Seventeen

"I don't want to!"

"Jesus, Legend, could you have picked a worse morning for this? "

That had better not be a smile threatening to spill out on Shane's face. Because if it was, Raph would put a hole through his perfect teeth.

He was standing with Legend in the sitting room, having a heated argument with her while The TV played Megatron in the background. He couldn't honestly remember what they were discussing when Nicki went on about her pricey lady-bits like that. Grabbing the remote, he turned it off and silence reined in the room.

Not for long, though.

"Hey! I was listening to that!" Legend pouted. She was dolled up in a leather jacket and matching leather pants because she'd had this crazy idea to—wait for it—follow him to work.

"No, you weren't. We were just agreeing that you are going to stay home with Shane today."

"You bet Halle Berry's ass I'm not. I want to go in with you today."

Raph groaned. This was just what he needed this fine Tuesday morning. He should've known something was up when she had presented a plate of under fried eggs and burnt toast with tea that was 100% Vodka in front of him with a flourish and a badly said bon appetit. Turns out, when her meant-to-persuade breakfast didn't do exactly that, she turned into a banshee.

"You can't go. You'll be bored to tears."

"At least it's Better than being bored to tears here." She shot back "No, you won't. Shane's here."

She turned to Shane.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but if I see your face for a week longer, I'll stab myself in the throat."

Shane chuckled, "I wish I could say the same."

Raph scowled at him.

"Seriously, man? Here, now?"

"What?" Shane retorted, perplexed.

Like he didn't know what he was doing. He was going to send a strong message to the bodyguard to keep his eyes and flirting prowess off Legend. He was so much better when all he did was grunt, beat on his chest and say, ‘Me, Shane.'

"I thought you were supposed to meet someone? Isn't that today?" Please, let it be today.

"That's tomorrow. "

Fuck.

"Well, you can go meet your other friends. Have a girl's day out or something. Take my credit card."

Legend looked hurt.

"I don't have any friends. Do you want to get rid of me so badly?"

Shit. The suspicion sheen of her eyes tugged pangs of guilt from his heart.

Shane frowned disapprovingly at him. Yeah, sure, everyone gang up on him now.

"Legend, it's not like that," He began, searching for the right words. "It's just that I'm gonna be so busy today and I don't want to leave you bored." And you'll also make me stare at that ass all day.

"I'll play with paper clips or count impalas, just please let me come."

"Impalas?" Shane raised an eyebrow.

"Counting sheep is overrated." Legend informed him.

Raph swore that if Shane interrupted this little argument, he would kick him out of the building—through the window.

Giving him the evil eye, Raph continued to reason with Legend. He should've saved his breath because it turned out that Legend was a stubborn goat.

"—I might get kidnapped or assaulted again! Have you forgotten how I was almost trampled by those reporters?! I'm still in shock." She tossed a dramatic hand over her forehead, narrowly missing slapping Shane in the eye with her long fingers.

"That's the reason he's here." He pointed at Shane. Other than to ask stupid questions and make moon eyes at Legend, of course.

"Shane is only one man!"

The longer they argued, the more her decibel rose to glass-shattering tones and Raph felt a migraine coming on.

"You can come along if you want."

"—And I'll keep on watching cook shows where the food's already prepared and stored in some place before they go live and Chef Xavier, the big fraud would pull out the dish like he made it from the scratch—wait, what?" His tired acceptance pierced her brain and she peered at him suspiciously.

"Did you say that to get me to stop talking?"

Yes, good Lord, yes. Besides, she hadn't been talking. No, she'd been crowing and making anyone within a ten-foot radius of her indefinitely deaf.

"You can come along since you're suddenly so interested in recreating ‘Baby's day out' but I've got rules."

She hopped from one foot to the other excitedly.

"Rules schmules. You won't even notice I'm there."

Yeah, that sounded real familiar. He stared at Legend, wondering internally why he was actually considering this.

She smiled back at him, the picture of innocence. She looked like a goth girl scout.

"Good, that's settled," Shane briskly said and dusted his hands like he'd just been in a fight with Mike Tyson and had whupped his ass.

Fucker.

"We're going to the office, the office, office." Legend sang, putting her hands on his waist to form a Conga line and dancing them both out into the hallway.

Was it only ten in the morning? Today was going to be a long day.

The slam of the door sounding like ominous.

And not just because he was supposed to resist bending Legend over his desk.

His Raphy senses were tingling.

This day was not going to end well.

***

Legend was still telling him about Chef Xavier's cook show.

"And he hires his guests. There's this guy who's always there, the last time he was a blond and his name was Radcliffe the Celebrity DJ and the other time he was some aristocrat called Matthew Caldwell."

Raph hummed.

"Maybe it's just coincidence. Two different people who look alike."

"I looked Matthew Caldwell up. It's the name of a mortician downtown and before you ask, he's the only Matthew Caldwell in town."

