I shook my head at him. “You were a handful when you were younger, weren’t you?”
He scoffed.
“What if they arrest me?”
“For what? Lying about where you’ll be sleeping?”
For some reason, when he saidwhere you’ll be sleeping, my brain went to me sleeping in his bed, and I nearly choked on the water I was sipping.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I croaked out.
Should I have been thinking about being in bed with my best friend after a colleague’s head had exploded in front of me earlier in the morning? Probably not. Could I help it? No. Did it make me a terribly shallow person? Yes. Most definitely. But the more I thought about it, I realized that if a complete stranger had been killed in front of me, I would probably be broken and sobbing on the floor. A stranger I would have cared for more. Senan Weaver—the only emotion I could dredge up was that I’d never have to hear his snarly tone anymore or see him smirking when I lost my footing and took a tumble.
Eli drove me to my apartment and parked his Lexus SUV a block away. He turned in the seat to look at me. “We’re going to run in, pack all your clothes, your laptop, shoes, everything you’re going to need to camp out at my place for the next few weeks.”
I nodded.
“You’re going to hide out like Michael until this blows over, or until we—meaning the marshals—and the Feds figure out what the hell is going on.”
“I know when you saidusyou meant the marshals.”
“That’s because you’re very clever.”
I grunted. “Michael who?”
“Corleone,” he said like I was stupid, then grinned.
“Oh God,” I groaned.
“Now you want Italian, don’t you?” he teased me. He’d do anything to make me feel better, even if it was to act like a giant nerd. “I’ll get the eggplant parmesan you love.”
“You have lost your mind,” I assured him.
“Just do what I say and let me take care of you.”
He had no idea how much I wanted to lean on him. The issue was, if I wasn’t careful and let down my guard, let him see all my hunger and need, I’d scare him to death. Playing it cool—like I was his best bro, the greatest wingman in the world, a man who absolutely did not want to kiss him breathless—was the only play I had.
“Cel?”
“Fine,” I agreed, nearly choking on more water I’d swallowed hastily.
There were reporters in front of my building, of course there were, and so Eli and I went around the back and inside, going up to my studio apartment.
“Did it look this bad last night?”
“I’m sorry?” I snapped defensively. “It does not look bad.”
“Maybe I didn’t notice the mess because it was dark.”
I growled at him. “It was notdarkinside.”
“Why does it look like you just had a keg party in here?”
“Oh, it does not,” I snapped at him. I had cleaned two days ago. “It’s cluttered but not messy.” The look I got, like he wasn’t sure what I was talking about, made me glare at him. “It’s just, when a place is this small, things get stacked up without any real intention. As you know, I’m not a hoarder. I just don’t have enough space.”
“The fact that you store tights in your immaculately clean and never used oven automatically makes me the better cook,” he quipped, watching me place them into my Louis Vuitton hard-sided suitcase. I also had a rolling suitcase and a duffel, and I gathered all the items that went into my backpack and inner pouches and my shaving kit. I was systematically moving everything from my closet into my luggage. “This is why you live in a studio apartment,” he waxed on as I rolled my eyes. “All this, together, costs more than my car.”