backseat were subdued, and Kismet filled them in on the way back to the city, giving them all the details she had. I just held Wyatt’s hand and tried not to panic.
Half an hour later, she dropped us off in front of the apartment with a key and promise to return in about an hour and a quarter. As Wyatt and I walked inside and veered toward the elevator, those seventy-five minutes loomed. It wasn’t nearly enough time.
But if Thackery had his way, it was all the time we had left together to explore the intense, if somewhat peculiar, relationship we’d begun so many months ago. Long before I truly realized anything had changed.
Chapter Eighteen
An hour-long soak in the tub has relieved the majority of my aches and pains. My own stupidity brought them on, and, for once, they aren’t the result of a fistfight or brawl with bloodthirsty Dregs. Our Triad isn’t even on rotation again until tomorrow evening. Nope, the bruises and scrapes on my back and shoulders are my own fucking fault.
No pun intended, however apropos.
I watch the bathwater swirl down the drain in a mini-cyclone of bubbles and soap, and hope Ash is still having a good time. I hated ditching her at the club but was in no mood to continue our usual barhopping extravaganza. The cab driver I flagged down took one look at me, muttered something that sounded like “hooker,” and drove me home.
Bastard didn’t get a tip. He was lucky I didn’t plant my heel in the back of his head.
After I’m thoroughly towel-dried, I check the scrapes in the bathroom mirror. A few along my shoulder blades are still oozing clear liquid. Most are surface abrasions—they’ll itch like crazy later. The backs of my thighs have smatterings of blue bruises, perfectly oval and fingertip-size. They’ll keep darkening, I bet. Good thing I prefer jeans.
In my line of work, dating is out of the question, but I’m a woman with needs, dammit, which is why Ash and I troll the bars on our nights off. Once in a while, one of us will find someone to hook up with for a little … activity. Location is rarely important, as long as I get my itch scratched.
Only tonight’s selection had been a little rougher than usual, and doing it up against a brick wall, in a storage room at the club, hadn’t been exactly comfortable. Oh, I got off all right, but my back regrets it with a vengeance.
I slip into clean sweats and pad into the kitchen for a snack. It’s been a week since I shook off a horrid bout of the flu, and my appetite has finally returned. I settle on a bologna sandwich with mustard and steal one of Jesse’s lagers. He likes the dark brown sludge that tastes like rat piss, but it’s that or water.
We need to go shopping.
Sandwich and beer in hand, I retreat to the living room and curl up on the sofa. A gentle ache between my legs reminds me my back isn’t the only thing regretting tonight’s interlude. What was it Wyatt used to tell me? Sometimes I don’t have the good sense God gave goats. I shoulda said no.
I didn’t, though.
The apartment phone’s shrill chime makes me jump. We keep the landline for emergencies and in case “real people” need to contact us; everything else is handled over our Triad-issued cells. I stare at the telephone, an old rotary Ash picked up at a yard sale eons ago, and debate answering it. On the fifth ring, I do.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, this is the super,” a deep baritone says, not happy about making this call. “One of your neighbors called and complained about a drunk man sitting in front of your door.”
“I—What?” I sit up straighter and peer at the metal door, as if I can see right through it.
“Drunk man in front of your door. People are tripping over him. If he’s a friend, take him inside. If he’s a vagrant, call the cops. I just don’t want no more of these damned calls at three A.M.” With that, he slams his phone down.
Okaaay.
On the way to the door, I snag one of my favorite serrated knives from the weapons trunk behind the couch, just in case. I press one ear to the door and listen—nothing. Try the peephole. All I see are a pair of black sneakers sticking out from jeans-clad legs that disappear beneath my line of sight. Confident in my ability to subdue a regular human male if the need arises, I turn the various door locks, grasp the knob, and pull.
Wyatt tumbles through the open door and lands on his back, cracking his head on the cement floor. He blinks up at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes. He hasn’t shaved recently, and a black beard creeps along his jaw and chin, spilling down his neck. A brown paper bag is clutched in one hand, obscuring my view of the bottle’s label.
“What the fuck, Truman?” I toss my knife on a nearby side table and glare down at him. “Don’t you have a home?”
“Sure,” he says. “Few blocks from here. Why?”
Oh boy, he’s three sheets to the fucking wind. In the four years I’ve worked for Wyatt Truman, I’ve seen him run the gamut from cool and collected to wholly enraged, but I’ve never before seen him utterly shitfaced.
“Because you’re loitering in front of my home instead of sleeping this off in yours,” I finally say. Lame.
“My apartment’s empty.” His tone is solemn, as if the statement alone explained everything. It’s also sort of loud, and the hall door is still open. The last thing I want is another call from the building super.
“Think you can crawl to the couch?”
He frowns, which looks like a smile upside down. “Nope. Can walk.”
Uh-huh.
He ends up half crawling ten feet to the stained, beaten sofa, and curls up on one end, head on the armrest. He still hasn’t let go of that bottle, but the smell hints at whiskey. Yuck. I relock the door, then move to stand in front of him, arms crossed over my chest. He swigs from the neck of the bottle and winces as he swallows.
“Where’s everyone?” he asks.
“Out.”
“Duh.”
I can’t help smiling. I think it’s quite possibly the first time in our entire history he’s ever said that. “Jesse’s up north, picking up a new ax from that blacksmith friend of his,” I say. “Ash is still out having a good time.”
“Why didn’t you go?” he asks my midsection.
“I did. Now I’m home.”
He manages to raise his gaze so our eyes meet. Something like confusion or concern flickers there but is beaten back by liquor. He struggles to sit up straighter. I make it easier on him by sitting down on the opposite end of the sofa. He squirms until he can face me, half his body braced on the back of the couch.
“Didn’t have a good time?” he asks.
I lift one shoulder. “Ended on a sore note.”
He frowns. “Sour note?”
“No, sore note.”
More of that indeterminate emotion creeps into his eyes. What the hell? He gets drunk and suddenly gives two shits about my social life? I’m off duty and off Triad rotation, which means I can do whatever the fuck I want as long as it doesn’t draw attention to us.
“So what’s got you out at three a.m., drinking straight from the bottle on a school night?”
“Celebrating.”
“Yeah? You look like you’re about to celebrate yourself right into alcohol poisoning.”
He snorts, then hiccups. I lean across the sofa and snatch the bottle from him. He reacts several seconds too late, which only shows me how gone he is. I swig from the bottle, and the bourbon sears down my throat to settle hot in my belly. My eyes water. Coughing, I hand it back. He stares at the bag-covered bottle as though he isn’t sure what he is holding.
“So what are we celebrating?” I ask.
“Anniversary.”
