Hot As Sin

4

“I need my Saltines, honey,” she says, grimacing.

Nico decides what she needs is to be off her feet. He swings her up into his arms and smiles down at her, rendering her starry-eyed. Then faintly green.

I say, “Uh-oh. Kenji might not be the one puking on Chloe’s pedi. Better get her to the kitchen and get some crackers in her before she blows.”

“Thanks for that mental image,” says Brody cheerfully. “Reminds me of that Monty Python movie where the fat guy eats too much then explodes…which one was it?” He looks at Grace for confirmation, but she’s still got her narrowed green gaze on me.

“I forget. I’m sure Barney knows. He’s a movie buff.”

I shrug, shaking my head. “Nope.”

I can tell Grace knows I’m full of s**t, but hell if I’m about to admit I know it’s from The Meaning of Life filmed in 1983, and the fat guy’s name was Mr. Creosote.

Even if Brody does have Grace, I’m not asshole enough to one-up him in front of her.

Chloe says, “I’ll follow you guys to the kitchen and make sure A.J. hasn’t demolished all the food yet.” She laughs. “I can’t leave him alone around a buffet. It winds up looking like a hurricane blew through.”

As they head toward the kitchen, Brody’s phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket and looks at the screen. “It’s my mom.” He gives Grace a kiss on the temple, then turns away and answers the call, strolling off as he speaks.

Grace and I look at each other. After a moment, she says quietly, “You’re a good man, Barney. Whoever you are.”

A funny feeling squeezes my chest. I look away. “I’m just a regular guy. No different than the rest.”

She softly laughs. “Sure. And I’m Elvis Presley.”

When I glance back at her, she’s shaking her head, obviously amused.

“What?”

Her gray eyes flash with humor. “Nothing, tough guy.” She laughs again, but quickly sobers. “Do me a favor.”

I’m immediately on guard. When I glance at Brody, she’s quick to clarify.

“It isn’t anything that would put you in an awkward position.” She pauses. “At least I don’t think it would.”

I fold my arms over my chest and gaze down at her, saying nothing. There are very few things she could ask me to do that I’d refuse, but I’m interested to see where’s she’s going.

Tucking a fiery lock of red hair behind her ear in an uncharacteristically shy gesture, Grace looks at the ground for a moment before looking back up at me. She says, “I had a strange dream last night. There was this dragonfly.”

My heart stops beating.

All the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.

She takes a breath, then goes in a different direction. “On this new job of yours, be careful. But also…be open.”

I can hardly produce the word, but I manage. “Open?”

Something strange is reflected in Grace’s eyes. An emotion I can’t identify. Thoughtfully, as if lost in memory, she murmurs, “You deserve happiness, Barney.” After a beat, her look sharpens until it’s as if she’s seeing straight down into my soul. “But you can’t find happiness where you lost it. Look ahead of you, not behind. Be open to the change that’s coming.”

Change is coming, Nasir. Remember who you are. Remember what you promised.

A tremor runs through my body as I remember Sevan’s words from the dream. I take a step closer to Grace. My voice thick, I say, “The dragonfly you saw—”

But then Brody is back, laughing at something and taking Grace by the arm. “God, that woman is unbelievable. She wanted to know if we were coming for Christmas. ‘It’s July, Mom! Christmas is five months away!’ I said. Then she said, ‘But do you think Grace will want to fly in her condition in five months?’ And I said…”

When Grace sends him a thermonuclear death glare, he trails off into silence, biting his lip.

In her condition.

Grace is pregnant.

Just the universe letting me know in no uncertain terms that my decision to start another job was the right one.

Realizing I’ve put two and two together, Grace looks at me apologetically. “We haven’t told anyone yet. Can you keep a secret?”

“Secrets are my specialty, sweetheart,” I say, smiling. “Congratulations.”

A flash of color catches my gaze. Outside on the patio, a dragonfly flits past the glass doors, its wings an iridescent blur of blue and green under the summer sun.

2

“Well, well, if it isn’t everyone’s favorite bodyguard.”

A.J. grins at me from where he’s standing behind the huge marble island, a big bowl of steaming chili in his hands. His amber eyes are focused somewhere over my right shoulder. I haven’t spoken a word since I entered the kitchen, but somehow he knows who I am.

“How the hell did you know it was me?”

“You have a certain intense energy, brother. Very bristly.”

When I scoff, he laughs. “Okay, it’s your soap. You’re the only person I know who smells like a spicy citrus fruit.”

I look at Chloe, who’s seated at the kitchen table beside her nanny, an older Filipino woman with a salt-and-pepper bun and silver glasses. Chloe and A.J.’s beautiful baby, Abby, is on Chloe’s lap, gurgling and grasping with chubby hands at her mother’s long blonde hair. I say, “Is there some way you could monetize this freakishly good sense of smell of his? Get him a reality TV show or something?”