. “Don't tell me you're upset about turning twenty-nine. It's really not that bad. Neither is thirty.”
Or thirty-one
. He'd be kissing another birthday
hello
soon enough.

She scoffed and sniffled. “I hadn't given any thought to how old I am in at least twelve hours, so thank you.”

“Biological clock not ticking, old lady?”

“As loud as anyone else's.”

He grunted and looked at her. Her eyebrows were up, pale skin blotchy.

“Mine's pretty loud,” he said. “By Cougar standards, I'm pretty old to not have a kid.”

“So I imagine that would apply to all you Foyes, excluding Belle.”

He grunted again and nodded. “Yeah. Mason was a little older than I am now when he knocked up Jill, and we all know that wasn't on purpose. I'd hope that Belle, though, would wait another ten, twenty years or so before she thinks about settling down.”

“Good luck with that.”

“You know something I don't know about my little sister?”

She shrugged. “I mean, just going by what she's shared with Miles, I don't think she's going to be content to sit on the sidelines and watch while everyone she knows is pairing off.”

Well, not everyone
.

“She's only nineteen,” he said.

“Yes,
only
nineteen. People live entire lifetimes in nineteen years. How much growing up do you think she possibly has left?”

“Probably not much,” he conceded.

“Any particular reason why the Foye brothers haven't embraced the
spread your seed and multiply
doctrine as of yet?”

“I dunno. Foyes have always been a little weird. The drive to reproduce may be there, but we're so fucking stubborn, that we won't act on it unless it's convenient.” He shrugged. “I guess it hasn't been convenient.”

“Stubborn's not the word I keep hearing.”

“Oh yeah? If you've been gathering intelligence from members of the glaring, I'm not sure I want to know what word you've heard. It can't be flattering.”

She made a waffling gesture.

“That bad, huh?”

“At least you're consistent. That's more than I can say for most people.” She cleared her throat and shifted her gaze toward the cake box.

“Mad about the red velvet?”

She gave his knee a nudge with the side of her foot. “No. I don't like red velvet or anything with coconut. Is there any chocolate in there?”