Page 3 of Mutual Obsessions

He’d studied me for an instant before offering a wink. “No worries. Have a good evening.” His voice had been low and smooth, and then, he’d walked away. I’d been stunned.

The man had been courteous, and I could almost feel his gaze still on me even after he was nowhere in sight. I’d finally been released from the hold on me and gotten my feet moving to continue my run.

As I’d returned home through The Quarter, I’d vowed to get my study partners together for a meal at The House of Tremblay. I’d finally figured out the perfect night to do it—our last night together before Alexandria moved away on Sunday.

After I finished my task, I walked to the glass-walled conference room where the attorneys were meeting and waited until Giles Danvert stopped speaking. When he glanced toward me, I swallowed because he wasn’t friendly. It took a minute to form the words on my tongue.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Danvert. I’ve finished labeling the exhibits and will take them to the print shop to be copied. I’ll be back in the morning to check the copies so they can be submitted on Monday to meet the discovery deadline. Is there anything you need me to do tomorrow while I’m here?” Please say no…please say no.

“Yes. Deposition summaries. I’ll put them in the war room when we finish. Thanks, Ryker.” With that, I was dismissed.

It was tempting to run away from the room, but I didn’t want to make an ass of myself since the whole wall was see-through. I walked to my office to grab my messenger bag before taking the ten flights of stairs down to the parking garage.

I got into my old Honda and flew through the parking garage like a bat out of hell, slamming on the brakes when I got to the exit. In front of me was a sea of vehicles that looked like they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I reversed into the garage and found a parking spot on the ground floor before I hopped out of the car and slid into the back seat. I had clean gym clothes in a duffel, so I quickly changed into shorts and a tank top, but I couldn’t find any socks. The black dress socks I was wearing were all I had. I pulled on my old running shoes, grabbed my messenger bag from the front seat, and looped it over my head.

Stepping out, I locked the car, put the keys in my bag, and took off. I dodged cars as quickly as possible. Killing two birds with one stone—avoiding traffic and getting in a run. I damn well had no intention of missing the dinner I’d planned with my friends.

My main goal was to say goodbye to everyone, but I wanted to see if I could find the guy carrying the trash bag the other night. Something about him had stuck with me.

I glanced at my phone again, seeing it was seven-fifteen. My car was at the office, and Alexa had a two-seater, so everyone was either walking to the restaurant or getting a rideshare. I was happy to sit at the bar if they missed the reservation as I suspected they would.

“If we’re going to be there on time, I need to see bodies on the stairs! I’ll leave all of you behind and sit at the bar!” I shouted up the staircase, the lack of sound overhead led me to believe nobody was listening.

Suddenly, there were feet on the stairs, and when I glanced up, my best friend, Cubby Brown, was running down with his shoes in hand. “Sorry, sorry.” When he got to the first floor, he dropped his sneakers and shoved his feet in them before bowing. “At your service.”

“Where are the others? Doesn’t anyone know how to read a fucking clock? Don’t they teach that in school anymore?” I wanted to scream again, but it would do no good.

Alexandria would want to be fashionably late, so I’d already fucked up by telling her our reservation was at eight. Jill and Findley were probably in their room fucking, and I hadn’t seen Lance Kulick since I’d gotten home.

“Well, based on the headboard banging, Jill and Findley are doing the nasty. The sound of Olivia Rodrigo vibrating through my wall gives the impression Alexandria is soaking in a hot bath after an exhausting day of shopping for the long trip home—to Dallas. Lance? Haven’t seen the fucker in two days. Screw them. Let’s go.”

I was on board, so we left them all behind. We proceeded briskly, and I decided to broach a subject Cubby and I had avoided while studying for finals.

“It’s just the two of us right now. What happened with Skipper Gray?”

Cubby and Skipper had been dating off and on as far as I knew, but I was so buried in school and work that most of our discussions centered on school-related issues. I was upset that we’d let our close friendship morph into clipped questions with barked answers, and I hoped maybe we could get back on track to how we used to be.

“Skipper Gray is a lying, cheating asshole. He stole money from me while I was asleep, and then he claimed I’d given it to him while I was drunk. You know me. I don’t get drunk, Ryker. After that, I couldn’t eat for three days until my stipend was deposited into my checking account. I hope he gets crabs again.”

Skipper Gray graduated from medical school three days before Cubby and I graduated from law school. The two had been seeing each other since Mardi Gras when they met at the Krewe of Nyx parade on the Wednesday before Fat Tuesday. They’d met when a very tall, big busted woman tried to jiggle her breasts in Skipper’s face, and Cubby threatened to sue her for sexual harassment on Skipper’s behalf.

They’d been inseparable until early May, and then Cubby started coming home after school where he was a teaching assistant for the first-year constitutional law professor. By then, I was on the oil rig case, and we rarely saw each other except when the Marauders got together and it was all about studying.

“Do you want me to beat him up?” I was teasing, of course, but I wouldn’t mind beating the hell out of someone. I hadn’t had a good fistfight since my first year of undergrad.

Cubby laughed. “I’d love that. I’ll lure him out behind the gym, and you beat his ass.” We crossed at the stoplight, and I slung my arm around Cubby’s shoulders as we headed toward The House of Tremblay.

“We might have to eat at the bar. How’s that sound?”

Cubby chuckled. “Better than you can imagine. I’ve got a story for you, but I didn’t want to talk about it in front of the others.”

“Can’t wait.”

We were thirty minutes early, but since we didn’t have the other four folks in tow, I hoped we could get two seats at the bar. When we approached the host stand, my breath hitched. It was the guy from the dumpster encounter, and he was even more stunning in the fading daylight.

“Good evening. Welcome to The House of Tremblay. Do you have a reservation?” His voice was smooth as silk. I’d recognize it anywhere. There was a quality to his tone that drowned out the noise of the other diners and the traffic outside.

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