Page 42 of Penny for Your Saints

Time to get to work.

I open the door and walk directly into a wall of scent; rose, iris, sandalwood, pink pepper, scotch, and a bright sliver of green apple—the baked animal smell of sex running through them like a glimmering golden thread.

Louise lays sleeping on the sofa, covered by a tattered flat sheet; Quentin sleeping on the floor beside her—a cushion from the sofa tucked under his head—his white silk blend shirt devoid of buttons and open across his broad, bare chest.

I can hear the buzzing of Caz and Seb speaking in whispers and smell the sweet-herbal tang of weed smoke mixed with Seb’s 27’s before I see them. Seb’s eyes catch me—his chin dipping in a nod of acknowledgement as he stands huddled with Caz next to the cracked window in the rectangle of linoleum furnished with a fridge and microwave that passes for a kitchen.

At the sound of my entry, one of Quentin’s chartreuse eyes cracks open and fixes on me.

Once upon a time, Q would have sprung to his feet and begged for my forgiveness—or at least been concerned about what I thought… Now he just lets that one lazy eye follow me, waiting to see if I’m going to make a scene now, or if it’s going to be a fight later.

Oh, it’ll be a fight—but that’s later. We need to get down to brass tacks now.

“Rise and shine, sleepyheads!” I snap, dropping my keys onto the pressure board table—Louise startling awake at the sound.

“Jesus,” she grumbles as she gathers her senses, wrapping herself tightly in the flimsy flat sheet.

“Sorry, Madam Morning Star, I couldn’t get the big J to make an appearance. You’ll have to make do with me.” I step over Quentin’s legs and flop onto the open cushion beside her. “Looks like you two used your time… well.” I take a deep inhale through my nose—the intoxicating smell of their scents, commingling almost enough to make me hard.

“You didn’t get us any meds, did you?” Quentin yawns, sitting up from his place on the floor and rubbing his eyes.

“I was running around enough getting our Little Lucifer her proof,” I challenge, leaning back into the sofa extending my arm along the back watching as Louise recoils from any place where my bare skin might touch hers; the sheet pooled around her nearly bare shoulders.

“Well, busy or not—we’re both getting closer to heat. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better,” Q explains, his beautiful features twisted with impatience before adding. “If you were here—you could have done something about it, but—.” He shrugs, lifting himself from the floor to prop himself and his erstwhile pillow on the other side of Louise on the open couch.

It’s not lost on me that Caz and Seb have halted their conversation and are watching our exchange as if they’re two old ladies—tuned into their ‘stories’—completely absorbed in daytime soap drama. Fine, let them look. Like Q said—shit’s only gonna get worse before it gets better.

“I didn’t say anything! You two are the ones getting defensive. I was just surprised that the industrious Q decided to nap off the afternoon. Whereas, Louise, you’ve obviously beenthrough a lot in the past few days.” I knit my brows and pout my lips in a caricature of concern. “I’d expect you need to recoup a little beauty sleep, you’ve been looking rough around the edges.” I open my hands, palms out as if asking for mercy or proclaiming surrender; Louise’s cinnamon eyes following me closely with their burning intensity.

“If you’d walked through that door and hadn’t immediately sniffed out that we’d had a shag, you wouldn’t be acting like such a spoiled brat right now, Francis,” he fires back, clipped and aloof. God, it only makes me want to wipe that smug look off his face, that little moaning sound he makes when his features go slack with pleasure.

“Maybe not, maybe y’all have got me skirtin’ the edge of a rut with all this goddamn perfume,” I rumble, shooting a glance at Seb and Caz—his cheeks rosy with a furious blush that creeps all the way up over the tops of his ears. “Hell, Little Lucifer on her own got our fucking theta to break down and bury himself in that sweet sigma pussy before she’s even off her meds,” I tease, captivated by the way that Louise and Caz exchange a furtive glance—something much more tangled than pure lust passing between them.

Q sees it too, the green monster of jealousy reflected in his already verdant gaze as he scouts that glimmering thread stretching unbroken between the two.

Good. Jealousy will keep him on his toes, it will keep him hungry—the dynamic off balance, no danger of starting to feel like some little fucked up dysfunctional family—like some deranged pack.

“Are you going to run your mouth? Or are you going to show Louise whatever it is you’ve scraped off the belly of the criminal underworld,” Quentin quips nastily.

At this, Caz and Seb creep closer—both eager to see what I’ve brought that might appease the devil herself.

“I don’t know, are you ready?” Turning my attention to Louise, I pull the smart phone—its sim card long abandoned, its only contents; the single video file I’m about to show her—the phone’s sole purpose for existence.

Her set brows and down-turned lips lift slightly as if she’s thinking about giving me some kind of catty response—but all she does is pull the cocoon of flat sheet up around her neck until the folds of white threaten to overtake her ears; her messy bun listing dangerously to the left like some kind of coppery pom pom as she nods in the affirmative.

Seb and Caz drift around the sofa until they’re both standing behind us, gently leaning over either of Louise’s shoulders to get a look at the phone screen as I open the nearly empty file folder and the one video saved to the device.

Louise makes an awful gurgling strangled noise when the modest sized touch screen comes to life, her former mentor—Susan Lowry, in 480p. Her frosty blond hair is thrown into a similarly messy bun atop her head—a thick quilted black velvet robe wrapped around her, a shearling trim slide-slipper dangling from her foot, a glass of red wine swirling lazily in one hand.

“Please, Francis—don’t try to pull that kind of bullshit with me,” she laughs, obviously familiar.

“Listen—all of you decided it was the best course of action. Trust me—I didn’t want to fake my own death, but when you told me that was the way it was going to go—I went with the flow!” My own voice, loud but strangely muffled by the breast pocket of my trusty leather jacket.

“It was a mess, I’ll give you that,” Susan sighs with disgust before taking a swig of her wine. “They were sloppy, but this little rag-tag team of Saints you’ve put together, darling? Now that’s a downright disaster waiting to happen.”

The boys exchange curious glances, but they know about my career transition from Fed to Saint already. While I had wondered if Louise had recognized my face from my time at the bureau. I suppose it’s not surprising that she wouldn’t recognize me. Frank the Saint and Francis the Fed were—well are,two very different men.

Louise, on the other hand, keeps snapping her head up to look at me for split second intervals before staring in disbelief into Susan’s cold, beautiful face—her eyes moving with the tiny movements of intense, racing thought as she runs the mental arithmetic on who I might be.

---