Part 6 (1/2)

”Considering what he looks like underneath his s.h.i.+rt, I'd say a baby elephant's worth of weight.”

Joey paused in reaching for his wine. ”You saw him without a s.h.i.+rt?”

”I'm still seeing him without a s.h.i.+rt every time I close my eyes.” With a forlorn sigh, she sent another card toward the hat, then rested her head against his shoulder when the card sailed to the left. ”It's not fair that such a hot guy can be such an epic d.i.c.k.”

”I dunno. He seemed cool to me,” Novak offered after he and Joey exchanged glances. ”I mean, he only left your side to change his clothes and pick up some stuff, because he knew you were safe with us.”

”And he missed work today so he could keep an eye on you,” Joey added, tossing another card. ”That doesn't seem like d.i.c.k behavior to me.”

”How's this for d.i.c.k behavior? While I was at work yesterday, he went into the break room, found the food I'd brought for my meals, and threw it all away.”

Novak slammed to his feet, instantly springing into his patented Hulk-smash mode. ”He what?”

”He replaced it with stuff he thought would be healthier for me,” she hastened to add, and relaxed when she saw his fists unclench. ”But that's the problem-he obviously thinks I'm a moron, because he's always trying to do my thinking for me. Last winter he yelled at me in front of the entire lobby because I was wearing flip-flops instead of 'proper winter shoes,' whatever the h.e.l.l those are. He checks my clientele list to make sure they have his so-called approval. He thinks it's up to him to decide what I should and shouldn't eat.” She shook her head in pure frustration. ”The list goes on and on. He's constantly overstepping his bounds, and then he refuses to acknowledge he's done anything wrong. This is total d.i.c.k behavior.”

To her surprise, silence greeted this announcement rather than wholehearted agreement. Usually her best friends had her back, but as she studied them she saw the two men looking at each other in silent communication, before Joey s.h.i.+fted against her. ”For the most part, men are simple creatures, sweetheart, and this is what usually trips women up. See, women are much more complex, so naturally they a.s.sume that men are the same way.”

She blinked. ”Well... yeah. I mean, aren't you?”

Joey rolled his eyes while Novak laughed and swigged his beer. ”I can answer that in two words-h.e.l.l, no. A woman will look at a dude's behavior and see all these crazy-a.s.s layers and motives behind every action, when in fact the dude's acting in the most basic way imaginable. Usually he's just p.i.s.sing in corners and protecting his territory.”

”His territory?” Angel frowned. That didn't sound good. ”That may be, but that doesn't apply in this case.”

”Yeah, it does, babe. Especially in this case.”

She shook her head. ”But that doesn't make sense. I've never once gone into Twist's work area, or territory, and I've never talked to any of his clients out of fear that he might think I was trying to poach them. I don't even know where he lives. Twist is the one who's always barging into my booth and going through my stuff like he thinks he has every right to do so. If anyone should feel like their territory is being threatened, it's me, not him.”

”Territory doesn't have to be a place, Ange,” Novak corrected, shaking his head. ”In fact, most of the time it has nothing to do with a place. Territorial behavior has everything to do with what you see as yours, including people. Especially people, now that I think about it.”

”Twist is possessive of you,” Joey explained unnecessarily, because Novak's words had already hit her like a Mack truck. ”I noticed that right off when he pulled you away from me. He didn't know who I was and he sure as h.e.l.l didn't like me hugging you. I was another man who was touching what he considers his, and he wasn't going to put up with that.”

”But that's... that's nuts,” she sputtered, flabbergasted. ”I've never given him any indication that I can even tolerate him, much less...” She flailed an expressive hand. ”Anything else.”

”Doesn't matter, babe.” Novak waved this away with his now-empty beer bottle. ”Whether you're on board or not is irrelevant when a man is determined to mark his territory. It's an instinctive, deep in your gut kind of thing. You see something that resonates within you, something that makes your inner Neanderthal go 'mine, mine, mine!' whenever you're near it, and that's it. Game over. It's yours, no matter how irrational it is.”

”He's not a complete caveman, so don't get too freaked out,” Joey added while Angel stared at them in something like horror. ”You've worked together for years now without being crowded by him, right? And this is the first time we've seen him around, so it's obvious he's got himself under control.”

”I don't know about that,” she muttered, not sure why her heart was beating the c.r.a.p out of her, but the sensation was too effervescent to be labeled as fear or upset. If she didn't know better, she would have thought it was... exhilaration. ”He's been increasingly impossible to deal with. That's why I've decided I'm done at House Of Payne. He's made it almost impossible to work there and stay sane. I never know what he's going to do next.”

”Sounds like Twist is all you think about, which is probably cool with him.” Novak shrugged and reached for the TV remote, his attention on the screen as he switched to a sports channel. ”And I call bulls.h.i.+t on you quitting the House.”

”What? Why?”

”It's a part of you, Ange, and I can't see you chucking a part of yourself out the window. Not for Twist, not for anyone who's p.i.s.sing you off. Not for anyone, period. The House is your house, and no one can push you out of there.”

”Any second now he's going to want to chest-b.u.mp you, so look out.” Joey threw his last card into the hat, then turned his head to press a kiss to the top of her head. ”He's right, though. If you want to leave your job because it's no longer fulfilling to you artistically, or there are better opportunities for you elsewhere, then I can understand your need to go. But you'd only be hurting yourself if you allow someone to force you out... especially when that person doesn't want you to leave, and you don't want to go.”

