Page 83 of Life To My Flight

“You think I’m kidding, don’t you?” He asked with a raised brow.

I shook my head. “No, I know you’re completely serious. I just wish you’d chill. Nothing’s going to hurt me.”

“Says the person who got her place vandalized, and a message on her car that said if she didn’t withdraw her testimony, her face would look as bad as her car,” Loki muttered from behind me.

I blinked and turned my body until I was half turned to look at him. “It said that?”

He looked at me peculiarly. “The cops didn’t tell you?”

I shook my head. “No. It was still dark and I avoided looking at it. Now I’m pretty sure I should’ve just looked at it.”

“Here, Mina said to give this to you. Sorry she can’t come out. She’s pretty sure she has the flu or something,” Tunnel muttered as he extended a couple Band-Aid’s and alcohol wipes.

I giggled as I reached for the offerings, then rolled my eyes as the man at my side took them from me instead.

He opened the alcohol wipes before methodically wiping my hand and arm clean of the blood. “This is ugly,” he muttered.

I looked down at the cuts and bite marks. “It’s not too bad. She was just scared.”

He grumbled something under his breath, and although I didn’t hear it very clearly, I was fairly positive it had something to do with “gator bait.”

“Silas called. He asked me to tell you that he wants you to stop by later on your way home from here,” Tunnel said as he came to a stop at the swing connected to the porch’s ceiling and sat down.

“Okay,” Cleo agreed. “Thanks.”

“Why didn’t he just call you?” I wondered as he started placing Batman Band-Aids over my various cuts.

“My phone’s not behaving. It’s been out of whack for going on a week now and doesn’t even work most of the time. That’s why I haven’t called you. The charger I have for work doesn’t work right, either,” he said as he placed the last Band-Aid on.

So that was why he hadn’t been calling me. Huh. I guess that was a good enough excuse. “I’d been wondering where you were.”

“Just work. Or what used to be work. Don’t know what they’re going to do in two days when my shift’s back up again. Mac is still out. He has pneumonia now, and all the other shifts have been putting in just as much work as I have,” Cleo said as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close to his side.

I leaned into him, laying my head on his shoulder. “What are you going to do with all your free time?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Guess we’ll see. I’m sure Silas has something for me to do; if anything else, I can always pull a couple of shifts at Halligans and Handcuffs.”

“You’d probably make shit money there. You’re not nice enough to work the bar or any of the tables. The only thing you could do is cook, and we already know you don’t do that,” Loki returned.

I looked at Loki and winked at him. “Cleo’s a nice man. You just have to appeal to his sense of interest.”

Trance, who’d been quiet up until now, snorted. “I’m not sure that’s the way most people work. I, of course, am a people person. Day in and day out I make an effort to at least appear like I care. That’s the problem with Cleo-Patrick. If he’s not interested, he’s not going to try. Cleo-Patrick doesn’t care enough about other people to waste his effort.”

I turned to Cleo. “Why do they call you Cleo-Patrick?”

He rolled his eyes down to mine. “That’s just a nickname I got when I first entered the club. They said I resembled an Egyptian pharaoh or some shit, and started calling me Cleo-Patrick as opposed to Cleopatra. Name stuck, but I wasn’t answering to Cleo-Patrick, so they shortened it to Cleo. Cleo I can handle.”

I giggled. “That’s cute.”

He squeezed my waist. “I’m not cute.”

“Of course you’re not,” I lied.

***

Cleo

“Silas didn’t sound like he was going to let you quit work, though, from what he told me.” Tunnel said. “What he made it sound like was that he had plans in motion, and that you were supposed to go to your assigned shift like normal.”

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