This Strange Addiction, Julie Steimle [little readers txt] 📗

gag between those friends. They all knew the wolf, and they thought it hilarious she had put it on a tee shirt for fundraising.

“I… I made it,” she said, blushing. “I sell them to raise money to pay for my PhD.”

Smirking, Robert laughed. “How much? How much is it?”

Matthew chuckled, nodding.

“You want one?” Audry had to ask, though she knew the answer already. All of Rick’s friends wanted one.

Nodding, Robert pulled off a work glove and fished into his pocket for his wallet.

“No,” Audry pushed his hand back when he extracted it. “Just give me your size. I’ll get you one next time we come back for cleanup. You are joining us, right?”

Rolling his eyes, Robert nodded. Audry could tell he had not actually come to help clean up, but rather he had come because of Rick. It was a weird feeling. Not just because Rick instilled that kind of loyalty among his friends, but because there seemed to be a deeper story behind it. There always seemed to be something deeper going on behind things with the Deacon family. She just didn’t know what.

“So, Robert, where are you from?” Hogan asked, striking up a different conversation for some reason. Sometimes Audry got the feeling Hogan was actually jealous of the wolf. It was on her screensaver and was used all the time in her fundraising efforts. She loved it. The picture simply was perfect—the endangered wolf.

“Louisiana. New Orleans,” Robert said with a look to Matthew.

Matthew nodded, as if giving Robert the OK to talk about his past. Matthew was a bit like a big brother (not in the 1984 sense, but in the protective family sense) to Robert, and for that matter to Rick. Audry kind of liked it. And for a guy who could hear people’s lies, it gave her a funny, almost comforting feeling. Matthew made sure the people he cared about were safe.

“So, what brings you to New York?” Hogan asked, curious.

“Work,” Robert replied with a shrug in his mild Louisiana drawl. “But I also used to live here.”

Audry knew why, peeking to Matthew. She could tell Robert did not like to talk much. He had a soft-spoken personality, someone who stood in the shadows for some reason, trying not to draw attention to himself. He was a good looking man also. Healthy at least. A dark chocolate complexion, and tall, though clearly not inclined to go the basketball route. He seemed to be a thinker, rather.

“Really?” Hogan sounded intrigued.

“Rick was my classmate at Gulinger High,” Robert said, explaining. “I was hoping to get work with him as a bodyguard, as he needs one.”

Matthew nodded, almost in earnest. But he didn’t say anything. They all hauled together their full bag up the sandy hill to the trucks.

“What? Is he not going to hire you?” Hogan asked, reading what had not been said.

Robert cringed, peeking towards Audry, then Matthew. “No. He says I am too qualified—”

Matthew snorted, smothering a laugh.

“—And he’d rather I work in the office.” Robert sighed, passing up the bag he was carrying to the truckers. “I mean, the pay is fine and everythin’—but he really needs a bodyguard, but he won’t let me do it.”

“He just doesn’t want you to get hurt,” Matthew said, gently patting Robert on the shoulder. Audry noticed that Matthew was touching Robert so softly that it was almost as if he wasn’t patting him at all—like he was afraid of making contact.

Robert sighed. “Like I can get hurt…”

Hogan stared, puzzled.

“It still hurts,” Matthew whispered before he walked down the hill, “doesn’t it?”

Robert watched him, cringing. He heaved up one more bagful to the truck then followed Matthew down the hill. “Not the point. Tom wanted me to watch out for him.”

Matthew laughed, going back to another group to get another load to carry up the hill. “That’s only because Tom can’t do it himself. The Company is mad that he just leapt off to Germany.”

“So Tom was there?” Audry followed them down the hill.

“Who’s Tom?” Hogan asked, following her. This time she could feel his jealousy. Whoever this Tom was (Hogan’s mind went), he had to keep fingers off his lady. It was flattering to Audry, and surprising at the same time.

“Our friend,” Matthew said with a crooked smile. “My best friend—who also happens to be a CIA agent.”

Hogan stiffened, his mind clearly going over the logistics of handling a CIA agent if he ever set a hand on his gal. That did not come off too well.

Audry blushed. And yet she felt sure that Tom would have told Matthew the truth about Germany and Rick.

“Tom was part of the rescue crew,” Matthew said to her, answering her question before she could ask it.

She gazed at him, amazed. He really was psychic.

“So yeah, if you really want to know the truth about Germany, you can talk to him,” Matthew said. But he sounded sad, like asking Tom might bring up old wounds.

The conversation changed from there. And most of the cleanup in that section was winding down. Most of the volunteers wanted to go get dinner and rest, planning to return the next morning.

“I wish I could come back tomorrow,” Matthew said to Audry, gently glancing to Hogan as well. “But I can’t. I have a homicide investigation I need to return to, and my friend JJ just called me up.”

Audry was not sure she had heard of JJ, but she had a feeling she might have. She had overheard some funny conversations among his friends. Possibly Jessica was the one who had spoken of him. She had been an NYPD cop before her marriage and her move. But this was like Matthew was saying ‘Hey, if ever need any help, just holler. You’re one of us.’