As far as she was concerned, the jury was still out on whether or not Twist wanted her out, considering he made life miserable. But one thing was certain-deep down she still felt House Of Payne was her true home. ”I'm also being shut out of the concierge service, supposedly because I'm too frail to go into peoples' houses by myself, or whatever. Apparently Payne believes all my clients are going to turn into wild-eyed rapists and murderers the moment I step into their homes.” When they didn't immediately respond, she looked up to find them again exchanging glances and it instantly brought her hackles up. ”Okay, what the h.e.l.l is it about me? Do I really look that incompetent?”

”Incompetency has nothing to do with it.” Joey put his arm around her when she would have pushed to her feet. ”You're as professional as they come-you wouldn't have lasted at the House for as long as you have if you weren't. It has everything to do with how you look, and who you are.”

She huffed angrily. ”What's wrong with how I look?”

”There's nothing wrong with how you look,” Novak said, eyes on the TV screen. ”I'm a big fan of how you look. We both are. You're so cute and cuddly and lickolicious in an innocent kind of way. When I first met you, I think one of the first things I asked you was if you should be out on your own without some kind of adult supervision.”

”I thought you were kidding.”

”Nope. Not even remotely.”

”I'll never forget the first time I met you,” Joey added. ”You were out at the pool, carefully applying sunscreen over your tats, and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from asking if your parents had to give approval for all the ink you had. Then you did something that made my teeth almost fall out of my head.”

”I did?” She searched her memory and came up blank for anything unusual. ”What did I do?”

He gave her shoulders a squeeze. ”You asked me, a total stranger, if I would mind putting sunscreen on your back. You didn't even know my name, sweetheart, yet you invited a stranger to touch you in an intimate way.”

”But I'd already seen you around the complex with Novak, and I knew who you were even though we hadn't been formally introduced. I knew you didn't have a thing for women.”

Novak snorted. ”Yeah, no.”

”I'm actually bi,” Joey said gently, stunning her. ”We both are. Novak and I are in a committed relations.h.i.+p and totally devoted to each other, yes. I love him and he loves me-we are each other's choice. But that doesn't mean we haven't given you a good, long look.”

Holy freaking c.r.a.p.

”If I thought you were the kind of girl who'd go for a threesome, you'd have figured out long ago that we both have no problem getting hot for chicks,” Novak added, adjusting the TV's volume while she goggled at him. ”But you're such a sweet little thing, I just couldn't do it. Now you've become more like a sister to us and we love you without reservation. But that's because we're good guys. The good guys of the world naturally have this reaction to you-the protective, guard-the-innocent-hottie reaction. And good guys do whatever they can to make sure innocent hotties aren't despoiled by all the bad guys of the world.”

”Wow,” she said faintly, while the world as she knew it stood on its head and mooned her. ”You used the word despoiled. And you're bi.”

”And you're completely missing the point,” Joey said, his smile gentle while Novak snorted again. ”Good guys automatically want to protect you, which is probably why your employer doesn't want you going into the homes of people he doesn't know. He probably feels the same way we do-that for every good guy out there who instinctively wants to protect you, there's a bad guy who's driven by a deep-seated instinct to ruin you.”

”That's why I think I like this Twist dude,” Novak announced, surprising her. ”He looks out for you, protects you, even tries to get you to eat right and wear the right shoes. He's one of the good guys. You just need to open up your eyes and see him for what he is.”

Chapter Seven.

Once Twist dropped off a packed duffle and a pot of his mother's famous rice pudding at Angel's, he headed next door. He didn't even get to the front stoop when the door suddenly opened and Novak stepped out, a finger to his lips.

”Angel conked out about twenty minutes ago,” he said by way of greeting, his voice pitched low despite the fact that they were outside in the cool September night air. ”We tried to get her to eat another helping of the penne pasta, but she just scrunched up her nose and buried her head in a pillow. I swear, she's the pickiest d.a.m.n eater I've ever known. It's like she's got the taste buds of a f.u.c.kin' five year old.”

”Tell me about it.” Twist tucked her keys into his jeans pocket, all the while taking the other man's measure. Novak was lean and cut, with an air of barely leashed energy crackling around him like a storm even when he stood perfectly still. If he hadn't seen him with Joey, he would have had a serious problem with a guy like Novak living right next door to Angel. ”She okay otherwise? Any headaches? Dizzy spells? Nausea? Any other kind of weird s.h.i.+t?”

”Nah. Just her usual, head-in-the-clouds Angel-ness.”

That had Twist cracking a smile. ”Perfect way of putting it.”

”I was kind of hoping that motherf.u.c.ker who attacked her might've knocked some real-world sense into her cute little noggin. But I think it's too soon to tell at this point if this episode's convinced her that not everyone on the planet is a pure-hearted descendant of Glinda the Good Witch.”

Twist's smile widened. Thank G.o.d her neighbors recognized that alarming naivete in Angel's otherwise outstanding makeup. While he admired her optimism that made her see only the best in people, there had to be some kind of a limit. ”It'd be great if we could somehow convince her that not everyone's harmless without her suffering a loss of consciousness and a trip to the hospital.”