THAT SCENT AGAIN

"You have to help me tonight, Jacy." EZ was already talking before we had even left the driveway. I had spent the first few minutes in the new vehicle positioning my seat and getting used to the new lay of the land. I needed to know where everything was before I left, right?

"Help you with what?" I wondered as I shifted the truck into drive.

"I want to dye my hair?"

"Again?" I asked him. He had just gone back to his natural color after the last time he had dyed it. He had had a bright blue color until he let it grow out long, then he cut it off. His hair was currently about three inches long, before he cut it it had been about eight inches.

"Yes, again." He was grinning.

"What color this time?" I felt the smile spreading across my face, he truly was the most interesting person I knew.

"It's called vivid purple by the mando brand." EZ was an old pro with dying his hair and I had been roped into it every single time for the last seven years.

"Let me guess, you're wearing purple tonight?" I joked with him as I turned to look at him. He was currently wearing a bright blue button up shirt and a pair of plain black slacks.

"Ugh, I thought I was going to die wearing this drab junk." He had pinched the shirt and sneered in disgust.

"Why don't you wear your normal clothes when we have brunch?"

"It's too formal of a family event, and I don't want to pollute the kids' minds too early. Let them grow a bit before they get used to their uncle's unusual style."

"They'd still love you EZ, so I don't know why you hide yourself from them."

"If they decide to embrace their uncle when they're old enough, that's fine, but until then I will just let them think their uncle is someone a lot less flashy."

"You're so confident in yourself except for where the kids are concerned, I don't get it."

"It is what it is." He shrugged his shoulders, looking out the window as I turned away from the house and drove into the city. "So you're going to help me, right?"

"Don't I always." I laughed.

"Yeah, but I still ask. You could always have a sudden personality change or something."

"The day that happens, EZ, feel free to slap me to bring me back to my senses."

"Ooh, I didn't know you were into that kind of kink." He giggled, continuing his joke. "Maybe you've already changed and I didn't notice."

"Oh hush."

The traffic was less intense on our way back to my condo so it took half the time for the return trip. I parked the car in the garage and noticed a lingering scent from someone who shouldn't have been there. What was his scent doing down here?

"What's wrong?" EZ asked when I paused outside the truck."

"I thought I smelled something." I said as the scent started to dissipate already.

"I don't smell anything." He shrugged. "But my nose is nothing compared to yours. What did you smell?"

"I thought I smelled someone who shouldn't have been here."

"The guy from last night?"

"How?" That's all I could manage of the question before I just stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Stop Jacy, you know that I can read you like a book. I had known that you had been with someone the moment you stepped out of the car this morning. Before the others even guessed it"

"You're like a bloodhound or something." I laughed as I walked to his side and linked my arm with his, taking his bag and slinging it over my shoulder.

"Only for you, mon ami, only for you." He was grinning at me as I pulled him to the elevator. "Are we going to talk about it?"

"Maybe in the house." I brushed it off. I knew he wouldn't judge me about last night, and I was going to tell him all about it just like I did everything else, but right now I was a little unnerved by the appearance of his scent again.

Did I bring his scent down here with me when I left this morning? No, I doubted that.

There was his scent again, in the elevator. It was stronger than it was this morning too, like he had been back in here.

"You look tense." EZ commented with a flippant wave of his hand. "You need to lighten up."

"He was here."

"Well, duh. I am assuming you brought him back here last night. Good choice too. What, it was your first night back in your own house in a month and a half, wasn't it. Figures you'd want to get back in your own bed. I just didn't expect you to go to it with someone."

"I didn't plan on it. I went to the bar to make myself forget what I wanted to do to that scummy asshole."

"You were going to kill him, if it weren't for Lucian and the others. You would have, wouldn't you?"

"That's why I called Lucian right away. If I let myself be alone with him then I don't know if I could have stopped myself."

"I'm glad you didn't. You don't need that kind of a burden."

With those words the elevator dinged and the doors opened onto my floor. My senses were instantly bombarded with that scent when the doors slid to the side. That distinct, intoxicating, alluring scent. That scent that was like a mountain stream surrounded by mint.

I followed my nose when I got off the elevator. The scent that I had noticed in my bed led me to a door. But not to my door. I followed my nose to the door that was next to mine. Did he go into that condo as well? What was this guy?

Wait a minute. That place was vacant. There was no one living there. At least the last time I had been home it was empty. Why had he been in there? Why had he come back here at all? What the hell was going on here?