“Guess we can’t lay this one all on you,” Lucas commented as he came down the ladder, metal groaning and creaking with his every step, to stand in the center of the devastated kitchen.
He squinted into the sunlight streaming through the window over the sink. “The wiring in the whole damn house is about a breath away from whoosh.”
Griffin shook his head. “Whoosh?”
“That’s a technical term.” Lucas grinned. “The sound a fire makes when it whooshes into life.”
“Great. Disaster humor.” Griffin didn’t think it was funny. He’d actually heard that sound, right after the series of pops when the wiring burst into flame. He remembered the smell of the smoke, too, and tried to push those memories out of his mind. The kitchen was wrecked, but they’d all gotten out in one piece. That was the important part. And from what Lucas was saying, they were lucky the whole house hadn’t been turned into a pile of rubble.
Griffin pushed away from the counter and tucked his hands into his pockets. He took a quick look around the room and saw things he hadn’t noticed when he’d been here before—pictures of Connor on the fridge. A teakettle in the shape of a rooster on the soot-covered stove. Small green glass vases, knocked off the windowsill, now shattered on the scarred countertop, the flowers they’d held lying wilted and dead beside them.
It wasn’t just a room, he thought, it was Nicole’s home, and more of a home than he had. Visions of his condo leaped into his mind. Hell, all he ever used the place for was to store his clothes, to sleep and occasionally to nuke a takeout dinner. He frowned to himself as a nibble of guilt chewed at him. She’d lost so much, and he had more than he needed or used.
Didn’t seem to matter that Lucas had told him the wiring was ready to blow at any time. The plain truth was, Griffin had pulled those wires loose. Griffin had caused the damn fire that had put Nicole and her son out of their house. And Griffin was the one who had to make it right.
Whether Nicole liked it or not.
“So what do you want to do?” Lucas asked, making notes on a computer tablet.
“I want her place fixed.”
“We can do that,” his cousin assured him. “I’m assuming she’s got insurance?”
“She says so,” Griffin told him. “But I’m guessing she’s got a big deductible, too.”
“Probably.” Lucas nodded thoughtfully. “Single moms don’t usually have a hell of a lot of extra cash lying around.”
“That’s what I think, too.” Griffin glanced over at the house next door, where Nicole was working in the dining room with her laptop—thankfully undamaged by either the fire or water. She knew Lucas was here, but she hadn’t been in a hurry to walk back through the destruction, so she had stayed where she was, waiting to talk to Lucas when the inspection was over.
Turning back to his cousin, he said, “I’ll take care of the deductible and any extra it runs.”
Lucas’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that right?”
Griffin saw the interested look in his cousin’s eyes and sneered. “Don’t get any ideas. There’s nothing going on between me and Nicole. But I caused this. The least I can do is fix it.”
“She won’t like it.”
“She doesn’t have to know.”
Lucas laughed shortly. “Dude, you are out of your mind if you really think Nicole won’t find out what you’re up to.”
“Please.” Griffin tugged his hands from his pockets and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m in the security business, remember? We know how to keep secrets.”
“Not from women you don’t.” Lucas shook his head. “It’s spooky, I swear. Every time I think I put one over on Rose, she nails me with it. It’s like female radar or something. Built into the whole double X chromosome or whatever.”
Griffin just stared at him. “You’re delusional.”
“No, I’m married.”
“Same thing.”
“You’re a sad, sad man,” Lucas said, shaking his head and grinning.
“Yeah,” Griffin shot back, his smile wide and self-satisfied. “Poor me. Different woman every week. Nobody making demands on my time. Sex whenever I want it.”
“Uh, hello?” Lucas scowled at him. “I get sex whenever I want it, too, you know. And I don’t have to leave home to get it.”
“Yeah?” Griffin laughed. “How’s the sex life these days?”
Lucas’s wife was pregnant with their second child. Just like most of the King family, Lucas had turned from a player into a husband and father. The Kings were falling, one by one, like a row of dominoes bowing to gravity. Pitiful. Just pitiful.
“You should have it so good.” Lucas gave him a wicked grin.
Possibly true. For all his big talk, Griffin knew that his cousin had a point. Hell, over the last few months, Griffin had been less and less interested in living the lifestyle that had been his for years. Dozens of different women had come and gone from his life, barely making an impression. Different. He laughed silently at that, because though the faces and names had changed, they’d all been the same.
Beautiful and boring.
Try having a conversation with any of them. Hell, after the first five minutes, he’d been zoned out and barely listening to talk that centered on the hottest club, the newest designer or the best place to get a spray-on tan.
But then, he hadn’t dated them for their ability to discuss art and literature, had he? Griffin could admit that all he’d wanted from them—any of them—was a quick romp in the sheets. So he really had no room for complaints, did he?
Damn. This whole maturing thing was a pain in the ass.
“So when do you want us to get started?” Lucas asked with another glance around the kitchen.
“This afternoon work for you?”
Lucas laughed. “Got it. You want it done fast.” Nodding, he made a few notes on his computer tablet. “We’re spread a little thin right now—we’ve got at least a half dozen jobs up and running, not to mention that Rosie’s got me building shelves in Danny’s room when I’m not working. But two of our jobs are winding down.”
“Man. Rafe left town for a vacation when you’ve got that much work piled up?” Out of character for a King, Griffin thought.
“Yeah, well.” Lucas shrugged. “Things change when you’ve got a wife and a life. Besides, Rafe wanted to take Katie on that tour of Europe while she was still feeling well enough to travel.”