Hydrogen

3. Leah

3

LEAH

Sometimes, I hated my boss. Fine, I’d offer to take care of Brian. And in between throwing tennis balls and feeding him doggy treats, I’d update my résumé and stick pins into a tiny voodoo doll with Dan’s face on it.

Because I was never working surveillance again.

“Hey,” I said.

Kevin turned from the kitchen window, and while his employer hadn’t provided him with any furniture, I had to concede that they’d given him a nice view. If Terrence Garner lived next door, then crime really did pay. My kitchen window looked out onto a wall. Just a plain grey wall. Occasionally, a kid would come along and brighten it up with graffiti, but whoever was in charge of Richmond’s community service program was too damn organised because the artwork always got scrubbed off a few days later. Sometimes a week. Never longer than two.

Maybe that sounded as if I were complaining, but I really wasn’t. Dan might have driven me cray-cray, but Blackwood paid well, better than any other company I’d interviewed at, and I could have afforded an apartment like this if I hadn’t had other priorities. Their names were Laken and Louis. My half-siblings. Our mom had opened the baby-name book at L and never bothered to turn the page, which was about as much effort as she’d put into every other area of our lives. Everything we’d achieved, we’d achieved in spite of her, not because of her. The strain on my finances had eased since my brother graduated, but Laken was still at Columbia, and although she had a partial scholarship, tuition was expensive.

So I’d learned to live with the wall.

“Hey,” Kevin said.

“I don’t suppose you have a blow-dryer?”

“Sorry. You look ni… Okay, I can’t lie.” His lips twitched at the corners. “You look as if you shrank in the wash.”

Was it any surprise? Kevin had to be six feet tall, and my legs were probably the same size as his arms. The bottoms of the sweatpants he’d left out for me trailed along the floor, and the hoodie came to my knees. I looked like a hip-hop version of the Grim Reaper.

My eyes had narrowed all of their own accord, but I forced a smile and a hopefully sincere laugh.

“Right, I do. Thanks for the clothes, though.”

“I’ll get yours dry-cleaned.”

“Honestly, it’s fine.”

Dan could pay for that. She owed me.

“Are you sure?”

“Totally. Do you have a bag I can put them in?”

“I’ll find one. Uh, and here’s your coffee. Want to sit down?”

He held out a mug, but before I could take it, Brian rushed in and shoved his nose into my crotch. Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell. Deep breaths, Leah. I knew nothing about dogs except for the fact that they scared me a bit. My little sister had been bitten by a terrier when we were kids, and I’d avoided them ever since. Meanwhile, Brian was snuffling away while Kevin tried to make up his mind whether to grab the damn dog or ignore his endeavours.

I stumbled backward, aiming for the chair, but I tripped over the pant legs and landed on the polished wooden floor instead. My cheeks burned as Kevin sat beside me, cross-legged, and held out the coffee.

“The floor? Uh, yes, good plan… I don’t even know your name?”

“Leah.”

“Nice name. It suits you.”

What? I just stared at him.

“Anyhow, I was thinking it would’ve been awkward if we’d both tried to sit on the chair.”

I kept staring, and he put his head in his hands. “I don’t know what my problem is. Everything I say today comes out wrong.”

Well, this wasn’t awkward at all. I was stuck in a nightmare with Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, and according to my boss, I was staying there until we caught Garner. Small talk. I should try small talk.

“So, Kevin… What made you move to Richmond?”

“Nothing exciting. Just work.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m… Did you want sugar in your coffee? I didn’t put any sugar in.”

“It’s fine without.”

“Do you want more milk? I bought a coffee machine, but I didn’t get around to setting it up yet.”

“Honestly, this is great.” And I’d also asked for it black. “We were talking about your job?”

And I knew now that he wasn’t a barista. This coffee was terrible. Really bad. As if he’d tipped half a canister of granules in and added the tiniest splash of milk. Not even cream.

“I’m an executive assistant.”

“Really? Me—” Darn it, I couldn’t tell the truth. “Me? I’m a student.”

“Yes, I figured.”

“You did?”

He gestured toward the textbook lying on the table. “I wiped the dirt off it. Reproduction in molluscs, huh?”

“What?” Horrified, I took my first proper look at the title. “Uh, yes? Gotta love molluscs.”

Urgh. That was snails and stuff, right?

“Bet that’s fascinating.”

Was he kidding? He sounded serious, but who could possibly find molluscs interesting?

“I learn something new every day.” How did the rest of the team survive? I couldn’t even concoct the most basic cover story. “It wasn’t quite what I imagined myself doing when I grew up, but life’s full of curveballs, isn’t it?”

“Indeed. And you were studying in the park this afternoon? Isn’t it kind of cold for that?”

