Page 51 of Stutter

It’s official – I fuckingloveblizzards.

Day Three:

It snowed another two inches while we were sleeping.

The snowplows are finally making their way through Kingston, the salt spreaders right behind them.

Day Three is more or less the same as the last two days. Kronos gets a little stir crazy, and we find out Luci gets the zoomies.

When I go through the back door to let Kronos out, I head to the fence to brace myself from the wind, and notice a black Sedan parked away on the street but close enough to the house through one of the cracks of the tall wooden fence that’s hiding me. I let myself think it's Ivan, mom's old bodyguard, but there’sthis gross, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know how to explain it other than it feels the same way before every Syndicate matter I’m forced to attend.

I don’t like it at all.

Later that day, Raven's still in class and I’m bored out of my fucking mind in the den waiting for her when I hear a floorboard creak. Both Harrington and Archer fill the doorway until they’re completely secluded with me. I decide now is the time to tell them while my baby is still upstairs being cute and studious.

I don’t beat around the bush. “I think we're being watched.”

Maverick, dressed in sweats and a button up since he’s only being seen from the chest up looks up from where he's standing in front of the full-length mirror (my request when we moved in just in case Raven lets me plow into her in here) (she does) to look at me through his reflection. “You're sure?”

“No, but every time I’ve taken Kronos out, I’ve seen a black, four-door Sedan. It’s been there. Sometimes it’s on. Sometimes it’s off. But it hasn’t moved an inch and there’s no snow on the windows. That’s weird, right?”

Damon flicks those silver flames of his to Mav's. I know I’m goofy and sometimes childish, but when it comes to my girl, I’m an over-protective asshole. Nothing skips by me. So this little intimate look they’re having, tells me a little too much. “What are you hiding from us?” I say us, because I know this means they’re hiding it from my baby girl, too.

Damon sighs, “Are you sure it hasn’t moved?”

“No. But every time I see it, I get the same hopeless feeling I do when I see Stephen Prescott. I don’t trust it.”

Damon turns to me while he’s pinching the bridge of his nose, and he has that look on his face that says he’s about to tell me I’m fucking paranoid.

I stand up from the chaise I’m sitting on. “Oh no, fuck that, Archer. You made the mistake of not believing Raven once, don’t make the mistake of not believing me. I-“

“Calm down, Jonas. I believe you. Maverick already told us one of us is being followed, remember?”

I nod.

“There’s a Detective that was made aware of Maverick going with me to my father’s for Thanksgiving and then to Paris for the weekend. Whether they followed us all the way to Paris or just to the airport is unknown. But, for now, we’re assuming it’s just us. So… Harrington let the Detective think he and I are…”

His pause is nine months pregnant.

“Are…?”I shrug, gesturing to him to continue, letting the question hang in the air.

“Together. As in… we’re dating and serious.”

Oh my god.

I burst out in a laugh so loud and ugly it makes my sides hurt and my abs burn. “This is fucking great!” I laugh, breaking out in tears.

Damon clears his throat. “We’ve already spoken to HR to… make it official.” He groans out.

“Well, don’t say it like that.” Maverick pouts.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re… I don’t know,” he shrugs, twirling a wrist, “ashamedof dating me.”

“I’m not asha- We aren’t dating!” Damon scowls.

Now Maverick bursts out laughing and it is the oddest thing I have ever heard. I didn’t even know he could do that. “I’m fucking with you. You and I would never work.”

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