A is for Apple

by Kate Johnson

  “Luke, get in the lift,” I said. “You too.” I grabbed Xander’s arm. He had his hand on his nose, which was bleeding.

  “I am not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on,” Luke yelled.

  The goon was getting closer.

  I made a split second decision and grabbed Luke and said in his ear, “There’s man over there with a gun who wants to kill us both. Get in the goddamned lift or I’ll shoot you myself.” Oh, and by the way, what the fuck happened to your goddamn spy training? Blowing up over a personal matter. Yep, that’s in the handbook.

  “You haven’t got your—” Luke began, but I gave him my best don’t-fuck-with-me glare and he glowered back and stalked off to the lift.

  I gave a weak smile to the security man and the watching crowd. “Little misunderstanding,” I said, making a teensy gesture with my fingers. “Really nothing. Just a lover’s tiff. Come on, darling,” I said, taking Xander’s arm and wincing when I felt Luke’s eyes—and ears—on me, “let’s go and sort this out.”

  “I could call the cops,” the security guy said, and I wasn’t sure if it was an offer or a threat.

  “No, no need,” I trilled gaily, shoving Xander into the lift. “It’s all under control.”

  I rammed my fist repeatedly against the button for my floor until the door slid shut, and then I leaned against it, my eyes closed.

  “Don’t ostrich me, Sophie,” Luke said, and I opened my eyes again. Damn. They were both still there.

  “Look,” I said, in as calm a voice as I could manage—which is to say, vibrating on the Richter scale, “this really is just nothing like it looks—”

  “And how does it look?” Luke spat.

  I like this man very much, I told myself. I am sleeping with him. He has saved my life. There is a small possibility—now almost certainly expired—that he may be a little bit in love with me.

  Fuck it.

  “It looked like someone was after Xander with a gun and we were just stalling,” I said desperately. “Xander, tell him—”

  “I think you broke my nose,” Xander said.

  “Good,” Luke said savagely. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Luke, this isn’t Harvey. I thought it was.” I tried to smile, but Luke cut me off.

  “Is that why you were kissing him?”

  “No! No, I was kissing him because, er—”

  “A distraction,” Xander muttered through the blood pouring out of his nose. “The guy in the shiny suit’s been tailing me for days.”

  “He’s what?” I said.

  “He works for Shapiro. It’s a long story…”

  “No doubt. Xander, does he really owe you money?”

  “Well, yes—”

  “I don’t give a fuck who owes who what,” Luke broke in irritably. The lift slid to a halt and the doors opened, and yours truly fell back flat on her arse.

  “Ow,” I said, lying there with my knickers showing, slightly winded. “Aren’t you going to help me?”

  “No,” Luke said, and stepped over me, slouching off down to hall towards my room.

  Xander extended his least bloody hand and pulled me to my feet.

  “He seems like a nice guy,” he said. “Really.”

  “Xander,” I turned to him helplessly, “look, I’m really sorry about this. I told you he was jealous.” I winced. That was no excuse. “I’ll try and sort this out—can you maybe go home and get some ice on your nose?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t think they’ll be waiting for me at home?”

  “They’re really tailing you?”

  He nodded painfully. “For two days now. They think I know something about Shapiro.”

  “Do you?”

  “He owes me five grand. I haven’t seen him since he came to pick up the portrait.”

  “Which was…?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “And they’ve been after you since?”

  “Yep.”

  Bollocks. This was all too much at once.

  “Look, I have a boyfriend who’s possibly armed and definitely really pissed off with me. And I have to try and figure out this Shapiro thing. And you being here will just—just complicate things,” I said, looking up at him pleadingly. “Look,” I grabbed his arm and tugged him around the corner where there was an alcove and machines vending drinks and ice, “get some ice, I’ll try and get back to you…”

  I left him and dashed down the hall. Luke was leaning against my door, kicking it moodily.

  “Still here?” I asked, looking in my bag for my key.

