Page 44 of Time to Bounce

She was shaking her head before I could finish. “I don’t live at my brother’s place, though. Why would I go there?”

She didn’t live at her brother’s place?

I frowned. “What?”

“I live on Eleventh Street,” she explained. “And I just got home like eighteen hours ago. I wouldn’t even be here if Margerie wasn’t sick and asked me to cover for her.”

Eleventh Street.

Of all the fuckin’ streets she could’ve lived on, she had to choose the most dangerous in the damn city?

“You live on Eleventh?” I croaked. “But your address is listed as the one you say is your brother’s.”

She shrugged. “I like his address better. The voting is easier. My packages don’t get stolen off the front porch. The DMV is a freakin’ bitch, too. Getting anything changed over is near impossible.”

I couldn’t believe she’d just said that.

She hadn’t changed her address because she didn’t want to go to the DMV to do it?

I opened my mouth to scold her when I realized that the address being different might do her a favor in the long run.

“Madman was arrested,” I said carefully.

She nodded. “Maven told me. Garrett said that he might still be able to get out on bail, though.”

I tried to control my anger at the thought of her talking to Garrett and not me.

“Why are you talking to my brother?” I asked carefully.

Very carefully.

“Because he was at the shop when I stopped by last night on the way home,” she answered.

I forced myself to calm down.

My brother wouldn’t do that to me.

Especially when I was so fuckin’ open with him on my feelings for the woman standing in front of me, staring at me so defiantly.

“Why didn’t you call?” I asked. “Me.”

She shrugged. “One would have to have a phone number to do that, Gable. Not to mention, you’re the one who made it loud and clear that you didn’t want to be around me.”

I most certainly had not.

“I overreacted,” I said. “That day we were doing that raid on the Aided Aimers clubhouse. I didn’t want you there. It would have been disastrous if a random member had shown up at the bar before he headed to the clubhouse, and I couldn’t have you anywhere near that bullshit again. They’re dangerous as hell, and I don’t want that filth touching you if I can help it.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well…”

My phone rang in my pocket, and I made the mistake of answering it. Though I did put it on speaker.

“Hello?” I asked, sounding just as short as I felt.

I wanted to talk to the woman in front of me. Not the one who’d called me on the phone.

“Hey,” I said to Callena. “Now’s not a good time.”

“O-oh,” Callena, my FBI contact who didn’t quite know that we had a professional relationship, and not a personal relationship, stuttered. “Well, I’m calling because I wanted to see if you had time to meet up for dinner tonight? To, uh, discuss the case?”

---