Brutal Game (Flynn and Laurel #2)(11)
Flynn didn’t drink caffeine but he’d bought a coffeemaker just for her. A steaming mug was waiting when she emerged from the shower, dressed, a towel turbanned around her head. Flynn owned a hairdryer too, and she sometimes wondered who he’d bought that for originally, since he certainly didn’t use it. She liked to tell herself it was for shrink-wrapping the windows come winter or some other such manly, practical purpose, but it was nearly March and the view of the neighboring brick was as crisp as always.
Whatever. Every lover he’s had has made him the man he is today. I ought to be sending out thank-yous.
The man himself was nowhere in sight, which meant he was either chatting with his sister three floors down or doing something with his car. It always felt intimate and strange to be in this apartment without him. Like she was snooping, even though she never had. If she wanted to, it wouldn’t take long; he was the most minimalist person she’d ever encountered. If she moved in here, her possessions would make this lofty space feel instantly cluttered. And far more like home.
She turned at the sound of the key in the lock and smiled. He’d probably been gone for all of ten minutes, but the overprotectiveness charmed her. It was a novelty to someone who’d grown up with a mother as detached and careless as Laurel’s.
He was wearing a knit cap and his canvas jacket, cheeks burned pink. “Fuckin’ freezing out there.”
“Hard to believe it’ll be spring in a few weeks. You warming the car up?”
“No, checking on Heather’s.” Heather was his sister. “She said it wouldn’t start and it looks like she’s right.”
“Bummer. Hell of a week to get stuck waiting for a bus. Can you fix it?”
“Probably not, unless it just needs a jump or something. If not, I’ll get it towed for her and give the mechanic the stink-eye so they don’t try and overcharge her.”
Laurel smiled. “There should be a name for the opposite of feminine wiles. They get the same results.”
“How’s the coffee?”
“Delicious.”
“The key,” he said, crouching to slide a massive phone book from the bottom of his bookshelf, “is to put in way more grounds than you’re supposed to.”
“Or stop buying Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It’s so watery, no wonder you need twice as much.”
He glowered, eyes on the pages he was flipping. “You take that blaspheming mouth out of New England, woman.”
“I’m from Providence—I get to say it’s awful.”
He set the Yellow Pages on the counter. Flynn was the only person Laurel knew who actually kept a phone book in the house. It was one of the many reasons she loved him. He owned a computer but barely used it, even though she’d insisted he finally get internet so they could stream movies.
“Almost ready?” he asked, eyeing the Auto Garage listings.
“Just let me chug this and dry my hair, and I’ll be good to go.”
“I’ll warm the car up. Meet me down there.”
“Will do. Five minutes.”
He left Laurel be with her coffee, and the second the door shut her head filled up with way too many questions. Was she actually queasy, or was that her imagination? Or was she just queasy with uncertainty? Either way, the coffee wouldn’t help. Neither would spending her shift trying to decide whether or not to pick up a pregnancy test.
“It’s really unlikely,” she told the coffeemaker.
You’ve said that three times, the red light seemed to reply. She switched it off.
“Like, really unlikely,” she said, making it four. And she’d keep on saying that until she believed it.
4
Sunday wasn’t much of a day of rest. Flynn dropped Laurel off at her work, back just in time to drive his sister and niece to church. By early afternoon he had Heather’s car entrusted to a neighborhood garage, and after a grocery run, he headed off for his near-daily workout.
The gym was the same venue where he fought each weekend, a shady little concrete-and-cinder-block outfit in the basement of a shitty bar. On Sundays it was usually just him and the younger guys, everybody else doing the family thing.
The family thing. Sprawled on a weight bench, he stared up at the ceiling, at the bald fluorescent bulbs staring right back. Though neither of them had spoken of the question of a pregnancy test since Laurel had disappeared for her shower, he hadn’t quit thinking about it for a second.
Flynn’s mental baseline was a sort of anxious thrumming, not unlike the buzzing of the light above him—an ever-present hum that never let up, aside from when he was fighting or f*cking. It was the reason he didn’t drink coffee, which only made him more of a punchy motherf*cker than he already was. Alcohol turned him into a mopey dick, and he wasn’t about to go back to smoking a pack a day after kicking the habit once. He supposed a marijuana scrip wouldn’t be so hard to snag, but that stinky-ass shit was for hippies and burnouts. That eliminated the most popular chemical crutches. Physical release was all he had left, and so here he was every day he wasn’t in the ring, punishing his body until his brain could finally shut the f*ck up.
The pregnancy question… It didn’t scare him, not the way it might another man. It was out of his hands. Whatever might ultimately come was Laurel’s decision. It was the simple not knowing that was gnawing at him.