Page 7 of Handle Me

“I don’t think that matters much anymore, but if you want to know what they expect, maybe you could ask the messenger.”

I stared at him, momentarily confused.

“Lo-la,” he said, spelling it out for me.

Maybe it was the lager muddying up my brain or my subconscious wanting to forget about her, but I’d nearly forgotten she was involved. “I think she’s the heart of my problems. Not the solution.”

“If she’s the heart of them, it’s because she walked straight to that spot.” He gave me the side-eye from behind the wheel. “Give her a chance.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe I should give her a chance. But he was wrong about one thing. She hadn’t chosen to help me. She’d been forced to, which was a fact she’d made abundantly clear. And even if she’d wanted to help me before, I doubted she would anymore. But that wasn’t the real problem.

The real problem was that Lola Bishop was a goddess. Not the beautiful benevolent kind you wanted to worship, though. She was a dazzling but terrifying goddess. The kind that delivered storms to shipwreck soldiers, turned men into animals, or just rained vengeance in general. She demanded respect from her cold, lofty pedestal. And it was clear that a royal bastard like me would never reach her. Not really.

But Wilkes had a point. She knew exactly what the royal family wanted. I could get that much out of her if I didn’t kill her—or fuck her—first.

“Maybe I will,” I said reluctantly, “unless she keeps stealing my shit.”

“Do you really think she stole it?”

“I think my empty pockets prove she did, mate,” I muttered.

“No. Think about it. What would she want with those things?”

“To make my life a living hell? Why do women do anything?” I leaned against the passenger door’s armrest. Maybe I’d had one too many tonight. The answer hadn’t been at the bottom of those pint glasses, and now it was screwing with my head. Another poor life choice brought to me by my own stupid ass.

“If she wanted to do that, she would have taken your clothes,” he pointed out.

“She took my bloody socks!”

“She stole your socks?” Wilkes snorted as though he found the petty act amusing. “All I’m saying is that she had to have a real reason to want your keys and wallet.”

“What would that be?” I was too buzzed to put the pieces he was giving me together.

“Why do you need them?”

“To start my bike? Pay for a round? Get in my house?” As soon as the last option left my mouth, I groaned. “She took them to get into my house.”

“Yeah, and you were too busy sulking to realize that.”

“I wasn’t sulking.” I thought about it for a moment. “Okay, I was, but why would she want to go there? I mean, she’s not expecting to stay with me, right?”

“I doubt that,” he said gently.

I’d expended the last clarity I had to get here. Wilkes thought he knew what Lola was up to, but I didn’t dare guess. I could only hope she hadn’t set fire to my house to teach me a lesson. But when Wilkes pulled the Mercedes into my driveway, the house was still standing. It was quiet. The family neighborhood was in bed already. The only sign of life was a single light on in an upstairs window.

Not just any upstairs window, my bedroom window.

“You want me to come in with you?” Wilkes asked.

I shook my head. Whatever had motivated Lola to come here tonight wasn’t going to end well. I doubted she’d come over and climbed into my bed to wait for me, but a guy could dream. “I’m good.”

“Need help breaking in?”

“Nah.” Something told me that I’d find my front door unlocked and waiting. “Cheers.”

Climbing out of the SUV, I ambled toward the house. When I reached the door, I shoved my hand in my pocket, forgetting that my keys weren’t there. Behind me, the headlights of Wilkes’s car flashed over me as he pulled out of my driveway and headed back to his life. It was the moment of truth. Could I predict even one of Lola’s actions? Reaching for the door, I found it unlocked. Maybe I could.

I walked through the empty house, not bothering to look around the ground floor. There was only a couch and television in the front room, neither of which had been disturbed. I’d never bothered to buy much furniture. I took the steps two at a time and stopped when I reached the top one. Rubbish bags were piled at the end of the hallway, outside my bedroom door.