Page 3 of The Hardest Hit
“None. Maybe one,” he amended.
“Then how would you know? Maybe all you knights are extremely argumentative.”
“No,” he said firmly and got out of the car.
2
Evan Alexander Deveraux
Evan Deveraux was at the end of the car and she still hadn’t gotten out. He had even stopped at the trunk to pull out the box he’d driven out to Jersey to retrieve from DevEntier Industries and she was still in the car. He rolled his eyes. His Dark Phoenix was far more Rogue than Jean Grey and if she insisted on proceeding down the Knight in Shining Armor path he wasn’t sure how much he could take. He had just been mad at the cops, not wanting to take her home. And now he was stuck with Olivia, last name unknown, for the evening. Admittedly, she seemed shockingly funny for someone in her situation, but there had been a lot of talking, and he had been looking forward to being able to crash at home and switch his brain off. He waited another second, but she still hadn’t moved from the car. He heaved a sigh and went to open her door.
“Sorry,” he said yanking open the passenger side door. “I forgot you were Southern and can’t open doors on your own.”
She looked up at him, one hand pressed to the side of her head, eyes slightly teary, and he felt a moment of panic. He’d been trying for funny. Well, snarky anyway.
“I wasn’t waiting for you to open the door. My hair got sucked into the seatbelt retractor and I couldn’t get out.”
He knew he shouldn’t, but the laugh was expelled out of him in an uncontrolled gust. His own idiocy and inability to be suave on any level was just the perfect capper on a ridiculous evening of dealing with the most traumatic shit.
“It’s not funny,” she said, climbing out of the car, but a smile was twitching out of the corners of her mouth. “It hurt.”
He straightened up, tried to rein it back in, and realized he couldn’t. He laughed again, his shoulders shaking.
“Ya’ll need to take a lap and walk it off?” she demanded.
He pressed a hand into his eye socket, trying to quell the laughter.
“No, no. I got this.” He took a deep breath and tried to look her in the eye, almost made it, but then started to laugh again. He took another deep breath and managed to make eye contact this time.
“So glad my pain can amuse you.”
He didn’t respond—wasn’t sure that hecouldrespond—and gestured toward the elevators.
“This does prove my point,” he said, as the metal doors closed behind them. “I’m not that guy. The knight guy does not laugh at a lady who can’t exit a vehicle.”
“I could have gone bald. I could have a giant bald spot right now and you’d still be laughing,” she sounded torn between annoyance and amusement.
“So hard,” he agreed—might as well put the knight thing to rest right now.
“What’s in the box?” she asked scrutinizing the faded white box.
“Oh, stuff from my dad and uncle’s old company,” he said, wishing he could hide it. “Cleaning out some old files and junk,” he lied.
“Why didn’t your dad go get it?” she asked, and Evan froze. Almost no one asked about his father anymore.
“Um. He’s dead.” Might as well put that out there—he was pretty sure it would send her running for the nearest exit. No one wanted to date family trauma in a suit. “Plane crash. My uncle and aunt too.” He added the last bit, just for good measure.
“Oh.” Her lips twisted unhappily. “So is my mom,” she offered. “Suicide. It’s always so awkward to explain death, let alone early death, in social situations. It makes other people uncomfortable.”
Evan breathed out a sigh of shocked relief. “It really does and then things just get weird. You can see they want to ask about it, but then they don’t, and then they’re mad at you for bringing the party down and all you really wanted was a drink and to make it through the next thirty minutes without having to use someone’s name because you already forgot all of them.”
Olivia burst out in a peal of laughter. “Yes! Yes! Exactly! Oh, my God, that makes me feel so very validated. Thank you.”
Evan smiled at her. “Sorry about your mom.”
“Sorry about your family.”
He shrugged. “It is what it is.”
