Page 20 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
As if on cue, Twist poked her head out of my jacket and stared at the young—I suspected high school aged—woman, who cooed. “Aww, isn’t he adorable?”
“She,” I corrected.
“She,” she agreed instantly. Then she turned around and said to someone behind her, “Add an extra plain chicken breast for the kitty. It’ll be good for her.”
I refrained from scoffing and explaining that every one of them was for the kitty, but it was sweet that she was doing a kind thing for Twist, so I wasn’t going to be rude. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that,” I told her when she turned back.
They put it all in an extra bag for me, since I was carrying it on my bike, and off we went, back to the shop.
I parked and headed toward the front, only to find a pile of big black trash bags sitting next to the door.
“Your new friend is sure a hard worker,” Suzy said, slowly pulling some leaves away from her mouth as she spoke. “Never seen anyone moveso fast.”
I turned and looked at her, motioning to the trash bags. “Davin did this?”
She gave a slow nod, lifting her head slightly and looking at it. “Sure did. Is he a cleaner?”
My eyes narrowed as I stared at the bags. “I’m not sure, Suz. I’ll let you know.”
I didn’t have to unlock the door to get in, which made sense if Davin was—hell, I didn’t know. What the heck was he doing?
I marched through the empty main office area straight to the back, only to find...very little. I looked around the room in dismay, then back at Davin, who was sitting in my office chair, going through a stack of newspapers.
“Where’s my coffee maker?” I demanded.
He looked up at me, one brow lifted. “The broken one, with no pot?”
“I was going to fix it.” Maybe. Maybe I was going to fix it. I wasn’t going to tell him that part, though. I’d tried to find a replacement pot, but they didn’t make the same model anymore, and it hadn’t been the standard size and shape. Then I’d forgotten about it, because who had a ton of time to spend on coffee, when I didn’t even like coffee that much?
He shrugged. “I looked up the parts and they were more expensive than just getting a new one.”
I glared at him, because that was just wasteful. I’d been saving it because I didn’t want to add to a landfill when it was a mostly functional object. Kind of functional. Ish. I swept my gaze over the whole room, trying to locate all the damage he’d done. “What about the extra office chair?”
“Also broken. You had the wrong base for it, and the upholstery smelled like rat piss.” He motioned to the newspapers he was going through. “These are from all last year, and I’ve only found you or your mother mentioned in one, so I’m tossing the rest, yeah?”
“I...” WhyhadI been keeping those? I didn’t really remember, honestly. So instead of defending the pile of newspapers, I just whined. “My stuff.”
“Yes, I understand,” he said, and his tone was weirdly agreeable. Then he continued, “You Americans call it hoarding, right?”
“I amnota hoarder. Those things were all useful. I?—”
The look on his face was...well fuck, it reminded me of my mother’s expressions. Like I was the most ridiculous person ever to attempt personhood, and he was not having my shit. “The ancient tube television that didn’t even have a plug attached to the cord? The filing cabinet that was rusted shut? The melted plastic folders sitting on the broken hotplate that sparked when I unplugged it? The math homework dated two-thousand-three?”
“That was my emotional support math homework,” I insisted.
His eyes narrowed. “I actually saved the homework, since I thought there might be some sentimental value. The teacher said nice things on it. But don’t use actual mental health issues to pretend something is important when it’s clearly not. It cheapens the real problems people have.”
I scowled at that, because how did he know I didn’t have real problems? The pile of homework alone probably said something about my failure to exist as an adult human being, or whatever. Daddy issues? No, probably Mother issues, because I loved her, but also...Mother. The woman who’d forced an unasked for business and business partner on me, and I’d just accepted it rather than arguing. Clearly, there were issues.
Before I could insist that the hot plate was, in fact, important to my mental health, he cut me off. “If you cared about these things, you’d take better care of them. They wouldn’t all be broken. These are things you meant to do, to build, to make, to organize, and just never did.”
“You’ve been talking to my mother,” I accused, because there was no other way he could have pegged the situation so easily, and his return head-cock and lifted eyebrow said “no shit” right back.
Because of course he’d been talking to my mother. Mother had sent him to me. She’d probably warned him that I was a thirty-something man child who was incapable of doing the most basic things to care for himself.
But hey, I had done the most basic thing! Sure, it was two in the afternoon, and I’d eaten leftover garlic butter asparagus for breakfast, but I had lunch. I held up the bag, still scowling at Davin. “And to think I bought you lunch.”
That got me a second lifted brow.
