Page 27 of Just in Time
No more rip. No more sucky hole in the middle of the doorway.
But I did have two very quizzical fellas to my left and right, still holding my body up.
“There was a rip,” I said softly. “A rip in time and it was… sucking stuff up and…” I trailed off. “It wasn’t good.”
Brody’s gloved hands were still on my body as I stood there. I reached down for the one on my waist, peeling back the glove to check and see if I’d fixed the thing that was making him fade.
No such luck, not that I thought it would. This wasn’t even the rip I’d seen.
The one I’d seen was at a movie theater. A movie marquee was burned into my psyche.
No, this one was new. It wasn’t there when I looked back before.
Which meant that someone had just made this rip.
So that same someone knew we were here and what we were doing.
I had so many questions now. Like who the hell was trying to erase Brody from existence? And who the hell was this other time witch helping them? Was it the time witch trying to erase Brody? Or was this some kind of team?
Brody’s hand on my back was firm as he guided me over to the kitchen table. “You okay, Lil?”
“Yeah,” I said off-handedly. “It’s just… only a time witch could have made those rips and—”
“Not what I’m talking about…” he said slowly, reaching over to tuck my hair behind my ear. “I asked ifyouwere okay.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated. “Just… confused.”
Indy plopped down on the other side of me, a bowl of cold stew in his hand. The spoon clinked in the bowl as both Brody and I stared at him. “What?” he asked, glancing between the two of us. “You want some? It’sgood.”
Brody looked at him for a second, looking like he was about to ask about forty different questions, but instead thought better of it and closed his mouth. “Yeah. Yeah, I want some.” He stood and walked over to the stove, grabbing a bowl from one of the cabinets and ladling some of the stew into it.
I watched the two of them in abject humor for a few minutes, wondering if they realized how very alike the were in some ways.
Of course, a keen love of food might just be inherent in the shifter genes.
“Another elephant in the room,” Brody said as he sat down. “Is what was about to happen before Lil saw that rip in time and space…”
“I don’t think there was a rip,” Indy said boldly, continuing before I had time to start arguing with him. “No fooling. She didn’t think she could keep up with two red hot shifter men…” He was teasing, I could now tell by his tone and the way he grinned crookedly at me. He winked and took another bite of stew. “Your move, witchy woman.”
I leveled a look at him that usually served to shut down Brody when he was being catty.
Of course, it only served to make both of them chuckle into their food.
“You’re cruisin’, Payne,” I muttered, drumming my fingers on the table in front of me.
“Bring it…” he trailed off. “Lily I-still-don’t-know-your-last-name-but-I-know-for-a-fact-you-have-one.”
“Barclay,” I said, figuring he’d wheedle it out of me sooner or later. Plus, he already knew Brody’s anyway.
Indy smirked in my direction. “How hard was that? You’ve got a pretty name. To match your pretty face.”
“You’re gonna have to do a lot better than that if you call that flirting,” I countered, glancing over at Brody for confirmation.
He chuckled. “Yeah… she’s complicated, Indigo my man.”
“I’ll say. She invented a rip in time and space just to get out of a threesome.”
“That rip was real,” I insisted. “And I’ll do both of you on this table right now if that’s what it takes to convince you!”
