Grunt Style. Veteran owned, veteran made and just plain fucking kickass.”
“Oorah.” He grinned wickedly. Mike served 10 years in the United States Marine Corps and would never let Tommy forget for a minute that he thought the Marines overshadowed the Army by a mile.
“Change of plans. One of Luke’s contacts called five minutes ago and gave him some intel on a case developing. Some celebrity with a stalker. He’s setting up the drop off now, but we’ll know more in a few hours. I’m switching you onto this case and Noah is finishing up with his latest so he’ll put off the paperwork and jump onto the singer.”
“Yeah, I bet he will.” Tommy remarked shaking his head at his brother’s horn dog attitude.
Mike laughed then turned away to leave.
“No travel?”
Mike merely looked back at Tommy from the landing of the stairs. “Nope. You’ll be entertaining though, so make sure you got food in the pantry and clean sheets on the beds.”
“Beds? More than one?” His eyebrow kicked up in question.
“Just two of them; Celeb and her ‘people’.” Mike’s gigantic hands doing such a chick like thing, air quotes in this case, always provided a laugh and never grew old.
“You mean, ‘person’.”
“Same shit.” Mike shrugged his shoulders.
Instead of unpacking, Tommy simply threw his bag to the corner and followed Mike out, taking his holster with him.
“Her, meaning a woman. You got a name?”
“Good detective work Sherlock. Look, I know you like to be informed and prepared but at this point what I just told you is all we know.”
“Alright.” Tommy held up his hands, surrendering the questioning. He headed for the couch in his sitting room when they hit the bottom landing and set the holster on the coffee table then sat back.
“I was in town earlier.” Mike turned on him and grinned. “Lissy was asking about you and asking when you were gonna call her.”
Tommy just flipped his brother off and picked up his book.
He chuckled. “I’ll let her know that.”
“Make sure that you do.”
When Tommy thought his brother was going to leave, he turned around and joined him there on the couch.
“What’re you reading there?”
“You wouldn’t know it.” He didn’t look up from the pages.
“Try me.”
Pausing a minute and closing the book over his thumb he turned to Mike. “Riley T.K.”
“Ah. So you like a little mystery with a whole lot of hard on.”
Tommy nearly choked when he took a pull from his longneck and fought to restrain himself.
Mike just laughed and said, “Yeah, I read. I’m not just a pretty face.” He framed his face and mocked a pose.
“Slow down cowboy, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“The women would disagree.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down at TJ while his brother just stared at him blankly.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Tommy shifted back into the couch and reopened the book. Mike could stay as long as he liked, and normally he enjoyed the distraction but right now, today, he just wanted to allow the pain and love and hate and hurt and desire and pride to flow through him while he sulked around his house - their house.
“As much as I’d love to stay and torture your peace of mind some more, I actually do have to go. Rita is waiting for me.” Mike threw his brother the finger guns and blew them out then stood up and clapped a hand to Tommy’s shoulder when he passed by.
“Remember, sharing is not caring if it scratches or burns!”
“Suck my dick.” He called over his shoulder, almost to the front door.
“Not my type.” TJ chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll call you when I hear back.”
After Mike left, Tommy locked the door and walked down the hall to a door which lead to his own private library, hidden under the left staircase. In the back of the library was a long couch, table and full bar, placed so as not to be seen without walking all the way into the library. His kind of library, specially made by his own two
Charles Tang, Gertrude Chandler Warner