Page 30 of Wrapped Up with the Three Scrooges

Ronan materialized between us so fast I almost got whiplash. His broad shoulders formed a protective wall as Gary skidded to a halt.

“Sir.” Ronan’s voice carried that authoritative tone that probably made employees wet themselves. “Step back.”

“No, no, it’s okay!” I quickly stepped around Ronan, placing a calming hand on his arm. “This is Gary. He’s the night manager. Gary, this is my friend Ronan.”

“Friend?” Gary’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Does he know about the ice maker?”

“I... what?” Ronan turned to me with an expression that clearly said, ‘what the fuck?’

“The ice maker is fine,” I assured Gary, using my most soothing voice. “Look, the police aren’t even going near it.”

We all watched as the officers led out a couple I’d seen around the motel a few times. The woman was crying while the man kept his head down. More vehicles had shown up, and I knew this must be something huge.

“But... but they were such nice people.” Gary wrung his hands in distress, and his tinfoil hat slipped further askew as he shook his head. “They always smiled and said hello. Had lots of visitors too, especially late at night...”

“Late night visitors?” Ronan’s eyebrows shot up as his jaw tightened. His eyes darted between Gary and me like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “And you didn’t think that was suspicious? At a motel like this?”

“Well, I figured they were just popular.” Gary shrugged. “Or maybe running an underground resistance against the lizard people.” He leaned in close, lowering his voice. “You know they’ve infiltrated all levels of government, right? Even the DMV.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing at Ronan’s increasingly bewildered expression. The thing was, I couldn’t tell if Gary was being serious, or if he was a bored middle-aged man who had nothing better to do and spent his time making up stories in his head.

“They paid cash up front for two months,” Gary continued. “Said they were waiting for their house to be ready. Though,come to think of it, they asked me to turn off the security cameras in their section...”

“They what?” Ronan’s voice could have frozen Hell over, dropping several octaves into that dangerous territory that made me want to take an involuntary step backwards. I could practically hear his teeth grinding as he turned to me, his expression thunderous enough to make Zeus himself jealous. “That’s it. Pack your things.”

“Excuse me?” I blinked rapidly, caught completely off guard by his sudden command. His authoritative tone sent a conflicting thrill through me, though I couldn’t tell if it was attraction or mild terror. Possibly both.

“You’re not staying here another night.” He pulled out his phone. “We’ll figure something out, but this place clearly isn’t safe.”

“I can’t-”

“Actually,” Gary interrupted, looking unusually serious as he adjusted his tinfoil hat, “he might be right. Not about the motel being unsafe—we have top-notch protection against alien surveillance—but those folks seemed off, and they aren’t the only ones.”

“I appreciate the concern, but I can’t afford anywhere else right now.”

“Money isn’t an issue.” Ronan was already typing on his phone. “We have plenty of space.”

“We?” My voice came out embarrassingly squeaky. Did I misread the situation entirely? He had said nothing about having a significant other or a family. Either way, I couldn’t just stay with my boss.

Especially not when he did things to my insides.

“We’ll get your things now, before anything else exciting happens. Gary, I assume you can help check her out of her room?”

Gary nodded solemnly. “I’ll need her to sign a form releasing us from any responsibility if the ice maker has already compromised her brain waves.”

“I... sure, Gary. Whatever you need.” I looked between the two men, feeling surprisingly touched by their concern, weird as it might be. “Thank you. Both of you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Ronan guided me toward the car where I’d left my purse. “We’ll have to wait and see what Levi and Max have to say about this. I’m sure it will be fine though.”

“Wait, what?” I stopped in my tracks. The idea of Ronan living with anyone was surprising enough, but with Levi and Max? “That’s what you meant by we?”

“Yes, we live together. Well, sort of. We each have a house within the house. You’ll see.” His tone was matter of fact, like sharing living space with two other incredibly attractive, successful men was the most normal thing in the world.

I tried to wrap my mind around what ‘a house within a house’ even meant, but all I could picture was some sort of Russian nesting doll situation with increasingly smaller homes.

“I can’t stay with you guys. That’s... that’s preposterous.” I struggled to maintain my composure as my mind raced through all the ways this could go horribly wrong. “You’re my bosses and I barely know you. For all I know, you could be really hot serial killers who lure unsuspecting employees into your weird house-within-a-house situation.”

Ronan’s lips twitched upward. “If we were serial killers, we’d be terrible at it.Wrap It Upwould be a pretty obvious calling card, don’t you think?”

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