Page 27 of The Killer Card

5 Days Before the Wedding

Chapter Eight

Graham

I’m not sure there are words for how much I don’t want to be here right now. Immensely, desperately, immeasurably are a few. I would quite literally rather be anywhere else. Swimming in that nasty fucking lake, working a double Saturday shift alone, prison- anywhere other than at this counter.

Ripping off another bite of my breakfast burrito, I wash it down with, admittedly, too much coffee. And I start choking, loudly. Embarrassingly loud.

Rowan thumps me hard on the back a few times before I shake him off. “Estás bien, asere?”

“Yeah,” I choke out, reaching for my iced coffee again. “Solo estoy intentando matarme antes de que lo haga la arpía.”

Cristian snorts, throwing a subtle glance past me to the table where the girls are sitting with Elias. “Those talons are pretty sharp.”

"No one is killing anyone,” Rowan mutters in Spanish. Then throws me a glare. “Least of all themselves. Do I need to go through your shit again?”

“You literally picked me up from the airport.” I take another sip of coffee, tiling the cup toward him as I raise a brow. “Unless you wanted to do a cavity search- Ow!”

Rowan smacks me in the back of the head, going back to his sandwich with a roll of his eyes. “Suck my dick.”

“Ask nicely.” He glares at me as he wrenches a bite off his sandwich and I blow him a kiss. Then I turn to Cristian to beg for the third time, “Switch beds with me.”

Instead of answering- because his mouth is full and he’s polite- he gives me the finger.

“Come on,” I plead. “I can’t sleep down here, she’s going to smother me in my sleep.”

Luckily, Elias’s son and Naomi have been at odds since middle school, so he finds absolutely nothing absurd about my anxiety. In fact, he finds it completely valid, maybe even mildly amusing.

Without question, Cristian sets his sandwich down. “Uno,” he takes a sip of coffee. “She won’t smother you. The cabin came with a knife block. She’d definitely stab you to death—”

“Chico—”

“Dos,” Cristian chuckles, leaning his arms on the counter. “My being up there might be the only thing keeping them from fucking.” He nods to Poppy now sitting in his dad’s lap. “You think if you’re up there that they’ll bother to keep the noise down?”

Glancing at my friend and his beautiful bride, I concede with a shrug to his son, “I am okay with that.”

“Estás bien bellaco.”

“No one is switching sleeping arrangements,” Elias chimes in. I groan and lay my forehead on the counter. “You either sleep on that couch or on Rowan’s couch—”

I lift pleading eyes to my last remaining friend. “Rowan, por favor—”

“Absolutely not.”

“I have no friends.” I shove the last bite of burrito in my mouth, balling up the tin foil it came in.

“Nor do I it seems,” Naomi mutters.

The sound of her voice- the first words she’s spoken since she arrived with breakfast- hit me like a fucking freight train. It’s slow and sultry and I fucking hate the way my body responds as if it hasn’t been well over a year since I last saw her. I hate the way I immediately want nothing more than for her shove me down, put her boot on chest, overpower me, possess me—

FUCKING STOP!

I suck down the rest of my coffee in one deep gulp as everyone gets up to go enjoy the breezy Vermont weather out on the porch. Standing I cross to the trashcan, throwing out my cup and tin foil ball. Reaching for the soap, my fingers tingle when they brush along the familiar, ebony elegance of Naomi’s pinky.

Jerking back, I take a step away from the sink, gesturing for her to go first. She does, not looking at me as she scrubs and then dries her hands on a spare kitchen towel.

I try so hard not to look at her. I try desperately not to notice how her jeans are practically painted on or how soft her cashmere sweater might be beneath my fingers. Her hair is different than I last saw her, long tight coils falling down her back. It’s perfect, regal even.