by Gina LaManna
“He’s got a good masseuse technique,” Meg said. “I can appreciate that. But either that bag is happy to see us or...”
My friend trailed off as my eyes followed her pointed finger. Sure enough, the burlap sack clearly outlined a long rod sticking straight up in the air. Though I couldn’t tell for sure the contents of it, I had a burning hunch it was in the firearms family. Either that or the bag contained a supremely well-endowed metallic broom.
“Yikes,” I said. “That doesn’t look good.”
“I beg to differ,” Meg said.
I gave her a funny look, but she quickly revised. “I mean, I like guns.”
I didn’t bother to ask which type of guns she meant, and instead focused on watching Grease Ball as he slid the sack onto his shoulder and moved with pained-looking steps towards the log cabin. A light clink-clank made me uber suspicious of the contents in the bag, and my initial assessment that he was a just a normal guy moving to suburbia was quickly disappearing. I had no reason to believe he was doing anything illegal. Building a cabin on one’s own plot of land was perfectly legal, and so was toting around a pack of metal objects. Maybe they were building tools, or farm tools or, you know, a large metal broom.
What wasn’t legal was creeping on someone else’s property. So despite my misgivings that everything was on the straight and narrow at the house on Sixty-sixth Street, it was Meg and I who were trespassing. It was time we skedaddled – and fast. Using a pathetic combination of hand gestures and whispers that were more like hissed shouts, we somehow stumbled our way onto the back of Meg’s bike. Neither of us had time to fasten our helmets before she roared the engine to life, and all hope of a subtle exit flew out the window.
“What are you doing?” I gasped as I choked on wind. I wondered if this was how dogs felt as they lolled their tongues out of car windows on the freeway.
“If he’s got as many guns in there as I think he does, we don’t want to be caught out here where nobody can hear you yelp,” she shouted.
“I don’t yelp,” I yelped back. Maybe I was a yelper. “Now he’ll know it was us.”
“But he doesn’t know who we are,” Meg said. “Nobody introduced themselves back there. Good job, Captain Awkward. If you weren’t so socially inept, he’d know our names.”
Bittersweet comment or not, I realized she was right. I started to tell her so, but I heard a loud male voice yell after us as Meg skidded onto the twisty, pseudo-dirt road.
“Who’s there?” Grease Ball shouted.
I caught the briefest of glimpses of him just as Meg rounded a curve. A gunshot rang out through the wilderness and took a hunk of bark off a tree only a few feet away. Thankfully, Meg was used to being shot at, and the bullet didn’t faze her a bit.
“Hang on tight,” she roared, nudging the bike into higher gear. “I told you we’d be off-roading.”
Now wasn’t the moment to argue that if we hadn’t off-roaded in the first place, we wouldn’t be getting shot at. Damn overachiever, Meg! I grumbled about her doing too good of a job, but she couldn’t hear me.
With a yeeehaw she took the next curve extra sharp. I’d been holding both helmets in our haste to get away, but suddenly her mohawk-studded, blinding orange helmet was wrenched from my grip. It tumbled off into the underbrush, bouncing out of sight.
I thought about mentioning it to Meg, but the chances of her wanting to stop and recover it were much too high. I valued my life more than her helmet, I was sorry to say. Maybe if we ever solved one of these dang cases, I could buy her a new one. But that was a big if.
I’d like to say we rode off happily into the sunset, heading back home with a large jar of Dave’s Special Sauce and a new grandmotherly figure named Anastasia as a friend, but that would be false. Meg skidded onto the main road near the house on Sixty-sixth, and all gunshots ceased. The ringing in my ears died down for a moment, but it came back as Meg re-applied the pedal to the metal. She didn’t lift her foot once until she had safely parked at her bar.
By the time we arrived back at Shotz, both of us looked as if we’d been tossed through a wind tunnel, electrocuted, and then beaten with a whole lot of twigs and berries. Meg was complaining of her lost helmet, while I bargained with her to forgive me.
“Just hope he doesn’t find it,” Meg said darkly. “That helmet is one of a kind.”
“Thank goodness,” I said, catching myself before I explained that helmets should never be created so bright. “I hope you’re right, but I think it bounced well away into the underbrush where it’ll be safe.”
“I’m gonna go relieve Julio,” Meg said, looking as cheery as if it were Christmas morning. Firefights always got her in a peppy mood. Even she couldn’t be dampened by a missing helmet. “That was awesome, partner.”
