Page 32 of The Pretenders of Copper County
Jesus Christ.Was this how I would finally lose my mind?
“I’m starting to think the Division was right, back in August,” I told the ceiling conversationally. “Maybe Ihavetaken on one job too many. Maybe Iamlosing focus. I must be if all it took was one doe-eyed, mini mobster to send me over the edge?—”
Chris raised his chin. “I’m not a mobster,” he said with quiet dignity. “I told you, I’m a charcuterie specialist.”
The hell of it was… I believed him. Not that his uncle wasn’t Dante the Cheese—pardon me,Dante Fromadgio—but that Chris somehow, unbelievably, wasn’t aware of it. I’dfought as hard as I could to convince myself he was a liar, but somewhere around the time he’d begun calling the grizzly biker president “Mr. Knuckles”—or maybe back when he’d thought the police were hunting Kenny for his excessive zucchini? It was hard to pinpoint, really—I’d had to wave a white flag and admit defeat.
Chris Winowski was as much a criminal mastermind as I was a Disney princess, and if his uncle had raised him to be the heir to a powerful, dangerous crime dynasty, not a single bit of that training had stuck. In fact, the longer I spent with Chris, the more shocked I was that he’d existed this long without constant supervision. The man was a magnet for trouble, and he was only a danger to himself.
And, it seemed, to my sanity.
I groaned and swung my legs over the side of the bed and hunched over, bracing my elbows on my knees.
“Are you in pain?” Chris asked a moment later.
I touched a hand to my ribs again and shrugged, my gaze on the mottled green carpet. “I’ve had worse.”
He made atsking noise. “You really should get some rest. You said you were tired earlier, and you seem a tiny bit… overwrought?”
“Overwrought.” I snorted. “Thought you said I wasdisgruntled.”
“That too. I-I’m not saying that to make you feel bad,” he added quickly. “Even John Ruffian might be overwhelmed after so many completely unpredictable and unavoidable occurrences in one evening. And I’m sure it must be weighing on you, too, that there’s a chance I’m right about there being a mix-up with my uncle, especially now that you know I can take care of myself.” After a brief pause, he added, “Though obviously it was very sweet of you to try to help, back at the bar, and you did getme out much faster than I would have on my own. I don’t mean to sound unappreciative.”
I glanced up on the slim chance that he was joking. He didn’t appear to be. In fact, the sweet, soft expression on his face suggested he was trying in the worst possible way to… comfort me?
“It’d be a lot for anyone, Reed,” he continued earnestly, knitting his fingers together. “A-and when so many tough things happen at once, it can be hard to focus on the positive, no matter how hard you try. But my nonna always said that things will look better in the morning, and that was one of the things she was definitely right about… unlike the, um, money-in-the-shoe thing.”
He gave me a lopsided smile that turned his handsome face truly gorgeous and made something small and hot and utterly unwanted blossom in my chest…
Until he killed it dead by adding, “Which is why I’ve been thinking it’s probably for the best that we say our goodbyes now and get separate rooms.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I jumped to my feet, all thought of patience evaporated. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” I hadn’t intended to move closer to him but suddenly found myself looming over him. “We are not getting separate rooms, damn it! You’re staying right where I can see you. You’re staying where I can keep you safe.”
Chris bit his lip. “Okay, make that alotoverwrought,” he whispered.
I found myself wanting to laugh out loud and shake the man silly, all at the same time. Maybe Iwasoverwrought.
I compromised by gripping his shoulders tightly and crowding him against the wall. “You. Are. In. Danger. Chris. I know you don’t want to hear that. I know you keeptrying to reframe things in your mind to pretend it’s not happening. But I need you to trust me?—”
He blinked up at me, his brown eyes huge behind his glasses. “I do, Reed,” he insisted with utter earnestness, the kind that was going to get him and therefore me in trouble. “I do trust you. But… what if you’re wrong? Even trustworthy people mess up all the time, right? Like maybe your bosses messed up and sent you to find the wrong person?—”
“Because there’s another Chris in Little Pippin Hollow who has an uncle named Dante Fromadgio, who also looks exactly like the driver’s license photo the Division provided me of you?”
He froze for a second, like he was actually considering this, before expelling his breath in a disappointed rush. “Okay, no. Not that, I guess. But what if… what if someone investigating this whole thing gave your bosses the wrong name? What if there’s a different Dante, with a different nephew, and everyone’s been confused?—?”
I ground my molars together. “Someone’s confused, alright.”
“—and if I explain this to your bosses, they’ll understand, and you won’t get in trouble again,” he babbled, the words coming out in a panicked flow while his hummingbird hands flapped a mile a minute in the inches between us. “The last thing I want is for you to lose your job, I swear. But, but… you think I’m this criminal-adjacent person who can handle a gun and a high-speed chase. You think I’m someone brave and fierce, like you?—”
“Stop,” I said. “Stop talking.”
“But you’re going to realize that I’m not actually that guy. That I’m notqualifiedto be that guy. That I’m really a… a soft person who likes butterflies and charcuterie boards and can quote entire episodes ofJohn Ruffian. And you’ll besoupset that you wasted your time protecting me?—”
“I saidstop talking,” I repeated around the gravel in my throat.
He was killing me. Fuckingkillingme. I had built defenses—sturdy ones—over the years that made me immune to threats and manipulation, but damn if they were any match for Chris’s sweetness. He was so small. So warm. So infuriatingly stubborn, and stubbornly cheerful, and cheerfully infuriating.
When I leaned closer—wait, why was I leaning closer?—I found that he smelled like a combination of fresh air and beer and grass, which seemed to be the missing key to a lock in my brain. From this angle, the freckles across his nose looked like a map to a hidden treasure.
