Chapter 9
The day was beautiful, with the scent of coffee wafting through the house, pans on the stove sizzling with food, and Vaughn and Athena sleepily arguing over the benefits of console versus computer gaming. That last part may have seemed strange to anyone else, but to Rhys it was pleasant, witnessing the familiarity between the two. It just hammered home the fact that Athena was integrating nicely into their lives, and they formed some weird sort of family.
After Rhys stirred the potatoes in the pan and lowered the heat on the bacon, he turned to see Athena put Vaughn in a headlock, effectively ending the argument as he struggled against her hold. Rhys rolled his eyes, sharing a smile with Athena. She wasn't even trying. In fact, her attention was on the newspaper laid out on the island, and she was barely focusing on keeping Vaughn trapped.
The day was beautiful.
Rhys turned back to the stove and began plating the bacon, making sure sure to drip as much grease off of the strips of meat as he could before he set them aside. The potatoes were next, going into a small serving bowl before he got out some eggs and whipped up a quick batch of them, scrambled. A simple meal, but tasty, with peppers and other seasonings on the potatoes and mixed in with the eggs. Before he could start carrying the dishes over to the island, Athena reached around him from behind and snagged up the bacon and potatoes, nudging Rhys with her elbow.
"I got this. Go get the newspaper, that one's yesterday's issue." Not even a please or thank you, but Rhys shrugged and did it anyway, padding through the kitchen to the living room and finally out the front door. He wasn't worried about his clothing, a tattered black Hyperion tee, faded with age, and jogging shorts, because it was Sunday, damn it. He could walk outside in his sleep clothes without being judged.
Rhys paused at the door and looked down.
Okay maybe he was worried about his shorts. They were really short, like the kind that hugged your ass cheeks with each step. They were a gag gift from Yvette and Rhys mainly used them as sleepwear.
He pursed his lips, then thought to hell with it and walked outside to collect the mail. As usual, whoever did the paper route threw the paper at the end of the homeowner's walkway, so Rhys had to go to the end of theirs before he could bend down to grab it.
And he did.
Rhys bent at the waist to collect the newspaper, not even taking in his surroundings or bothering to check to see if anyone was around before he flashed them.
This negligence bit him in the ass. Figuratively, fortunately for him.
"Man, what is up with all the leggy brunettes lately?" The voice carried over from the house next door. You know, the one Angel lives in? With her dad? Yeah. Rhys perked up, looking out towards the street as he tried to place where he had heard that damn voice before. It sounded awfully familiar.
"First there's this kid at work with like, insane legs for days, then like, Helen down the street finally let the cat outta the bag and wore some cutoff mom jeans. Let me tell you about that, haha!"
Rhys, slightly more aware and horrified, turned and squinted at his neighbor, wondering if this is what the others meant about Mr. Lawrence's bad attitude. He dropped the folded newspaper when he noticed that it was Handsome Goddamn Jack sitting on the porch, legs up on the railing as he reclined in a chair, one hand cradling a mug of what Rhys assumed to be coffee. His hair that was usually coiffed to perfection was messy and untamed, stray wavy strands acting like they had a mind of their own. When his mind finally caught back up to him, he scrambled to pick the newspaper back up as Jack barked out a laugh and loudly exclaimed: Holy shit, it's you, kiddo!
"Handsome Jack?! I- What? What are you doing here?" He belatedly tacked on a sir. Handsome Jack swung his legs down and stalked off of his porch, walking down his own path and onto the sidewalk to stand in front of Rhys, taking a loud slurp of whatever the hell he was drinking before he dignified his Head of Robotics with a response.
"I live here, duh. Angel didn't mention your name when she told me about newbies moving in, though." He said after a minute, licking remnants of his drink from his lips. Rhys tore his eyes from Jack's mouth and took a panicked step back, remembering the sour attitude Jack was in the last time they were face to face. Had it really been only a week since the lab incident? Suddenly, it seemed like it had happened five minutes ago.
The day wasn't looking so nice, now.
Rhys regained some of his wits and held up the newspaper to his chest, gripping it with both hands like a small shield. Jack was staring at him, expression light with one eyebrow cocked up as he waited for Rhys to say absolutely anything. Rhys noticed too, that Jack was dressed similarly to him, with a threadbare shirt covering his torso and only boxers covering everything else. Rhys' eyes drifted down further, and shot back up when he noticed Jack's fuzzy yellow slippers. God, they weren't just yellow. They had black stripes, too, and were those wings?
