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him up to kiss him until his ears rang.
They panted together, grinning into the kiss. "Better."
"You know it. We should look for shoes." Sonny nuzzled his
throat, always a little warm and fuzzy after he came. "And I
need a sketchbook."
"Yeah." MJ took a second to just touch Sonny. Yeah. He
would do that.
Wear Sonny's ink.
Fuck.
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Chapter Thirteen
"So how's it going with your new shadow?" Bethy's voice,
always so weird and rough and all, startled him badly, the vial
of ionized water crashing to the ground.
"Shit! Bethy! Don't do that!" Paddy frowned and rolled his
eyes. Good thing it hadn't been important.
Or expensive.
Or explosive.
"Don't do what? Stomp into my own lab after saying 'Rick,
Rick, Rick!' over and over?" She snorted, pushed her wiry-
assed, kinky-curly hair over her shoulder. "Is he okay?"
"Neil? Yeah. Yeah, he's great. He's gone to ... Uh ... Do
something." He'd forgotten what, exactly. Nap. Eat. Find food.
Walk. He'd been busy.
"That's good, I guess. So? How long's he say he's
staying?" Oh, man. She sat down. He hated when she sat
down. That meant she was staying.
"Until he's done, I guess?" Paddy didn't want to think
about that. Not at all. He was ... He was maybe more than a
little seriously fucked where Neil was concerned.
"Ah, if it isn't the manager. Hello, Bethany." Neil came in
bearing a tray from the commissary, and it smelled good. Oh,
food. They'd kinda ... played through breakfast.
Well, he'd offered to share his emergency Pop-Tarts with
Neil, but Neil had given him this wide-eyed look of something
that was either terror or disgust and he'd put them back in
the drawer with the can of 1987 Jolt cola, the Slinky that said
"My DM is a better roller than your DM", and a package that
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either held some old intern's retainer, a Beatles cassette, or
the corpse of a giant hissing cockroach.
He couldn't remember and he was sort of scared to look.
"Hey there, Neil. Keeping busy?" Bethy gave Neil a look
that sort of made Paddy growly, which was weird because,
well, Neil didn't go for middle-aged women with gaps between
their front teeth and a serious thing for double knit.
Still.
"I am, yes. I take it you are, too?" Neil passed by, giving
him a look meant just for him, one that made him tingle.
"You know I don't work. I just harass the boys and make
sure no one blows up the building." Right, like Bethy wasn't
one of them. She was just one of them with a better salary
these days.
"Which must be a full-time job, indeed. I think we have
everything under control here." The strangest look passed
between Neil and Bethy, this one making Paddy go hmm
instead of grrr.
"Of course, you do. Come see me in my office at some
point, yeah, Rick? We've got to discuss progress."
Progress.
Oookay.
God, things were odd around here these days.
"Sure, Bethy. Lunchtime!" He kicked the broken glass out
of Neil's way.
"Yes, lunchtime." Grinning, Neil took Bethy's arm and
hustled her to the door. "So nice of you to drop by."
Man, Neil was really, really good at that. Paddy was
impressed.
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The door closed and Neil even locked it. Wow. Okay.
"What's for lunch?"
"Oh, I brought a variety, love. I thought you might be
hungry."
Dude. There were sandwiches and some kind of salad and
a latte and some Cokes and ... wow.
"Yum." He looked at the window and then took a good,
hard kiss. "Thank you."
"Mmm. Yes, that's a lovely thank you." Neil smiled and
kissed him back, then went to get a cup of hot water and a
teabag.
He grabbed half a sandwich. Ooh. Tuna fish. Yum. "So do
you report to Bethy? Or do you have another boss?"
"You could say Bethany and I are on the same level," Neil
said, taking what he would call a biscuit and dunking it in his
tea. Privately, Paddy thought they were all cookies.
"Oh." Thinking about Neil's job, and him and Bethy, and
the whole thing, led to more thoughts about Neil leaving and
someone thinking he was crazy and ... Yeah. Okay. More
food.
"You're hardly crazy. But I won't tell Bethy that just yet,
hmmm?" Oh, that was. Yeah. Okay. Neil picked up ... some
kind of lettuce thing, crunching away. "Do you ever see what
your experiments actually apply to, love?"
"I'm not sure they really have real-world applications. I
mean, I made a thing once that could go from frozen to
boiling on command and I thought it could be useful, but the
prototype poofed and I got moved in here to play with other
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things." They weren't anything but research people. The guys
to make the stockholders happy.
"Ah. Well, at least you enjoy your work. It's not frustrating
to make things that never get used?" That stare kinda looked
like the one Neil had given Bethy.
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