Page 64 of Double Shot

They’re Here

Klaus

“Um… what?” My brow wrinkled with confusion. I glanced at the door. “Did you forget another bag of food in the car?”

“No. It’s—”

The door burst open, making me jump and almost drop my coconut cream pie. Brian’s wide back tensed even more as I peered around it to see two short, skinny men sauntering into the room.

Well, one was sauntering. The other was hopping forward on one leg, the other up in the air as he held some kind of martial arts pose, kicking repeatedly at nothing and going, “Yah! Yah!”

“Did you just kick the door open?” I asked in disbelief.

Brian got even tenser when I addressed them directly, but I wasn’t sure why he was reacting like this. They were just two guys. Sure, they were dressed in matching red boiler suits and fedoras, and one was wearing a fake beard—made of painted cotton balls, by the looks of it—while the other had on a pair of sunglasses with tiny red lenses, but other than that, they didn’t look too weird. At least, not to me. Like I’d said to Vince and Crossbody, I worked in a motel. I’d seen far, far weirder than this.

“Yeah,” one of them barked—the one with the cotton ball beard. He was still jabbing his foot in the air. His balance was pretty impressive, honestly. “What are you gonna do about it, pal?”

A low, rumbly sound filled the air, and it took me a second to realise that it was coming from Brian. Oh Lucifer, he was actually growling. So freaking hot. And he had positioned himself in front of me even more, like he was shielding me from them. I suppressed my squeal, standing up so I could peer around him at the duo.

“We’re here for a room, buddy-boy,” the one with the tiny sunglasses said, pretending to examine his fingernails. I knew he was pretending, because he had gloves on. “Book us in. Preferably something with a hot dog theme or just a hot dog vending machine outside.”

“Uh… we don’t have either of those.” I glanced up at Brian. He was frowning at the pair, his expression cold and hard again, his dark brows pulled low over his blue eyes.

“Fine. We’ll just have two dozen hot dogs delivered to the room, then. In the brine. If they don’t come in the brine, I will send them back.”

“Four dozen,” the other one said, kicking the air one last time before lowering his leg and dropping into a very wide squat. He clapped his hands together and closed his eyes, then let out a loud, forceful fart before slowly straightening.

I wrinkled my nose. “Hey. No. Have some manners. And we’re a motel—we don’t do food. Especially not room service. There’s a diner down the street that serves hot dogs.”

“We can’t go to no janky-butt diner, man!” Tiny Sunglasses sauntered forward, cocking his head as he eyed up Brian. Cotton Ball Beard followed, snapping his fingers ominously. “We gotta keep a low profile.”

“We’re on the run,” Cotton Ball Beard added, sounding proud about it. “We’re fugitives.”

“We’re not supposed to tell people that part, Mash,” Tiny Sunglasses muttered.

“Sorry, Frank,” Mash muttered back. “Forgot.”

“It’s Banger now, remember?”

Brian finally spoke. “Frank, Beans, what the fuck are you doing here?”

They both blinked up at him owlishly, their heads craned right back.

“Do we know you?” Frank—or Banger—asked suspiciously. “You do look familiar.”

As Brian huffed in exasperation and scrubbed a hand down his face, Mash—or… Beans?—said, “Are you with the government?”

“I worked with you for three years,” Brian told them in a flat voice. “At Goliaths. I’m Brian. B. Were.”

The pair of them froze. Then Beans began to emit a sound—almost like a low, warning kind of hiss similar to a cat—while Frank cleared his throat and plastered a wide, toothy smile on his face.

I reared back a little, still peeking from behind Brian’s back. Okay, that smile was definitely creepy.

“Brian!” Frank chortled, stepping closer and holding out a hand, then pulling it back, then awkwardly patting Brian’s leg. “Bri, my guy! Good to see you. How’s the… kids?”

My eyes grew very, very wide until Brian huffed and said, “I don’t have kids.”

Frank waved a hand. “I meant it figuratively.”