  “You owe me an explanation.”

  “I’m glad you’re being reasonable.” God, I’d forgotten how hot he was.

  “Just while we’re in public.”

  “You mean you can get less reasonable?” Jesus.

  I was having trouble getting the key into the slot. I kept jamming it in and it kept refusing to bleep and let me turn the handle.

  “I’m not going to do this in public,” Luke said evenly.

  “’Cos downstairs was so private.” Open, damn you!

  He eyed my efforts with the key. “You need help with that?”

  “No.”

  I struggled a bit longer, then Luke snatched the key out of my hand, turned it over and opened the door in a second.

  I stalked in without looking at him. To be truthful, I was a little bit afraid. I don’t think Luke would ever get violent with me—well, not without my consent—but boy, did he look mad. He gets jealous very easily.

  He followed me in and the door swung shut. I avoided his gaze and sat down on the bed to take off my shoes and give my poor, poor feet some air.

  “So,” Luke said into the silence.

  “So,” I replied stubbornly.

  “Why the hell were you kissing him?”

  I sighed and peeled off a plaster on my heel. “Did you see the guy with the shiny suit?”

  “No.”

  Figures. I have a feeling he didn’t see anything but me and Xander.

  “There were two of them but I think one left. They work for Shapiro. They’re after Xander.”

  “Xander? Who the fuck is Xander?”

  “Xander Harvard. He’s Harvey’s brother.”

  “What, he’s got a twin?” Luke snorted.

  “Yes.”

  “A completely identical twin?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “Sophie, do you have any idea how ridiculous—”

  “Fine.” I threw up my hands, which would have been a much grander gesture if I hadn’t had a bloody plaster stuck to my left little finger. “Don’t believe me. I’m only your girlfriend and your damn colleague. Go out there and ask him, if you think he’s Harvey—ask him what kind of car he drives, or what kind of shampoo Angel uses—”

  “’Cos he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know any of that stuff,” Luke snarled.

  “Ask him for ID! He has a driving licence. It has his name on it.”

  “You’ve seen his driving licence?”

  “Yes! I didn’t believe him either! But I was rational about it!”

  “You call this being rational?” Luke yelled.

  “I’m not yelling as loud as you,” I shrieked.

  “Fine,” Luke bellowed.

  “Fine,” I screamed and jumped up, my feet still half-swaddled, grabbed my purse and my key card and wrenched the door open.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  “Away from you,” I snarled.

  “Back to him?”

  “No, not back to fucking him,” I hollered. “Just—”

  A door opened further down the corridor.

  “Could you keep it down?” whined an American voice.

  “No,” Luke and I snapped at the same time, “fuck off.”

  The door shut pretty sharpish. I turned on my sore heel and stomped as hard as I could in bare feet, down the corridor to the vending alcove. It was empty, Xander was gone, although there w
as a bloody fingerprint on the ice machine.

  I stomped past and hammered at the button for the lift. My eyes were stinging. I hated fighting with Luke. It always made me so frightened, although I don’t know what of. Maybe I thought he might hit me. Maybe I thought he might leave me. I don’t know. I hate confrontations. Why the hell am I a bloody spy?

  “I could have been a vet,” I muttered, sniffing, as I got into the lift and pressed the lobby button. “I could have been a lawyer or an architect. I could have stuck at the bloody airport, but no, I had to go and work for the sodding government.”

  The doors opened and a middle-aged couple got in. They eyed me curiously, but I rooted my eyes on the little CNN screen in the corner and tried to focus on a news item about a car chase in Florida.

  The lift doors opened and I stumbled out into the lobby, the marble floor cold under my aching feet. I made to go past the security desk, but I was beckoned over.

  “Hey, lady, you okay?”

  I nodded and tried not to sniff pathetically.

  “I’m fine. It was just a—just a misunderstanding.” I attempted a smile.

  “One of those guys your boyfriend?”

