Page 37 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
Which was...a fair question. I considered a moment before shrugging. “I might not drink coffee, but most people do.” I motioned to the cups on the table. “You clearly do, since I can smell coffee.”
“Of course I do,” he agreed. “I’m not a monster.”
And that? A vampire, telling methatat nine in the morning, after he’d brought me a freaking cup of tea? Not only that, but jasmine tea with no artificial flavorings or sugar, my personal favorite?
Well.
I was living in the Twilight Zone or some shit.
He also had some breakfast sandwiches, which weren’t the world’s best, but I was never one to complain about free food, especially after what I’d spent the day before trying to keep Twist fed.
We were just finishing up when there was a loud knock on the front office door. I scowled at that, because it wasn’t even nine-thirty. The people to see the shop next door should not be arriving already, and I wasn’t going over there yet. If they were that early, they could wait.
Actually, I needed to remember where I’d put the extra keys to the space next door. Yeah, I had a set on my own keyring, but I wasn’t handing over my only set to whoever leased the place.
I was still sitting there glaring at the open door between us and the front room, when Davin hopped up and rushed off to answer it.
Fuck me, but the guy was just—no wonder my mother liked him so much. He was weirdly accommodating, especially for someone who looked like the definition of “alpha male.” Six feet tall, broad shoulders, square jaw, intense gaze...and yet, he kept doing what people around him wanted.
I finally pushed up off the couch, leaving Twist to keep chewing on her brisket, and as I headed through the door into the front room, I realized there was his “I’m the big bad” voice. Cool, calm, and brooking no argument. “I don’t believe Mr. Knight ordered this, and we can’t accept delivery if it isn’t for us. I definitely will not ‘just sign’ your documents.”
I got out there to find he was arguing with a guy in a jumpsuit, who was waving a clipboard around. “Davin?” I asked.
“They’re trying to deliver furniture,” he said, turning to look at me, his lips drawn tight and eyes narrowed.
Wow. The guy was as paranoid as Wu Mei and my mother.
I stretched my back as I joined them, and it gave a few satisfying pops. “Who’s the delivery for?” I asked, giving in and yawning at the end.
“Knight and Daywalker, security associates.” The guy held up the clipboard. “Billed to one?—”
“Fiona Knight,” I finished for him.
Davin turned to me, disbelieving. “You’re joking.”
I turned a lifted brow to him. “Please. First she gave me a ready-made partner whom she personally vetted. Now she’s furnishing my office. If it were anyone but my mother, I’d say she has cancer and she’s trying to make sure I can take care of myself when she’s gone.”
“But it is your mam,” Davin pointed out.
For some reason, that struck me as funny. Was he worried I thought vampires got cancer? I shook my head and explained, “Which means she’s just being controlling and weird.”
“So we’re good here?” the impatient delivery man asked. “ ’Cause I got a whole lot of stuff to unload, and I’d like to be finished before noon so I can have lunch before my next delivery.”
Lunch. Jesus, how much crap had my mother sent?
Maybe I didn’t want to know. Either way, I took the clipboard when he handed it to me and signed my name. “It all goes in the front room, right?”
He poked his head in the door and looked around, eyes narrowed in consideration. Then he turned to me and gave a nod. “Yeah. Looks just about perfect, in fact. You want it set up a specific way?”
“You’re the furniture guy,” I told him, waving at the whole room without looking around. “How about you make it look like an office, and if we have issues, we can move it around ourselves later?”
“Sounds like a good deal to me. You got something to prop this door open?”
“Sure do,” I agreed, leaning down to grab the rubber stopper that I’d never once used and tossing it to him. “We’re going to be showing the shop next door to potential renters, so you just do your thing. Kitten in the back office, so probably don’t open that door.”
“You got it bud. We’ll be out of here before you can say meatball sandwich.” He gave me a salute and headed in the direction of a truck that was backing toward the sidewalk nearest us.
Good thing for them that the office was so close to the parking lot, or they’d have had a terrible job for the morning.
