Blood on the Bayou Read Online Free PDF

grungy T-shirt. It was like the nineties came back to haunt me, and they were even uglier than I remembered.”
    “I like the curls.” I also like those jeans and grungy T-shirts. They remind me of when Hitch and I would roam the French Quarter on Sunday mornings, hunting down coffee and beignets before going back to his place and gorging on pastry and each other.
    Fern raises an eyebrow. “Uh-un. No, you don’t. No smiling, or fond remembering or whatever you’re doing right now. You don’t like anything about him. You don’t notice the way he looks like sex on a stick. He’s bad for you.”
    “I know.”
    “And practically married.”
    “I know.”
    “ And going to be a daddy before Valentine’s Day.”
    “I know!” I hold my hands in the air and try to look innocent. “I have to go, okay? I’m going to be late.”
    “You’re already late.”
    Hitch’s drawl. From right behind me.
    Balls .

F ifteen minutes late,” he adds.
    I spin with a smile, praying Hitch didn’t hear that he was the subject of discussion. The only thing worse than Fernando thinking I still have a thing for Hitch is Hitch thinking I still have a thing for Hitch. I shrug. “That’s practically on time.”
    “If you’re you.” He steps into the alley, breathtaking in jeans so broken in I can feel how soft they are just looking at them and a threadbare blue T-shirt that shows the skin beneath in the really thin patches. His sun-streaked brown hair fuzzes in curls around his head and his face is shadowed with patchy whiskers. Like an adorable dog with a mild case of the mange.
    Yum . I have no idea what Fern’s talking about. The nineties were a good decade. At least they look good on Hitch.
    “But I’m not you,” he says, in his new, more-adult-than-thou-wilt-ever-be voice, the one that makes me remember why I was working up a healthy resentment of him a month back.
    “Sorry for the wait,” I say. “I forgot about the constructionand then Fern had some important things to tell me about food. I figured our FCC conversation could wait a few minutes while we decided on fish or steak for dinner.”
    Hitch’s expression loses its irritated edge. I silently congratulate myself on passing the lateness buck onto Fern and the need to pretend Hitch and I aren’t up to anything of interest. “Of course.” He lifts a hand in Fern’s direction and smiles. “I’d go with steak. Nothing like a hunk of meat on the grill at the end of a long day.”
    “And Annabelle does like her a hunk of meat.”
    I shoot Fern a dirty look, but he’s already backing away. “See you at seven,” he says. “Buy something red for supper. Cabernet or Syrah. No Merlot.”
    “Merlot can be good.”
    “So can cat shit,” he says. “If it’s buried in the dirt where I don’t have to smell it.” He waves and turns to walk away, a swagger in his step that wasn’t there before.
    Fernando can’t resist putting on a show, even when he knows the audience isn’t interested. Hitch is as straight as a stick, and—if Fern’s stories are to be believed—not only in his sexual tastes. The old Hitch considered skinny dipping in the lake behind his house the only respectable form of exercise. Well, that, and other clothing-optional activities that work up a sweat . . .
    Activities that I refuse think about.
    I clear my throat. “Heard you were up at five to go jogging. Intense.”
    The smile he put on for Fern slips. “I couldn’t sleep, and I had some other business to take care of. Thought I might as well do something productive. This whole thing is just . . .”
    His eyes scrunch with worry and for the first time I notice the tiny wrinkles around his baby blues. He looks older, tired . . . scared. The only time I’ve seen Hitch scared was when he was seconds away from being torn apart by a swarm of fairies. He’s not immune. Even one bite would have killed him. Maybe instantly, the way fairy bites killed most of his highly allergic family during