  “The blond one. The other one was just, er, he’s a friend.”

  The security guy raised his eyebrows. “You greet all your friends like that?”

  I blushed and shook my head. “It was a misunderstanding,” I repeated lamely, and backed away. “Thanks…”

  He nodded and waved me goodbye. I tripped through the lobby to the gimmicky bar by the front door and threw myself at a bar stool and whined miserably, “Can I have a—” wait, what did they drink over here? “—a Guinness, please?”

  Eyebrows were raised but my drink was fetched, and when I tried to pay I was gently told, “We’ll put it on a tab for you, ma’am.”

  I sniffed and nodded, and the bartender, who was quite cute, asked, “Are you okay?”

  I shrugged. “Fight with my boyfriend.”

  Even that phrase made me perk up a little bit. I’d been boyfriendless for so long before Luke that I thought I’d never be able to use the word again.

  “Were you the girl fighting by the elevators?”

  “I wasn’t fighting!” I turned to the couple next to me, who were earwagging. “I was not fighting.”

  “Sure, whatever.”

  The barman grinned. “Which one’s your boyfriend?”

  “The blond,” I said gloomily. “Not sure how long for though.”

  “Hey, cheer up. He ain’t gonna dump you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re gorgeous.”

  I sniffed. “You’re very sweet,” I told him, “but I think you’re lying.”

  He grinned. “If you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t dump you.”

  Okay, going a bit too far now. “Even if you saw me kissing someone else?”

  He whistled. “That’s what the fight was about?”

  I nodded miserably.

  “Well, I can see why he might be mad.”

  I finished my pint, chatting to the barman as I went, and at the end of it felt a bit better. I checked my watch—Jesus, it was nearly midnight!

  “I should go,” I said, slipping off my stool and getting out my purse, but the bartender shook his head.

  “On the house,” he said, and I smiled with gratitude. “Thanks.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek, and he grinned at me.

  “For that you can have another one—”

  “I really should go,” I said. “Make amends.”

  “Have fun.”

  Fun wasn’t what I was anticipating.

  I got back in the lift and checked my reflection. Blegh. Makeup all sweated off, eyes smudged all over from nearly crying, pretty summer dress creased, feet black with dirt and throbbing all over.

  Yep. Gorgeous.

  I hobbled back to my room and listened for a moment outside the door. Silence. I let myself in with a sigh and went straight into the bathroom, closing the door out of habit and going through my nightly toiletry ritual, ending with the new addition of peeling off the remaining plasters and bathing my feet.

  I clicked off the light and went back into the dark bedroom, peeling off my dress as I did, and then got a hell of a shock when Luke’s low voice came from the bed.

  “Nice of you to check in.”

  Shrieking in surprise, I clutched my dress to me (why, Sophie, why, he’s seen you in a lot less than underwear many, many times) and flipped on the light. Luke was lying in my bed with his back to me, and I stood there staring, noting objectively what a fine back he had.

  The nerve of him!

  “If you think I’m going to sleep with you,” I began, spluttering, unable to think of a dire enough threat to finish that sentence.

  “I don’t give a bloody damn where you sleep,” Luke said, not moving, “so long as it’s not touching me.”

  At that I hurled something at him. I think it was my dress.

  “Why are you even here?” I screeched as Luke threw my dress on the floor and rolled on his back to look at me. I tried to look dignified, but it’s hard when you’re wearing a mismatched pink bra and green knickers.

  “SO17 can’t afford two rooms.”

  “I mean in New York!”

  He stared at me in disbelief. “Because Macbeth got recalled. You do remember that, don’t you? You didn’t think Karen would let you do this on your own, did you?”

  Patronising git.

  I snarled at him, while something in the back of my mind remembered Macbeth’s garbled transmission. Was he going back? Was that what he’d said? That Luke was coming out here? Damn bloody useless phone!

