Page 87 of Five to Love Him
“No, you fucking didn’t, because you never give half as many fucks about doing things properly as you make it seem.”
Farrow sighed. “Leopold, I am ever so sorry for this one, but it is hard to find good help, and then when you share your blood with them it becomes even harder to keep them good. We are here because you worried us, and we have come prepared to help.”
Coral closed the door quietly behind him while Conrad showed Farrow his teeth. “Is there any fucking situation you won’t turn into an ego-trip, Farr? Don’t bother answering that. So what, is the situation taken care of already?”
He didn’t ask me but looked at the hive instead.
“I don’t think I know what you mean.”
I stepped closer to the big guy. Or the big vampire. “Excuse me. What do you do exactly? You’re a manservant?”
He rolled his eyes. “Nope. You work for him. You know what a little shit he can be. I’m an information broker. A private investigator, you could say, but I don’t actually have any of the qualifications they get these days. I freelance but work for Hawthorne most of the time.”
“Oh.”
“He’s very good. Very diligent,” the blond hive said. “What situation were you expecting we were here to take care of, Mr. Conrad?”
“Should we maybe sit down at the kitchen table?” I asked.
Gran had taught me to do that when neighbors visited, and this was the hive’s and my bosses all in one place. Leaving them standing around like this wasn’t a good move. Besides, Coral was starting to wander off into the living room, looking around and touching things.
“Sure, let’s sit and talk this out, see where we’re really at.” Conrad turned and took three long strides to the kitchen.
I caught the hive’s eye as Coral retraced his steps and followed the others to the table. The blond hive had already turned on the coffee machine from the sounds.
“Should I check upstairs?” I asked the hiveling next to me.
“What’s upstairs, Leopold? I have a suspicion, seeing as how this hive, while very accommodating, isn’t yours.”
I shrugged. “He’s resting.”
“Resting,” Farrow echoed, his eyes narrowing.
“Farr, let the man sit and tell us everything from the top.”
A hiveling nodded. “You can. He’s fine. We’ll tell you if anything changes.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
It took several minutes of rustling until everyone was sitting down and had a cup of coffee in front of them. I was glad that the hive had brought up those chairs from the basement, but unlike when he sat in them, our guests weren’t into what the hive called cozy.
Xander looked somewhat uncomfortable, Coral was just quietly observant, and Farrow made himself busy with giving Conrad as much side-eye as possible while at the same time staring at the other’s biceps.
“So what’s up precisely?” Conrad asked, looking at me. He had brown eyes, didn’t look unkind, but I couldn’t help that he had this air of intimidation, almost like a bear trap that wasn’t set but still had the bone-crushing teeth on display.
“It’s really nothing. You didn’t have to come.”
Conrad flexed his arms. I got the sense he was doing that for my benefit. Or the headprincipal’s, which was…not the kind of thing I’d have thought Farrow would enjoy.
“Look. I see these guys show up in a place, I start looking over my shoulder.”
He pointed at the blond hive.
“You make us sound dangerous when we aren’t,” the hive said.
Conrad cocked his head. “Not what I said. You know what I mean. We know a hive doesn’t get sick, we know you called everyone and told them they were, we know there was a phone call to the yoga studio from outside the state, which is interesting because I know your hive isn’t from Newstaten originally. Fill in the blanks. Sooner would be better.”
Farrow huffed as he reached for the sugar bowl the guest hive had put on the table. The headprincipal spooned three heaping teaspoons into his cup before he began to noisily stir all that sweetness into the coffee.
