Devil's Due [h.s.]

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Meatloaf was a wreck this morning.

While I'd been so concerned about barely seeing my friends these past few weeks, I'd hardly even stopped to think about the other emotionally co-dependent little buddy I normally hung around with on the daily.

She was puttering around at my feet while I rushed around my apartment, shoving things into my bag. Running shoes, a bottle of water, gum. You know, the essentials for when I was getting ready to see Harry at his scary basement gym in less than an hour.

He'd been true to his word yesterday when he followed me home. Neither of us had exchanged a word once I'd arrived, he hadn't even gotten out of the car, but I noted that he waited until I was all the way in the apartment before driving off – considering I watched him peel off down the street from the window once I was up.

Meatloaf had been all over me since then. She wouldn't leave me alone this morning before I left for work and now, the few minutes I'd allowed myself to speed home and get a change of clothes before heading to Devil's Due, she been almost glued to my ankles.

"I know," I cooed, leaning down to give her a scratch behind the ear. "I promise I'll be back tonight, bub, and we can spend the whole time curled up together trying to fend off this cold-ass apartment."

If I survived, that is.

I hadn't been able to shake Harry's mood from yesterday. How he'd flipped like a switch in a matter of seconds. It'd stuck with me the whole day and was still on my mind even while I made my way out of the apartment, the action a little harder than usual given the persistent sphynx who kept meowing at me not to be left alone.

Something about this event was bugging him, whether he was going to admit that to me or not, and he was completely consumed.

But he had been very clear that he wanted me to leave it alone. So that's what I was going to do. Mainly because the reaction I expected to get from him if I didn't terrified me and I definitely was not in the right headspace to deal with it right now.

This was why my drive to Devil's Due was spent blasting my music until I could no longer hear my thoughts. Until I was no longer drowning in excessively extravagant predictions of what this event was and why it meant so much to Harry because, again, he had told me to leave it alone.

That meant both when conversing with him and in my own mind as well.

By the time I arrived, I felt both drained and overwhelmed all at once. Thankfully, Harry's car plus another that I recognized to be Morgan's were the only two in the parking lot. I allowed myself to be relieved for only a moment, unwilling to admit that maybe some of Damien's scare tactics had started to get the better of me before I stepped outside.

I found my anxiety mounting as I made my way to the front door, envisioning the worst of what Harry's mood might turn out to be, only to breathe out another sigh of relief when I stepped through the entrance and was met with the smiling face of Morgan sitting at the front desk.

"Hey, hot stuff," she grinned, abandoning the stack of papers she'd been sorting through and jumped up from her chair to walk over to me. She placed a perfectly manicured hand on my shoulder, letting it run all the way down my arm to my wrist.

"Morgan," I breathed, a small smile gracing my own face. "Hi. Are you closing up?"

"We're already closed," she responded, angling her head to the side to take in my appearance. "Just doing some last-minute accounting shit to finish the day." With a wink, she added, "For the actual tattoos that we did. Nothing illegal."