Page 105 of Soft Flannel Hank

And if she wanted to leave without him, he’d find a way to let her go. He would let her go, and he wouldn’t haunt his own life in the aftermath. He would find a way tolive.

His thoughts were interrupted when Niamh whispered, “Oh, fuck.”

Hank looked over and saw Nat come out the front door. The screen door smack closed behind him. He was wearing a pair of worn jeans slung low on his rangy hips and nothing else.

Hank was hot-blooded and always wearing at least one layer less than every living soul around him, but even he wouldn’t have been out shirtless and shoeless in this weather. Then again, Nat wasn’t exactly alive.

Nat didn’t make any moves to come closer. Niamh heaved a sigh and opened her door, climbing out of the SUV and shutting it behind her. Hank got out as well and went to the trunk to start collecting the bags.

Through the windows of the car, Hank could see Niamh standing right in front of Nat, who had come down the steps and stood on the short sidewalk in front of the house. They whispered tensely, but Hank couldn’t understand a word.

As curious as he was, Hank had bigger problems than figuring out what was going on between them. If Hank had ever excelled at anything, it was minding his own business. Sometimes to a fault. Like when he didn’t understand the point at which other people’s business hadbecomehis business.

Hank slammed the trunk closed with more force than necessary to alert them of his approach. As he walked up to the house, he heard Nat hiss, “I’m not ready, Niamh.”

She spat back, “You’re not backing out on me now, Nathaniel Jasper. You gave me your word.”

Nat looked at Hank over Niamh’s shoulder. “Hank,” he said before turning a baleful glare at Niamh.

She rolled her eyes and brushed past him and up to the front door, disappearing into the house as if she’d been there a hundred times.

Nat cursed under his breath.

“I’m sorry, Nat. I didn’t have any other options,” Hank said, feeling guilty for bringing whatever this trouble was to Nat’s door.

Nat turned back to Hank and sighed heavily, an affectation, Hank knew. “It’s not your fault, buddy. This has been a powder keg for a long time. Eventually something was going to light the fuse. At least this is worth it.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Nat stared into the distance behind Hank, a far-off look on his face. “What’s up with Esther?”

Hank took the change of subject for what it was and nodded toward the house. “Let’s get inside. We’re not all cold-proof like you are.”

Hank had only been inside of Nat’s house a handful of times. Nat usually came to him. It was a warm-looking space. The front door opened into a spacious living room that bled into a kitchen. The counters were made of beautiful butcher block that Nat had finished himself. He had an overstuffed couch and two gliders in the living room with a large TV mounted on the wall.

There were two bedrooms, one of which had been converted into an office and one which served as the primary bedroom, with a worn-looking king sized bed and a navy comforter haphazardly pulled up over the pillows.

The house was cozy, and if a stranger ever found themself inside, they would think that it looked like any other bachelor pad. Which was the point. They’d see a lived-in space for a single man who didn’t cook and didn’t worry too much about decor.

They’d never find the hidden door to the basement that locked with enough deadbolts to keep out a SWAT team, the basement that was Nat’s vault where he slept during the day.

When they walked into the house, Niamh was in the kitchen.

“You don’t keepanyfood in the house?” she asked, pulling open cupboards.

“Who for?” Nat replied, his voice tight.

“Guests? Intimate accomplices?”

“Well, any guests I would have know exactly what I am. And as for the intimate accomplices, I don’t bring them here to feed them.”

Her ghost-pale face went pink with a blush that Hank was sure would have been tomato-red on him. She glared at Nat. As he returned her glare, Nat and Niamh looked like they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to commit murder or rip each other’s clothes off and go to town. “I might have known you’d be like that. You’re a pig, Nat, and I —”

“Niamh?” Hank interrupted. “I don’t want to get in the middle of… whatever this is, but we need to figure out what happened to Esther. Then you two can tear each other to pieces.”

Finally, Nat nodded to the kitchen table. He and Hank sat down. Niamh took a spot across from them. The scene felt so familiar and yet so different. Had it really only been a few weeks since he’d sat at a kitchen table with Esther and Nat in a room thick with tension, some of it sexual, some of it emotional, all of overwhelming.

“Mother of God, Nat, would you mind very much putting on a shirt?” Niamh said. “Or are we to be forced to stare at you half naked?”