If Rhys stared at them any longer than he had (read: it was for 0.1 seconds), he knew he would start laughing in his boss' face. Or, he would start, and then bring up the newspaper to hide his face as he attempt to bite back his laughter.
"Uh," Rhys locked eyes with Jack, bringing the main situation at hand back into focus. "You're Mr. Lawrence?"
Jack's reaction was immediate. He lowered his coffee mug and cocked his hip, placing one hand there as his expression shifted from vague amusement to annoyed anger. Jack leaned into Rhys' space, brows furrowed and lips pursed. From this distance, Rhys noticed two things. One, he was taller than Jack by at least an inch, and two, that the scar that ran up and down Jack's face was mesmerizing, and it hurt Rhys to imagine the pain that Jack went through to receive it.
(Jack's scar was always the elephant in the room at Hyperion, but it wasn't the time to dwell on that.)
"Have those nasty, nosy, jackholes been filling your head with stories about me?" Jack brought his mug back up to his mouth, still obnoxiously close to Rhys, and the slightly taller male had to lean back to avoid being hit with the white mug. Again, Rhys noticed small details due to their proximity, like the cute, stylized bees on Jack's mug.
Bees. Honey. Honeycomb. Hexagons all over Hyperion ever since Jack came into power and redesigned the whole place. Handsome Jack was his beekeeping, neighborhood terrorizing neighbor, aka the Mysterious Mr. Lawrence. Fuck.
Rhys would have began to hit himself in the face with the folded newspaper, repeatedly, if Jack hadn't been there. But he was, and Rhys still had a question to answer, despite his own realization of just how stupid and blind he had been.
"No? Maybe? A little bit, possibly?" Rhys flinched, leaning back further when Jack groaned, his free hand coming up to ran over his face and through his hair before he pointed a finger in Rhys' own face.
"Don't listen to them, Rhysie. They're just JEALOUS," Jack turned to face the houses across the street, as if daring the occupants to come out and fight him. "Of my prize-winning hydrangeas! And of my bees that keep this goddamned neighborhood filled with beautiful flowers! I'm taking care of the ENVIRONMENT!" Jack yelled that last word too, another challenged posed to their neighbors.
"Anyway, babe, lemme see this." Jack turned back to Rhys after flipping off the houses around them, boldly ignoring Rhys' personal space (when does he not?) to grab his prosthetic. Helpless and a little scared for his own life, Rhys let Jack examine his arm, swallowing thickly as he poked and prodded and bent his arm at the elbow. Satisfied with... whatever, Jack let go and nodded once.
"Good, you've been using that lubricant." Oh. "I mean, I could think of a dozen better uses for lube, if you catch my drift-" Jack had the gall to nudge Rhys with his elbow, waggling his eyebrows at him with a downright lecherous grin on his face.
God.
"-But if I catch you with squeaky joints again, I'm shoving that lube down your throat, container and all. Got it, cupcake?" Jack knocked his coffee mug against Rhys' arm, the ceramic and metal clanking together. Rhys pulled back reflexively, not noticing how Jack narrowed his eyes at the motion. He nodded though, quickly shaking his head up and down and hissing out a quick, obedient yes, sir.
His CEO and newly discovered neighbor took a step back, giving Rhys a once over before he turned on his heel to head back into his own house. Or at least, back up onto his porch to lounge in the morning sun. Jack called out to Rhys over his shoulder, not bothering to look back.
"Don't tell people I live here, or you know, lube container down your throat and all."
Rhys didn't even bother responding before he hightailed it back inside his own home, steps hurried as he ran up the stairs to his porch and slammed his front door shut.
Vaughn was going to have a field day with this.
His small, bespectacled roommate did indeed have a field day with the information, though it wasn't filled with excited yelling and jumping around like Rhys thought it would be. At first, he didn't believe Rhys, but he certainly did when Athena confirmed Rhys' claims, again mentioning that she had worked for him before.
"He wasn't CEO, yet." Athena told them after washing down some bacon with her coffee. "Jack was in control of one of Hyperion's smaller branches at the time, but some guy named Tassiter controlled everything then."
"I can't believe this." Vaughn muttered, hanging his head in his hands and staring at the island surface. "You were right. Rhys, you were half-joking when you said it, but you were right. Handsome Jack, our reigning CEO, is our neighbor."
