Page 55 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

“Will you do that again? I’d love a video of it so I can set your gratitude as my ringtone for every time you call.”

“That’s definitely not what happened, but if that’s what makes you happy.”

“Maybe a wee bit,” Leland says. “Not as happy as watching Jackson climb a fence today, but still pretty damn happy. We’ll figure it all out. And we’ll definitely figure out who broke your window.”

“It was you. You broke the window,” I growl.

“Wow, you suck at this. I’m glad being a detective isn’t your main job.”

“Nope, you were still the one who broke it.”

“No. Nope. I’ll probably have to enlist a sexy private investigator to figure it out.”

“Let me save you some time: it was you.”

“I don’t know about that. Anyway, how’s your shoulder?” he asks.

I pull the shirt down and peel the bandage back. Despite all I’ve been through, it hasn’t bled much since Ellis sutured it, which is good. And the pain is definitely more tolerable.

“When the hell did you have time to stop at the hospital?” Leland asks.

“I didn’t. Ellis stitched me up in the middle of the woods.”

“Damn. Looks good. Was this before or after you jumped out of a plane?”

Waylon’s head pops out of his room. “You jumped out of a plane?”

I give him a nod. “I did. You should have heard Ellis scream; he was having so much fun.”

Waylon doesn’t look convinced.

“You want to go skydiving, Waylon?” Leland asks. “Papa Leland will take you to do anything you want.”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Is there something else you want to do?”

“No, I’m fine, I don’t need anything,” he says as he heads down the hallway twirling his headphones. Leland snatches him by the neck and pulls him back.

“You tell Papa Leland what you want, you hear me?”

Waylon struggles against him, but I notice it’s much more playful than when he first brought the teen into his house. It seems like the kid is finally able to relax a bit. He even rolls his eyes as Leland grabs him in a hug, but I can see that he’s struggling not to laugh.

“Ew, gross.”

“Papa Leland must show you affection. You are going to like the affection.”

“Liking it might be farfetched.”

“Loving it,” Leland decides on. “Hey, Waylon, do you want me to teach you how to go on car chases?”

“I don’t even know how to drive yet.”

“Yeah, but if we start with something like a car chase, driving normally will be so easy. It’s like riding a bike down a hillbeforeyou put the training wheels on.”

“I’m… not sure that’s how that works. What if you do my math for me instead?” he asks.

“I won’t do it, but I’ll help you with it. If you have seven guns and you multiply them by seven-point-two guns, how many guns would you have?”

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