A sound at the door makes both of us freeze. Someone’s trying to get in. Keys jingle, and I hear a curse.
Shit. It’s Benny. Good thing I changed the locks.
Tank starts for the door, a dangerous set to his shoulders. He’s going to knock Benny unconscious.
“Wait.” I catch his arm. “You can’t-it’s my ex-boyfriend.”
“What?”
The doorbell rings. “Foxfire?” Benny whines. “I know you’re in there.” He rings the doorbell a few more times and knocks. Jerk.
“He left stuff here. I’ve been on him to pick it up,” I explain quickly.
“Fuck.”
The mafia man is still sprawled on my rug. Fuck is right.
“I can stall him-” I start, when the thug begins to stir. At least, until Tank’s fist flashes out and catches him on the jaw.
“That’s probably not good for him.”
“He held a gun on you,” Tank says. The flint in his eyes tells me in his world, you don’t hold guns on women. You do pin them against a wall and spank them if they’re naughty. It’s a pretty interesting place, Tank’s world.
“Foxfire!” Benny shrieks.
“Coming!” I shout, stepping in front of the window in case Benny decides to try to look through the curtains. “Give me a minute.” I whirl to face Tank. “What are we-”
Tank already has the thug rolled in my rug and is carrying him to the back room.
“No, not there.” I whisper. “That is where I keep Benny’s stuff. Out back. ”
Tank heads into the kitchen.
The doorbell dings constantly.
“Go get the door,” Tank orders. “Keep him occupied away from the windows.”
I scramble back to the door, wrench it open, and slip out, pulling it shut behind me.
“What the hell?” My ex squints at me. It’s not yet ten a. m. Early for him. In the daylight, he looks almost anemic.
“What do you want, Benny?” Weak chin, skinny, pothead. I have no idea what I even saw in him.
“I’m here to get my stuff. Whose truck is that?” He scowls, pointing at the big gray truck with a covered bed in my driveway. “It’s in my spot.”
“You don’t have a spot, Benny. I own this house, and we broke up.”
“You got a man in there?” He frowns at the door.
“None of your business. I know you’re here for your stuff, but I’m in the middle of something. Come back later.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tank emerge from the side of the house, carrying the rug. He’s headed down the driveway, to his truck.
“On second thought, now’s a good time.” I pull Benny inside before he has time to ask a question. “Here’s your stuff.”
“What happened to your rug?” he glances at the new bare spot in the middle of my living room floor.
“Termites,” I blurt. “Rug termites.” I grab the lava lamp from the corner. “Here.” I hand it to him. “This is yours.”
Benny frowns at it, which means he’s not looking out the window where Tank is loading a mafia man wrapped in a rug into the back of the big gray truck. Hopefully, none of my neighbors notice, either.
“I don’t want this shit.” Benny says. “I want my lights.”
“What?”
“The grow lights.”
“For my tomatoes?”
“No, you idiot, for my pot.”
I suck in a breath. I knew he used but didn’t know he grew. “Did you grow here?”
Benny rolls his eyes. “Where are they?”
I motion to the back room. “But, what about my tomatoes?”
Benny rounds on me and start in with that cutting, derogatory tone he always used when he thought I was too air-headed, “Listen, dumbass-”
The next thing I know, Tank’s in front of me. He has Benny by the collar and hauls him off his feet.
“Did you just call her dumbass?”
Benny splutters. “Dude-”
“You know this asshole?” Tank growls.
“Yeah, Tank! It’s okay. He’s my ex-boyfriend.”
A louder growl this time, deeper in his gut. His wolf.
Hello, Wolfie.
“Apologize to Foxfire.” When Benny’s eyes bug, but he says nothing, Tank bares his teeth. “Apologize.”
“Jeez, I’m sorry, okay?”
Tank drops Benny, who sputters and backs up, wheezing. “What the fuck?”
“Does he have any right to this place?” Tank asks, his eyes on my ex.
“What? No. I own it. He was going to fix it up, though.” It’s probably the only reason I dated him.” That, and he stuck around. In the early days, he made me laugh. After that, he was just a habit, one I should’ve kicked a long time ago.
“He accosted me!” Benny shouts, pointing.
“Yeah, I know,” I scoff. “I was standing right here. Now, go away, Benny. Get your new girlfriend to buy you new grow lights.”
“I’ll call the cops on this place.”
“What?” I gasp. “You grew the pot, not me.”
“They don’t know that. Like you said, you own the place.”
“Get the lights,” Tank murmurs still not taking his eyes off Benny.
I trot to the back room, noting my returned rug, crumpled on the floor and missing the mafia man. I grab the pair of lights and return to find the two men in my life having a staring contest. If we assign points based on tough, commanding awesomeness, Tank is winning.
“Here.” Tank takes them from me and shoves them at Benny.
“You call the cops, I find you.” Tank says.
“Yeah, whatever man.”
Tank shuts the door in his face.
“You dated that thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Break up with him?”
“Uh, yeah. He was bad in bed. And then I found out he cheated on me.”
“He cheated on you?” Tank said as if I’d just claimed the sky was pink.
I nodded.
“If he bothers you again, you call me.”
“Okay. What are we going to do about the wise guy?”
“He’s in my truck.”
“What about his car?”
“I’ll take care of it. Get your things.” Tank whips out his phone. “Hey, Nox? Yeah, I need a tow… Hang on.” He pulls the phone away from his ear and smacks my ass.
Fresh tingles start there and race straight to my core.
“What did I just tell you to do?”