<i>I hate to see you leave but I love to watch you go.</i><br/><br/><br/>Remington often wondered what his life would be like if it were his own. He wondered it more recently, himself being an agent in the world. Watching Nora and her friend Lane disapear inside the apartment complex that housed James Sinclair gave him that feeling again. Alien but familiar. It gripped his chest and made his features flinch with concern. He had to remind himself that he had done his part here, that he should have been well on his way back to his own …. Home when he had left the bar last night. But instead, he loitered on the corner, his hands shoved deep into his coat pocket as he waited, his senses open to any causes for distress. As much as he entrusted the young ladies with the book’s return, he did not wish them any kind of ill in its retrieval.<br/><br/><i><br/>
Knock, knock, knocking on the devil’s door.</i><br/><br/><br/>The two women that stood outside of James’ door didn’t want to know how long he had been standing there, on the other side, with a self-indulgent grin on his way as the magic surged through his locks in an attempt to open his door. Which was not only locked with the dead bolt, but also warded to keep out unwanted visitors. Where he had to hold his breath and bite his tongue was when he heard them on the other side, muttering to each other about how they were going to get inside after Lane’s spell attempts failed on her. It was something that was lost - long lost - when he pulled the door open from the inside before the other woman’s fist could connect to the chipped painted wood of his door a second time. He cleared his throat around the cat’s just eaten the mouse smile he wore on his face once he took a lean against the door frame and studied first the stranger with a well-written tough girl look scribbled across her features, then landing hard on the blonde that he had all but kicked out of his bed not even a week gone.<br/><br/><br/>“Back so soon?”<br/><br/><br/>The bad joke cracked in his throat, which he cleared again as he looked down and away momentarily. Shy? Most likely not. He was instead wrestling with the emotions that he was doing a shit job of hiding with his head ducked down like it was, though he had managed to muster a flat lipped, curious expression when he raised his face back up to the two women. Only the burning green of his eyes didn’t leave Lane’s.<br/><br/><br/>“Let me guess. You want your book back. As luck would have it, I have what I want from it, so you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about me being a pest.”<br/><br/><br/>You know something was up. It was there with the way his eyes were sunk down into his sockets, the way his cheek bones were just that much more prominent. But it had only been… what? Four days? The man hadn’t looked like this amount of shit when Lane had last seen him. But at least he still had the cut jaw, the stubble on his face worn down to a dark shadow across his cheeks, and underneath the tautly drawn fabric of the t-shirt he wore, the muscles of his back worked in perfect definition.<br/><br/><br/>So he was just exhausted as fuck.<br/><br/><br/>Turning away from them, he raked both hands through his hair and chuckled under his breath. “I don’t imagine that you want to stay for a drink? Or go out for one?” He glanced behind him. Again. His focus on Lane and only Lane, drinking her in. “Who is your friend? Last I checked, you didn’t need any muscle to help you in an awkward situation.”