Raph hummed again. Legend got the impression that Raph was worrying about the color of his boxer briefs and was paying zero attention to the result of her more than thorough—it had taken her five episodes, one Facebook search, and a bag of Cheetos to make her deductions—detective work.

"Maybe he's not from around here." He frowned, nibbling on his lower lip.

"Puh-lease, we all know that low-life Xavier doesn't have that much money to hire big shot celebs. So, Radcliffe's probably his real name and the only celebrities he's DJed for are the ones on the wall of his parents' basement which, BTW, is where he lives."

"Hmm."

Legend didn't think she would be blamed if she decided to jump right out of this vehicle or better yet, clobber Raph in the head with the mascot sitting on his dashboard. He was acting really weird today. First, he didn't want her around him and now, he was being a penis and was not even listening to her ramblings.

Maybe he'd gotten tired of her and this was his way of showing he was no longer excited to find her panties in the weirdest places possible in his apartment.

He made her doubly sure of this when he asked her if she'd heard from Burt.

That took the wind right out of S.S. Legey's sails.

"He's not done yet. The damage to the wiring system's pretty serious."

And to think that she'd thought this Buddies with Benefits would work out. Now, he couldn't even bear to look at her. She'd been counting and he had only looked at her a hundred times today, as opposed to six thousand on a good day.

Was that a sneer on his lips? Yup, it was official. She was gonna go back to her miserable, sex starved life. Her only friend would be the salamander that lived in the leaky ceiling of her then-desolate and isolated home. She'd be scorned like a dog with herpes, she'd be shrunken, with no hair, because of the lack of human contact, and she'd have cats named after the Wizard of Oz cast.

"Stop thinking so loudly."

Oh, I'm sorry, Raph, I couldn't help but panic because my life is about to go back to the big, fat nothing it was, so excuse me if my internal musings are disturbing you, O mind reader extraordinaire.

In retrospect, she probably should have hurled that one at him and left him to chew on that, but she always, always had to say the stupidest things at the stupidest moments.

"I'm sorry, I was just thinking of Logan."

Raph stiffened. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that some supervillain had taken over her mouth because she couldn't seem to stop her mouth from moving. Either that or her mouth's lock had been broken and she was just realizing it in the most horrible way.

"We had some good times." Lies. All of it.

"Oh?"

If she'd thought she had been spewing nonsense before, Raph's uninterested tone opened up the floodgates to the Talk of the Century.

"I feel like we loved each other too much and that was what made us hate so hard, especially him. I…I don't know how I feel anymore." At this rate, she wouldn't even make hell fire. Not only was she lying, she was using Logan to try to get a rise out of Raph because her middle name was Petty-Ana.

But he acted like she had been telling him what he knew all along as he shrugged those big shoulders of his.

It was then that Legend knew.

Something was awfully, terribly wrong.

She began to remember the little things—because they always came to you so late, damn them. The way he didn't cuddle with her anymore this past week, he was always absent-minded, never asked her about her stories, never gave her shit about Legendary Shekira. He always sounded cross when he was on the phone and when she enquired, he'd brush it off and say they were closing a huge deal back at the office.

This was how things had gone downhill with Logan, too.

Thankfully—or was that unthankfully—there was no space for her to put her head between her legs to stop her hyperventilating her heart out.

"What's wrong, are you OK? "

Why was he looking at her with concern, like he actually gave a fuck about her? She couldn't stand the difference in his attitude but the gentle way he'd asked that question left her feeling unsure.

God, her head was spinning faster than a ballerina. She didn't know what was what anymore.

"Legend, what the fuck's wrong with you?"

She snapped.

"Just stop! My problem is you. You and your stupid mixed signals. Last week, you were all 'baby, this; baby, that,' but this week, ohhhh, this week, you've been acting like a jackass!"

"Well, excuse me, I'm not the one who just confessed I was still in love with one brother while using the other one to scratch my itch!" Be glared at her. They were still far away from his office building, so they had a long time to do this.

Legend pursed her lips. She had known that plan would ricochet, she just didn't think it would've been this fast.

"Of course you're not the one playing brothers, you're not gay." So beside the point, Legend. "And I said all that because I wanted to see what you would do." Was it just her or did she sound like a fifteen-year-old who was trying to justify her reasons for stealing her best friend's boyfriend?

According to Raph's raised brow, it wasn't just her.

The facial expression that she'd once found hot now irritated her.

"We agreed that this was going to be a no-strings attached thing," she reminded him. "But you don't want this anymore, do you? You don't want me around anymore."

"That's not true," He ground out, his hands tightening on the wheel.

"Then why didn't you want me to come in with you today?"

"Because I can't keep my hands off you! Every time I see you, I go crazy! I just wanna touch you, fuck you, lo—Shit. But I can't keep you safe."

He finished desolately, looking lost. Legend stared at the man who made her wish she could love again, and she felt afraid.

"Raph, what are you talking about? Keep me safe from what?"

Raph sighed. "Lemme pull over and I'll tell you. I should've done something when I had the chance. I should've. "

He stepped on the brake.

Nothing happened.