Thank you. At least someone understood.

“Yes, but it was better than studying at home. My roommate isn’t the easiest person to live with.”

“What’s wrong with your roommate?”

What wasn’t wrong with him? Get a gay roommate, Cosmo and Glamour said. He’ll help you out with colour coordination, accessorise the communal living areas, and vet potential boyfriends to make sure they’re good enough for his new bestie.

Well, I’d followed the advice, but Stefano didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. He ate my food, sprayed cologne everywhere, left globs of hair product all over the bathroom, and last week, I’d come home to find him doing something unmentionable with a blond guy on my leather couch. At least he paid the rent on time, which was better than the girl before him, but he still drove me insane. I’d have liked nothing better than to kick him out and live alone, but I still had a year of Laken’s tuition left to pay, so I was stuck living with a walrus in leather pants.

“Uh, he plays his music really loud.”

“Can’t you ask him to turn it down?”

“Uh, he has a hearing problem,”—I was such a bad liar—“so I’d feel bad about doing that.”

I took a sip of coffee, and it scalded my mouth. Anything else want to go wrong today? Why, yes. Yes, it did. Brian tried to crawl into Kevin’s lap, but Kevin pushed the mutt away, so Brian settled beside me instead, resting his chin on my thigh. Drool seeped into the sweatpants. I wanted to run screaming, but Dan’s cunning plan meant I had to be nice to him.

“What about the library?” Kevin asked.

“The dust sets off my allergies.”

“A coffee shop?”

“Student budget.” Hey, I was getting good at this. “Brian’s cute when he’s not jumping on me. What breed is he?”

“Good question. I’m not totally sure. The veterinarian thought maybe he was a briard, but I’m leaning toward otterhound.”

“He needs a haircut.”

“Finding a new groomer is something else I haven’t had time to do.”

I took the elastic ponytail holder off my wrist and tied the hair on Brian’s head into a little topknot.

“There, he can see again. Do you want me to ask around and see if anyone can recommend a groomer?”

“You’d do that?”

“I just offered, didn’t I?” And I could already hear Dan yelling across the office for someone to call Georgia. “Hold on, I’ll message a friend.”

Brian was licking my hand when my phone vibrated two minutes later with the info. Georgia was the girlfriend of a sort-of colleague—Xavier was more of a freelancer who did work I wasn’t allowed to speak of and definitely didn’t want to think about—and she spent her spare time volunteering at Hope for Hounds. As it happened, the rescue centre had a grooming parlour on-site and they could fit Brian in for an appointment. All the profits from grooming and boarding were used to feed homeless dogs, so we’d be supporting the charity too.

“My friend knows a place with a slot the day after tomorrow at ten,” I told Kevin. “I’ll give you the address.”

“Ten in the morning?”

“What are you, a vampire? Of course in the morning.”

“I have to work.”

Oh, perfect. He’d walked right into the trap I hadn’t even realised I’d set.

“I don’t mind taking him, if you want?”

“Why would you do that?”

Ah, crap. Kevin sounded a tiny bit suspicious. I took a deep breath and put on my best college-girl smile. I might have been twenty-eight, but I’d always looked younger, and I still got asked for ID every single time I went into a bar.

“Because I thought in return, I could borrow your dining table for a few hours to study in peace.”

Kevin’s turn to stare.

“Or not. It’s just that you said Brian was on his own all day, and if you’re busy working, he might like some company. And I swear if my roommate passes gas one more time, I’m gonna die from methane poisoning.”

“How much would you charge?”

“Charge? Nothing. Nothing at all. I already—” Dammit, I almost said I already had a job. “I already love Brian and his soppy face.”

Kevin glanced around his apartment, and I figured he was working out the risks. There wasn’t a lot to steal, but he still didn’t know me from Adam.

“If it helps, I could get a reference from my summer job. I babysat for two different people. A twelve-year-old and a five-year-old.”

That part was even true. I sometimes supervised Dan’s son and his friends while she went out for dinner. He played pool better than I did, and he was teaching me to play the drums. Plus I’d looked after Tabitha Quinn on one occasion—the daughter of Blackwood’s scariest employee—and what’s more, I’d lived to tell the tale. Tabitha mostly spoke to me in Russian, and she was deadly accurate with her toy crossbow.

“Give him Ethan’s details. Or Ana’s,” Dan said in my ear. Her boyfriend and Tabby’s mom, respectively. If the reference thing didn’t work out, Ana could always intimidate Kevin into letting me walk Brian.

“Okay. If you can provide a reference, then you’ve got the job. But I’m paying you. Otherwise, I’d feel as if I was taking advantage.”

It would probably seem weird if a student turned down money, wouldn’t it? “Minimum wage?”

“Deal.”