Page 70 of Fight

Harley shakes her head, “No, I haven’t, which is odd because normally, he would’ve made himself known again by this point.”

“Good.” Rome replies, “You guys have security cameras here, right?”

“Yeah,” Nash replies as he walks into the room.

“Is it okay if we come up and check them tomorrow, just in case?” Rome asks.

Nash nods, “Yeah, of course.”

“Great, we’ll see you tomorrow then. We’ll give you a message when we’re on the way over; if anything happens between then and now, call us, and we’ll be here in seconds, got it?” I ask Harley in particular.

“Got it,” she replies with a smile.

“Hey guys,” Lorcan says as he walks in the front door, “Ace finally managed to get Murph in his carrier; boy, is that cat spitting fucking mad. He told me to tell you guys that he’s heading straight home, and he’ll meet you there.”

Once the guys and I have stopped laughing, Rip replies, “We better get going. We’ll see you guys tomorrow to check out the cameras.”

“See you guys,” Harley replies.

*********

Walking through the front door of our home, a wash of warmth and a sense of home just washes over me, and I feel all of the tension that I hadn’t realised that I was still carrying disperse immediately.

Sighing heavily, Rome says, “It’s fucking good to be home.”

“Isn’t it,” Ace grins as the dogs race past us, and he sets down Murphy’s cat carrier and opens the door.

I expect Murphy to come rushing out, happy to be home, but instead, he doesn’t get out; we all watch, amused, as Ace gets down onto the floor and looks into the crate.

“Come on, Murphy, man, we’re home? Don’t you want to come out?” he tries to reason and is met with a cat growl.

I burst out laughing, “I think he’s mad at you.”

Ace sighs as he gets up, “Yeah, he’s definitely mad. I’m going to have to bribe him out. I wonder if we have anything that’s still good in the kitchen.”

Dumping my bag, I follow him. I’m hungry after all of that traveling anyway, but when we get in there and catch up with the others, Rome is closing the fridge with a frown which doesn’t look promising.

“There’s fuck all here. We need to do a food shop as soon as possible, we’ve got canned goods, and that’s pretty much it,” Rome tells us all, and I groan.

“Damn it, I’m hungry,” I grumble.

Rip chuckles, pulling me down to sit on his lap, “Don’t worry, we can get takeaway tonight, and we can add it to the list of shit we need to do tomorrow.”

“Good point,” Mason agrees as he continues searching the cupboards, “I’ll make a list of shit we need, and we’re all going to have to learn how to cook proper meals unless we want to hire someone.”

“No, I don’t want staff here now,” I reply firmly. It would be too weird. “We can find some recipes for beginners and see what we can do. It might be fun.”

“Yeah, I’m up for that,” Rome replies.

While the guys start to look up recipes and Ace reminds everyone that we’re going to need cat food and treats, but we’ve got dog food for a while, my phone buzzes, and I pull it out, a happy smile stretches across my face.

“Erm, guys?” I interrupt, and they all stop and look back at me. “The finding new recipes may have to wait. Gerald just texted me and said that there’s a food order being delivered tomorrow.”

Rome grins, “I should’ve known that he’d have us covered and that there was no way that he was going to leave us without food or to fend for ourselves.”

“Should we be offended that he thinks that we can’t fend for ourselves?” Rip asks, amusement in his tone.

“Nope, it’s Gerald. He loves taking care of us,” Mal adds with a fond smile.

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