I got out and reached for my bag, but Jagger already had a hand on it. “I got you.”
He pulled it out of the car before I could object and I walked around to join him. Of all the Hawks, he was the quietest, his presence a soothing balm compared to Vigo’s erratic wildness and Hawk’s silent appraisal.
Vigo followed Hawk up a stone pathway leading to a wide front porch.
He looked over his shoulder, his sage-green eyes sparkling with excitement that made me more than a little nervous. “Come on, mouse. We’ll show you around.”
I followed them up the stone stairs and looked around while Hawk punched the code into the keypad on the door. The porch was nice, shaded by a deep roof and the surrounding trees, although the utilitarian decor (two chairs and a small bench) made me wonder if they spent any time out there at all.
Hawk stepped inside, disabled the alarm on the wall, and then stood back to let me enter the house.
A wood bench sat on one wall, an array of shoes and boots lined up neatly under it, an empty wooden peg rack mounted to the wall over it. Rich wood floors stretched into the rest of the house, separated from the entry by a half wall topped with wooden slats that provided just a glimpse of a sitting area beyond.
Hawk started pulling off his boots. “Take off your shoes.”
I kicked off my sneakers and set them under the bench.
“Let’s get you settled,” Jagger said, stepping into the house.
Cognitive dissonance twanged through my brain like a discordant note at the sight of them — shirtless, huge, and covered in tattoos — without shoes, Jagger and Hawk in socks, Vigo barefoot.
Jagger carried my bag as I followed them past two chairs and a small table, separated from a sitting area with two sofas facing each other, a fireplace on the wall at one end, and a wall of windows that looked out over the porch and surrounding trees.
The house was obviously old, with warm wood trim around windows and doors, the ceilings accented with beams in the same golden finish.
It was minimal and surprisingly modern for an old house. The architecture was almost entirely square, without the turned posts and carved flourishes of Daisy’s Victorian, but somehow all the wood kept it from being cold.
A wide doorway in the sitting area led to a cozy dining area and a large kitchen with deep green cabinets, dark slate countertops, and an enormous island lined with tall leather chairs.
Hawk walked to the wood-framed glass doors lining one wall and slid them open to a bluestone terrace with a long teak table and chairs, plus a terra-cotta fireplace complete with a chimney.
“Help yourself to anything in the kitchen,” Jagger said, “and feel free to add anything you need to the grocery list. I’ll add you to Cozi.”
“Cozi?” My head was spinning.
“It’s an app we use for grocery lists and household shit,” Vigo said, opening one of the cabinets.
He removed a sleeve of Oreos and started breaking them into a large plastic cup.
Hawk had disappeared up a wide staircase to the second floor.
“We have someone who cleans once a week,” Jagger said. “Technically she makes food too, but you won’t want to eat it.”
“She makes food that we aren’t supposed to eat?” I asked.
“It’s not that you’re not supposed to,” Vigo said, pouring milk over the huge cup filled with broken Oreos. “It’s just that you might die if you do.”
My head was spinning as Vigo started eating the Oreos with a spoon.
“Is she trying to poison you?”
“Nah,” Vigo said. “She’s just a terrible cook.”
I shook my head, feeling like I’d landed on another planet instead of a house just a few minutes outside the town where I’d lived my entire life. “Then why do you pay her to cook?”
Vigo looks almost offended by the question. “She needs the money.”
Right. Okay then. What the actual fuck was happening here?