“Your point?”
“You do what you have to during the day, so you can do what you love at night. Money, sadly, gives you freedom. Unless of course you plan to go off the grid, set up house in the middle of nowhere, and live off the land completely. I call that the Full Ted Kaczynski.”
“Because I love being compared to a paranoid schizophrenic.”
“We both know you’re not a schizophrenic.”
Livy smirked. “Thanks for that.”
“All I’m saying is if you can get top dollar doing work that’ll take you a few hours, thereby freeing you up to work on your real stuff . . . who cares? Unless, of course, you believe this is as good as you’ll ever be—a wedding photographer for rich shifters who aren’t intimidated by honey badgers.”
When Livy scrunched herself deeper into Vic’s coat, the hybrid smiled.
“You’ve gotta know that’s not the case here.”
“Do I? I’ve got nothing new to show for my gallery opening—”
“Then do limited prints of your early work.”
Livy let the silence stretch for a bit before she asked, “May I finish?”
“Sure. But you know I’m right.”
Livy sighed. “Yes. I know you’re right. I guess I just wanted to—”
“Prove you haven’t lost your creative genius?”
“Would you stop doing that?” Livy snarled, annoyed and surprised Vic understood her so well. Even Toni hadn’t been fully grasping Livy’s concerns lately, but the jackal also had a billion more things to worry about these days than just her family’s performance schedules.
“Sorry. Feel free to go on.”
But Livy had nothing else to say.
“Livy?”
“What?”
“It’s okay to be afraid sometimes.”
“I’m a honey badger. I’m fearless.”
“In a fight? Yeah. Around snakes? Definitely. But this isn’t a fight or snakes. It’s something intensely personal that the average person would never understand.”
“Then how come you do?”
Vic looked at her, his painfully bright gold eyes glinting in the darkness from the light seeping out of the kitchen windows.
“So you’re calling me average?” he asked.
Startled, Livy said, “No. I’m not calling you average.”
“So you think I’m astounding?”
“Astounding? How did we get to astounding? You didn’t even pause at above average. Just leapt to astounding.”
Vic stood, grinned. “I notice you didn’t actually dispute astounding, though.”
“Well—”
“No, no,” he said quickly, reaching down and lifting her, then carrying her toward the back door. “Let’s not ruin the moment.”
After dinner and a few hours of TV watching, Ira went out to the backyard so she could inform her husband of “why I’m not coming home tonight, you bonehead,” and Vic carried his sleeping nephew up to bed. He changed him into his favorite Captain America pajamas and tucked him in for the night. Then he went to his room and closed the door behind him.
Vic took off his clothes, pulled on a pair of black sweatpants, and crawled into bed. This time under the covers.
Happy to be home—even if there was a giant panda sleeping on his couch—Vic let out a relieved breath and settled in for the night.
As Vic began to drift off, he thought about dinner. The food had been delicious and the company more than tolerable, which for Vic was a big thing. He might put up with a lot on any given day, but that didn’t mean he found those things tolerable. And yet, he’d truly enjoyed Livy’s company. She wasn’t painfully chatty, so when she did speak, her words had meaning and were often direct. He also discovered she was extremely well-read, but not a snob about it, and she had a vast amount of knowledge about really bad TV. It turned out she would flip on a channel and just leave it for the night while she worked—no matter what came on. She told them it was background noise that helped her focus, but she seemed to be fully aware of every storyline of every show she’d seen, from bad romantic comedies to bad biographies about the latest “story of survival” headline to the names and history of common reality TV superstars. Yet she retold those overblown shows with such a jaundiced eye that Vic knew he’d gladly have her over for dinner again. Because nothing had as high a meaning to someone with his Russian heritage as excellent dinner company.
Vic was nearly asleep when he realized that thinking about Livy made him feel surrounded by her scent. He was surprised how much he liked it, and how well it mingled with his own.
Vic’s eyes popped open and he used his elbow to prop himself up. He sniffed the air, letting his nose lead him until he was halfway off his mattress so he could look under his bed. And that’s where he found Livy.
“Olivia?”
“Yeah?”
“Was there a problem with your room?”
“No.”
“Then why are you under my bed?”
“It’s higher than the other beds.”
“It’s . . . what?”
“The other beds are lower to the floor and harder for me to get under. This one had more room. It’s almost a little too roomy.”
“And being in an actual bed—on the bed, I mean—just doesn’t work for you?”
“Do you have an issue with me being under your bed?”
“Yeah. Kinda. It makes me feel like a bad host.”
“You shouldn’t. It’s nice under here. And whoever cleans your house while you’re away does a great job. It’s clean as hell. I get under some beds and come out the next morning covered in dust bunnies.”
“And you’re sure you’re comfortable?”
“Very.”
“Well . . . okay then.”
Vic stretched back out on his bed and stared up at his ceiling. It was really strange having someone under his bed who wasn’t lying in wait to kill him. Something he had to be more wary of when he worked for the government. Now, though, he just had to tolerate a honey badger under his bed . . . snoring.
Vic blinked. She was asleep? Already?
“Lucky her,” he muttered, because Vic didn’t see himself going to sleep anytime soon while he had a woman asleep under his bed. Especially a woman with such smooth skin, dark eyes, and hair that always smelled like honey . . .
Wait. What was he doing? This was Livy he was thinking about. Livy. Honey badger and occasionally whiny artist. Livy. Who was like a sister to him? No. He never thought about Ira’s smooth skin. Did she even have smooth skin? He didn’t know, but Livy sure did. Really pretty, smooth skin . . .
Confusing himself even more with this internal dialogue, Vic turned on his side and covered his head with his pillow. If nothing else, maybe the pillow would block out the honey scent coming from Livy’s hair. What did she do? Bathe in honey?
Wait. Did she bathe in honey?
Vic growled. What the hell am I doing?
CHAPTER 7
Livy woke up the next morning still under Vic’s bed, but now with a six-year-old cub staring at her.
“Yes?” she asked, keeping her voice low so as not to wake up Vic.
“Why are you under my uncle’s bed?”
“It’s comfortable.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
Livy and Igor continued to stare at each other for a few more minutes before Livy asked, “Hungry?”
“Yes.”
“Pancakes work?”
“Is there honey?”
“I think I left at least ajar or two in the cabinets.”
“African?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“Okay.”
Livy followed the little boy out from under the bed and out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her so she didn’t wake up Vic.