  I slammed the light off and threw back the covers and hurled myself into bed, turning my back to Luke when he did the same to me.

  I waited all night for him to thaw, and I knew it was early in the morning when I eventually dropped off to sleep, but there’d been no reaction from Luke.

  A is for Apple

  Chapter Four

  My body woke up before my mind did, and what my body registered was this—I’m curled up half naked with Luke and he has his arms around me.

  I snuggled closer without really thinking what I was doing, but the realisation must have hit Luke at the same time it hit me, because as I opened my eyes I heard him say in a furious voice, “If this is some plan of yours—”

  “No plan,” I said, heart sinking.

  “So why are you here?”

  “Well,” I said, voice heavy with as much sarcasm as I could muster thirty seconds after waking up, “this is my room, and SO17 can’t afford—”

  “I mean right here,” Luke squeezed me, and I paused for a second to appreciate the effect. Then I looked up at him, and scowled.

  “I don’t know. I woke up like this.”

  “Well, I didn’t—”

  “Don’t you yell at me. It’s not my fault.”

  He glared at me, but I noticed he didn’t do anything to push me away.

  “You didn’t go back to your boyfriend?”

  “Boyf—Luke, will you shut up? I explained that—”

  “Hardly—”

  “I told you—”

  “Sophie, if you walked in and saw me kissing another woman, what would you do?”

  I’d get out my gun and shoot the both of them.

  “I’d expect a rational explanation,” I said with dignity.

  Luke snorted.

  “Liar,” he said, but there was a hint of fondness in it.

  “Look,” I said, “you really don’t need to worry about Xander—”

  “Oh, I wasn’t worrying about him.”

  “I mean as a threat!”

  “Why would I be threatened by an all-American jockstrap like him? Just because you seem to have an affection for that type—and when I say affected—”

  “Oh, fuck off,” I snarled half-heartedly. “Harvey is in love with Angel—”

  “And Harvey Number Two?”
/>
  Had he been speaking to Macbeth?

  “His name is Xander, and there really is absolutely no chance of him stealing me away from you. In actual fact, you’re probably in more danger than me.”

  There was a pause, then, shaking like he was trying hard not to laugh, Luke said, “What?”

  “He’s gay, Luke. At least, I’m pretty sure he is.”

  “Pretty sure?”

  “Well, yes. He knows his designers and he loves shopping, and he thinks you’re really cute—”

  “He what?”

  “He saw your picture and—”

  “You have a picture of me?”

  I tried to gauge his voice. He didn’t seem too mad. In fact, he seemed very amused.

  “A small one,” I said huffily.

  “In your wallet?”

  “No, in a locket next to my heart.”

  I looked up, and Luke was grinning.

  “That is kind of adorable,” he said, and I scowled again.

  “Harvey has a twin brother and he’s gay,” Luke said after a while, his voice rich with amusement. “That is excellent. Did you know about this?”

  “Not before last night.”

  “What happened last night?”

  “I met Xander and figured out he was gay.”

  A bit more silence. It was nice lying there in Luke’s arms, my head on his shoulder, almost like we’d never fought. Like the storm had passed.

  “Do you think I really broke his nose?” Luke asked, and was it my imagination, or did I detect a hint of concern in there?

  “If you did, Harvey will probably shoot you,” I said mildly.

  “Where did he go last night?”

  “I don’t know. Probably to hang himself off the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Yeah, you’ll be laughing when you’re named in court.”

  Luke flipped me over onto my back. “So,” he said speculatively, and I’m afraid I couldn’t keep from licking my lips. I watched his muscles flex appreciatively.

  “So?”

  “So…that’s your best friend, her boyfriend, and his gay brother. Quite a collection.”

  God, when you put it like that… Okay, but I only kissed Angel because I was passing on a message from Harvey. And I only kissed Harvey because I was really drunk and he hadn’t even met Angel and I wasn’t with Luke then. And I only kissed Xander because—well, you know that bit.