"Hey Vaughn. Welcome to the discussion. We established that like five minutes ago." Athena huffed, amused with Vaughn's reaction. If she had known that the boys would react this way, she would have actually told them the other night when Jack came by to pick up Angel. It had been... nice? Yeah, sure, it had been nice to see the guy in person again, though she was honestly surprised to find him living in the modest suburban area.
"I know, I know! I'm just, still processing this. It's big, like really big. So big in fact, that Rhys and I need to find a new place to live so that we're out of Handsome Jack's hearing range. I'll ask Yvette if we can sleep in her living room until we find somewhere nice and cheap and away from our boss. Rhys, you start digging around on Craigslist." Vaughn was already pulling up his ECHO device to call Yvette, and both Athena and Rhys could already hear the ringing coming from the ear piece.
Heaving an exasperated sigh, Rhys plucked the phone from Vaughn's hand and ended the call before Yvette could answer, ignoring Vaughn's indignant cries.
"We're not moving again. Living next to Handsome Jack is not that big of deal. We're going to be fine." Rhys only half believed his own words.
The first thing Jack did after he walked back into his own house was to fill up his mug with steaming coffee. Then, he walked through the hallway until he came up to Angel's room, the door slightly ajar and covered with drawings Angel did when she was just tall enough to reach her dad's knees.
They were friggin' adorable and no matter how much Angel complained, the drawings were staying. Smiling at the thought, Jack nudged the door open after softly knocking and hearing Angel give him permission to enter. The teen was laying on her bed, stomach down as she flipped through a book, her feet kicking back and forth in the air lazily. Her eyes flicked up to look at her father before she looked back down at her book, a smile on her lips.
His daughter was so fucking cute.
"What's up, dad?" Angel scooted over a little, giving Jack just enough room to plop down next to her on the bed, one hand braced on the mattress as he tried to peek at what she was reading. She saw him trying and shifted to block his view, sticking her tongue out at him all cheeky like. Jack returned the gesture because he was an adult.
"Why didn't you tell me the names of our neighbors, sweetheart?"
Angel flipped the page over, reading the first few lines before she hummed in response to her dad's inquiry. "I did. Rhys, Vaughn, and Athena. They're all super nice."
"Then why didn't I remember that Rhys was one of them before I met him?" Jack took a sip of his coffee, moving his hand from the mattress to Angel's head to brush some of her hair back over her shoulder. She shrugged, still focused on her book.
"I think you were going over notes from work when I told you. Wait," Angel sat up suddenly, folding her legs criss-cross as she gave Jack her full attention. "You met Rhys? When? Did you like him? He's really nice, right?"
"Rhysie works for me, Angel, I think I would have remembered if you mentioned his name in conversation." Jack ignored her other questions, trying not to focus on why Angel appeared to be so adamant on getting his opinion on the guy. He was nice, sure, a little nervous sometimes around Jack, but fear was healthy, right? Jack did have to admit though that the guy had a great set of legs, and his face wasn't too hard on the eyes, either.
(Whoa, Jack, buddy, this is your Conscience speaking: stop thinking about your hot employee around your precious baby girl. Bad Jack, bad.)
"Apparently not." Angel chuckled softly, hiding her smile behind her hand. Jack hated it when he she did that because frankly, her smile was gorgeous, but Angel herself didn't think so. "But that's cool. I didn't know that, the whole working for you bit. What's he do?"
"He's a part of our Robotics department, head of it now, actually. I guess he's nice, though." Jack drank some more coffee, watching as Angel smiled real wide, the corners of her mouth just visible over her hand. Smug little shit. "A bit clumsy, but nice."
Jack narrowed his eyes at Angel, just a tad suspicious of her motives behind her line of questioning. She had never cared about what he thought of their neighbors before, probably because he'd made it abundantly clear that he didn't like any of them, so it was strange to have her question him like this. Maybe she had a crush on the guy and wanted ol' dad's approval? Like some young puppy love that kids got in their early years. Hell, even he had a thing for a few older men and women when he was her age.
If that was the case though, then Rhysie had a one-way ticket to the afterlife.
Figuratively.
Handsome Jack didn't murder people, for god's sake.
"Get back to your book, pumpkin. I'll go cook us up some breakfast." Jack ruffled his daughter's hair as he got up from her bed and gave her a peck on the forehead. Before he was completely out the door, he pointed his fingers at her like a gun and made pew pew noises. Laughing, Angel pretended to be shot and fell back onto the bed, still giggling even as Jack closed her bedroom door.
Adorable.