Page 3 of Kings of Sherwood

And God, is it good to be home.

Orwas,before I was so rudely awoken.

“And?” I ask, impatient but a bit curious in spite of myself. Personally, I needed at least a few days to recover from our little impromptu camping trip before I had the strength to tackle any kind of housekeeping. I’d made sure all the security systems were online—obviously—but after that? I’d crashed hard. I hadn’t had a chance to take stock of the state of the place beyond the outwardly visible vandalism—some broken windows, tire marks in the yard, that kind of thing—and I certainly didn’t know what had or hadn’t been “seized as evidence.”

“And,” Rob says, “I’ve basically gone through everything now—’cept LJ’s quarters, that is, but I’ll leave him to handle that on his own, since I don’t really want my face clawed off.” He rubs his jaw. “Anyway, they took shit—stupid shit.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, you know. Rinky-dinky stuff.” He ticks off on his fingers. “Sound system in the living room, Tuck’s computer—”

“I’m sure it’s encrypted to hell,” I say. “They’d be lucky to get it to play Pong.”

Rob nods, continuing. “—alotof whiskey,”

“Damn.”

“I’ll say. They were mixing Pappy with Coke Zero like it was fuckin’ Evan Williams,” Rob says, wincing. But then he shrugs. “Some of the cars—I only glanced, but the garage is definitely light. And they busted up a ton of windows and shit. Nothingthat ain’t replaceable or fixable, in other words. So long as your panic room’s safe—”

“Untouched,” I confirm. There was no way to even know it’s there unless you...know it’s there, hidden behind the mirror with the palmprint scanner.

Rob nods. “So yeah. I reckon that we are sitting pretty, my Northerner friend.” He grins again.

Something about his...lightheartedness irks me. More than it usually does, I mean. Rob’s always had that easygoing, shit-eating “what, me worry?” attitude that’s half Tom Sawyer, half Artful Dodger. It’s charming as hell, and he knows it—hell, it’s the whole reason I linked up with him in the first place. Never really had a friend like that before.

Me? I’m so uptight you could shove coal up my ass and make a diamond. It’s my birthright as a WASP: I like control, certainty. Keeping things contained, doing whatIwant them to do.

A vision of Maren, arms up and wrists locked together, sprawled on my bed, springs unbidden into my mind.

Not now,I tell my mind. Which isnotkeen to obey. None of us—so far as I know—has done anything more physical with Maren than a quick kiss or a lingering hug since we got back here.

And, of course, that is no issue. She’s not interested, I’m not interested—period. But it doesn’t mean I don’t miss it.

Hard.

I blow out a breath.Focus. A few feet away, Rob has taken a glass paperweight from my desk up and started tossing it up and catching it like it’s a tennis ball.

“At some point, we might want to be concerned about someone coming after us, you know,” I say sharply.

Rob swipes the air dismissively.Toss. Catch.“What are they gonna do? Wheatley’s scared shitless, I guarantee it. After what he saw the other night—”

“Didhe see anything?” I interject. I know the sheriff wasatGisbourne’s stupid fundraiser, but once things got bloody and fiery I wasn’t exactly taking roll call.

“I dunno,” Rob says. “Probably. Either way, he’s chickenshit and lazy and always has been. With no more Guy leading the witch hunt, I don’t reckon Wheatley’s brave enough to take up the mantle and smoke us out.”

I rub my jaw. I don’tdisagree, but I’m also not one to handwave something as consequential as afelony investigation.

“What about the house?” I say, gesturing around us. “Make no mistake, I love having a memory-foam mattress and running water as much as the rest of us, but—”

“Squatter’s rights.” Rob shrugs. “I ain’t worried.”

I close my mouth.Yes, I think,and that’s exactly the problem.

That’salwaysthe problem with Rob. Happy-go-lucky, it’ll work out, don’t worry, be happy, hakuna ma-fucking-tata.

My stress must show on my face, because Rob catches the paperweight and cocks an eyebrow at me.

“Can’t say the same for you, though, huh?” He chuckles. “You Yanks are so uptight, damn.”

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