  “I’ll be there, though,” Robert said, raising a hand.

“Acting for Mr. Deacon,” Hogan chimed in, nodding. But when he saw Robert’s look he corrected, “Uh, Rick.”

 Robert nodded. “Yes.”

“Alright, we’ll see you then, Mr. Lafon.” Hogan extended a hand for a shake.

 Robert eyed his hand, then gingerly gripped Hogan’s palm as if worried he would hurt him. They shook. “Yes. But, uh, call me Bobo.”

Audry lifted her eyebrows.

Matthew grinned.

Then Bobo and Matthew walked off. Audry noticed they got into the same car.

A low whistle escaped Hogan as he shook his head. “Man. Those guys are intense. Did you feel that?”

Audry nodded. “Yeah.”  

She felt a lot, actually. The heaviness that always was carried with Rick’s friends had come and left with them. But some still lingered on the air.

Hogan wrapped an arm around her waist, grinning widely at her. “Let’s go wash up and get some dinner.”

She nodded, wrapping her arm around him also. She was glad he was there. In fact, the comfort of being with a man so far removed from all that craziness which followed Rick Deacon was such a relief.

And yet… her mind went back to Rick. She wondered if he was ok. 

Overprotective

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

“Why does she always date players?” Rick moaned once Matthew showed up at the Deacons’ New York penthouse.

“So… you Googled the guy,” Matthew said, putting aside his shoes and hanging up his damp coat. Bobo had silently followed him in, stripping off all his wet jacket and shoes, and taking a seat on the couch with a heavy sigh, closing his eyes. The day took a lot out of him.

“No,” Rick said just as the oven timer went off. He jogged into the kitchen. They could hear bangs of an over door open and the sliding of the metal rack pulling forward. The aroma of chicken filled the apartment. “I had Semour hack around the net to find out about him. Google is useless. They censor things most days. But Semour was incredibly prompt.”

Matthew snorted. He dropped next to Bobo on the couch. “What’d you find out?”

“First tell me what you found out talking to that guy,” Rick called from the kitchen, handling something. They heard the oven door close.

“OK…” Matthew closed his eyes, thinking, as his body ached from the full day of work. “He’s a lot smarter than that louse Harlin. He respects her boundaries. He’s genuinely into the whole eco movement, and he’s a vegetarian, but not yet a vegan.”

Rick grumbled with a huff in the other room. The chicken smelled great.

“The guy might have once been a player, Rick, but he is way into Audry,” Matthew said. “I think they’re serious.”

Silence answered him.

Lifting his head, Matthew called out, “So… what did you find out? What makes you think he is a player?”

Groaning, Rick listed out loud, “Oh… his long history of girlfriends, maybe. He’s got a string of them. I wonder if Audry knows about them. He left his last gal right before his, uh, trip to Africa where I assume he met Audry. I read it off a social network site where he brags about finding her. Audry is his newest ‘goddess’.”

“His what?” Bobo sat up.

“Goddess,” Rick said, coming from the kitchen holding a meat fork in one hand and an oven mitt over the other. “That’s what he has calls all the ladies he has been with. He nicknames them.”

Matthew nodded to himself. “Yeah… I think I overheard him mentally calling her Artemis, the goddess of the—” He stopped, staring at Rick who looked as if he had just been kicked in the gut. “Are you ok?”

Rick shook it off. He breathed in and out. Shaking his head again, Rick said, “Maybe somebody should remind him that Artemis was a virgin goddess.”

A dry expression settled on Matthew’s face. “Oh, I think that was one of the reasons he nicknamed her that.”

Bobo rolled his eyes.

But Rick set the meat fork down. “What?”

Nodding, Matthew shrugged. “I think this is where he is… humph… uh, is still a player.”

“Yeah. So he is still of the same mind then?” Rick asked, anger rising on her behalf.

Matthew shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. His thoughts were mostly about the work… oh and Audry. It’s not a cheating mind. He’s really gone on her, and he get jealous when another guy spends too much time with her. And he was pleased to see you avoiding her. Apparently she must have mentioned you to him at one point.”

Rick rolled his eyes. “Probably she was just talking about the wolf. My name would have been a side note.”

Bobo lifted his eyebrows.

“But he is in a social network where he goes by the name ‘Orion-the-hunter’,” Rick growled as if biting each word. “This is where he lists his conquests. And she’s Artemis?”

“What does that mean besides being an eternal virgin?” Matthew asked, wondering still about Rick’s knee-jerk reaction to the name. Rick’s thoughts were murky, calling Artemis Diana, which of course was the Roman goddess version.

Bobo chuckled.

They looked to him. Rick nodded. “You know.”

Nodding back, Bobo rose to shake off aches and said, “That means she is his ultimate conquest. In the myths, Orion was one of the few men allowed to hunt with Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. But he had also wanted her in an intimate way.”

“The virgin goddess,” Matthew said dryly, sure that Artemis had remained a virgin in all the myths and would have slain anyone who tried to change that.

“The ultimate goddess, in Orion’s eyes,” Bobo said to