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“Believe it or not, horse gambling was not something we learned about in veterinary school. Also, I think you cheated, but I don’t know how.”
“Yeah,” Jem said. “Obviously.”
“How stupid are you?” North said. “I could have shot you.”
“With your invisible gun,” Jem said, grinning as his gaze raked North up and down. “Sweet.”
North glared at him. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He put them on his hips, finally, and for some reason that made Jem break up laughing. Growling, North pushed past him. He was gentler with Tean, hands on Tean’s shoulders, easing him out of the way, but that went about as well as could be expected because Tean immediately got flustered, and his feet tangled with North’s, and they both almost went down. By that point, Jem was laughing so hard that he just kind of staggered into Tean, and Tean had to hold him up as North moved deeper into the house.
“You’re making him feel bad,” Tean said in a quiet voice as he tried to keep Jem from falling.
Jem swallowed some more laughter, but his eyes were bright when he looked at Shaw.
“He’s very sensitive,” Shaw whispered.
“Oh, yeah, everybody can tell that.” Jem shrugged. “But does he know he’s a sweetheart?”
“I am not a fucking sweetheart!” North shouted back.
“How did you guys get here so fast?” Shaw asked.
“We were across the street, watching the house,” Tean said. It was hard to tell in the low light, but it looked like he was blushing.
“We lied,” Jem said.
“Technically, I lied,” Tean said. “And it’s not even ethically defensible because I wasn’t under duress.”
“But it was funny, and that’s ethical.”
“No, not even close.”
They moved into the house, flicking on lights as they went. Adam Ezell seemed to have paid the interior of the house the same level of care and attention as the outside. The walls were a sandy yellow that, Shaw guessed, hadn’t been touched up in twenty years. For the ceiling, he’d apparently gone with water stains as the chief decorative element. In the living room, where they found North, the low-pile carpet was the color of dog food, and maybe there’d been a package deal or a combo or a set on offer, because the Naugahyde recliner and the loveseat were the exact same color. Someone had clearly been through here before them: cushions had been slashed open, the dust covers ripped away, a framed poster of a sexualized fish—Shaw wanted to say it was a trout—torn from the wall. The obligatory Big Masculine TV lay overturned on the floor, and North was looking at it with something approaching lust.
“You know on Black Friday, you can get one this size for a few hundred bucks,” North said.
“No,” Shaw said.
“They’re all smart TVs. They’ve got OLED.”
“You don’t even know what OLED is, and besides, we’re going on a TV fast once we get home, so you don’t need a bigger TV.”
“Sometimes they give you a toaster,” North said, his eyes distant. “Or an electric griddle.”
“You should definitely get the free griddle,” Jem said. “That’s the best way to make a grilled cheese.”
“North thinks the best way to make one is with a clothes iron,” Shaw said.
“It was one time,” North snapped, his focus locking onto Shaw again. “And it was on a BuzzFeed list, and—you know what? I don’t have to explain myself to you. It’s not my fault this motherfucker won’t let it go.”
“Didn’t the cheese get in all the steam holes?” Jem asked.
“Oh my God, he had to use a toothpick—” Shaw began.
“Could we please get to work?” North put his hands on his hips again, seemed to remember how well that had worked before, and stalked out of the room. “Could the professionals please be allowed to work, and the amateurs go back to jacking each other off in an abandoned house?”
“That sounds like a very good plan,” Jem said to Tean.
“Go help him, please,” Tean said.
