Page 95 of Double Shot

“So suddenly my head ain’t good enough for them anymore?”

“Dan, that’s really not what you should be focusing on here,” Rafe said incredulously. “Should we call the cops?”

“They won’t do anything. Besides, why bother?” Dan huffed. “Clearly they’re not going to be coming after me, so what do I care?”

“Uh, because they might do something equally fucked up to someone else.”

“They seemed to be all about the zippers now, actually.” Klaus said. “So hopefully that means they won’t be trying to steal any more, um, body parts.”

He still looked anxious, as if he thought he’d done something wrong by mentioning Frank and Beans in the first place. I reached across to rest my hand on his knee, giving it a comforting squeeze. He smiled over at me gratefully and covered my hand with his.

“Yeah, they told me the zipper thing when they tried to mug me.” Rafe sounded sceptical. “It’s so weak. Their public image is going to tank from that.”

“They tried to mug you?” Klaus asked in astonishment, at the same time as I said, “Public image?”

“Did you tell Holt?” Dan asked me. “That they’re back in town?”

I winced yet again. “No. I honestly forgot about it, Dan. I’m really sorry. I just… I got… distracted.”

By Klaus. I’d been wholly consumed with thoughts of Klaus for weeks now. It had genuinely slipped my mind that Frank and Beans had turned up that night at the motel. I hadn’t seen them again, and I’d been operating on no sleep as well as fixating on the fact that I’d just sucked Klaus’s dick on the front desk of the motel. As soon as I’d gotten home that morning, I’d collapsed into bed and passed out for eight hours. When I’d woken up, all I’d thought about was sucking Klaus’s dick again, and I’d jerked off before finally getting up to get ready for work.

Klaus shot me his coy little smile that told me he knew exactly what had distracted me that morning.

“Are you sure that if you tell Holt they’re back in town, he won’t just start coming up with ideas to have them return for a big surprise Goliaths special?” Rafe asked cynically.

Klaus gasped. “He wouldn’t do that, would he? Not after everything they put you through?”

“They’re probably not even in town anymore,” I pointed out.

“That’s right!” Klaus nodded. “They said they were just here to keep a low profile for a couple of weeks before they, um… I think they said they were planning to hit up a jeans factory in California? So they must be long gone by now.”

Rafe huffed and sat back in his chair, shaking his head as he sipped his beer. “Man, the zipper thing is so fucking weak. They’re going completely off-brand.”

Dan seemed distracted now. He drained the rest of his beer in one long, angry gulp, then abruptly stood from the table. “We should get goin’.”

Rafe stared up at him and snorted with incredulous amusement. “Dan, are you seriously offended that they’re not interested in stealing your head anymore?”

The dullahan just lifted his shoulders in a jerky, moody shrug, which made Rafe burst out laughing.

“You’re such a dork,” he said as he stood and laced his fingers through Dan’s. “I thought the night you and Vince went to their house was the most traumatic night of your life.”

“It was, kitten. Shit.” Dan looked at Rafe. “Do I need to tell Vince they were back in town?”

Rafe made a face. “He still goes on about the pair of pants they stole from him, so I wouldn’t. It’ll just rile him up again.”

“And they’re probably not even in town anymore,” I said, quickly standing up from my own seat as Klaus did the same and we shared another brief look.

They were leaving. Fucking finally.

It didn’t take long to get them out the door. Klaus was great at maintaining the same friendly air without allowing any new topics of conversation to crop up and delay their departure, but Dan managed to sneak one in at the last second, when Rafe was already waiting for him on the front porch.

“Lookin’ forward to the team-building day next week?” he asked me at the door, clapping me on the shoulder. I guessed that meant he’d forgiven me for forgetting about Frank and Beans.

I made a face. “Not really.”

He laughed. “Me neither. Rafe is fucking dreading it.”

“I am,” Rafe said woodenly from the porch.