Sufficiently stiff, I barely managed to contort my lips into a smirk that I hoped passed for a smile. “Right, partner.”
“Wanna drink?” Meg asked.
“I have to call Anthony and keep working,” I said.
Meg eyed me up and down. “It helps with the pain.”
“Then yes, please.”
“And it’ll help you forget that you look like a swamp monster when that hunk of yours picks you up,” Meg said as an afterthought.
I groaned and headed inside. “I’ll take a double.”
ANTHONY STOOD OUT AS soon as he stepped foot in the bar. Most of the patrons glanced his way; he had a tendency to turn heads of both the male and female varieties, each for very different reasons. As I was of the female variety, my head turned to watch his glorious form fill up the doorway to Shotz. I barely noticed some of the men sizing him up, as if torn between kneeling before him and declaring their loyalty, or wanting to put a knife through his heart.
“Shut your mouths, gents,” Meg called from behind the bar. “And stop drooling, ladies. Welcome, Anthony.”
My friend pinched my backside and leaned in close. “You should feel lucky, chickadee, he’s only got eyes for you.”
I glanced back at her, the pinch restarting my thoughts after a blank period in which I’d stared at my former gym-trainer-turned-bodyguard-turned-almost-boyfriend.
She sighed. “Young love. Go say hi.”
“I’m afraid,” I said. “It looks like a bomb exploded in my hair.”
“Then why are you afraid?” Meg asked. “It’s Anthony that’ll be afraid. That hair of yours – you should’ve listened when I was asking Grease Ball about his hair products. You could use some smoothing gel.”
Before Meg could finish lecturing me on the benefits of conditioning my locks, Anthony had crossed the room and made his way to us. His eyes never leaving mine, he stepped up and placed one hand on the bar inches from me. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The other patrons of Shotz didn’t bother to look away or mask their curiosity. Though they watched us closely, it would’ve been impossible to hear the conversation. Anthony spoke in low, husky tones meant only for my ears. In response to the other customers’ keen interest, he snaked his other arm out and rested his hand on the wooden platform. His stance pinned my body to the counter, daring anyone to interrupt our obviously personal conversation.
“What happened to you?” Anthony said in a gravelly tone.
“Oh, you know,” I shrugged. “Wild ride.”
Anthony’s eyes glittered. “Would you like to share? I thought I told you to be careful.”
“Well, we were careful,” I said, shifting under his intense gaze. “But careful doesn’t always mean that things go as planned.”
“Sugar, nothing ever goes as you plan.” He lifted a hand towards my bird’s nest of a hairdo and plucked out a stray leaf. “I don’t even know why you bother to make plans.”
I exhaled a long, loud sigh that began deep in my gut. “Me neither.”
Without thinking, I leaned forward until my head rested on his chest. Anthony didn’t react for a moment, standing stiffly with one arm on either side of me as Meg very loudly clanked two
double vodka cocktails on the bar behind us.
“Thanks,” Anthony said to Meg, who stood behind us at the bar and watched with interest.
“That’ll be all,” he said after a beat.
Meg still didn’t leave. “I’m just observing. You two are so sweet. Julio!” she screamed to her co-worker, who was tucked back in a corner with a cute blonde, desperately trying to ignore his boss. “Take notes on these two!”
Julio didn’t respond, and I assumed he was pretending there was another Julio in the joint. Poor Julio.
“Don’t mind me,” Meg said to Anthony. “Carry on, My Cuteness.”
“No offense, but I mind you,” Anthony said. “Will this help?”
My head still rested comfortably against his chest, surrounded by luxurious whiffs of lemon and mint all bundled up in one clean, sexy scent. Thankfully, it more than overpowered my swampy odor. I felt Anthony reach into his pocket, heard the rustle of his black pants as he removed his wallet. Based on the volume and length of Meg’s gasp, the bill he pulled out was not insignificant.
“Keep the change,” he said. “And give us a moment of privacy.”
Meg was gone with the money before she could say thank you.
“You okay, sugar?” Anthony asked. He tipped my face upwards, drawing my eyes away from his firm chest and forcing them to meet his own.
I could only manage a nod; I was exhausted and it looked like a pile of junk had decided to have a party on my clothes. Plus, I hated feeling like I hadn’t accomplished anything, especially when the stakes were so high. Part of the reason I was wallowing at the moment was because I’d gone and wasted an afternoon that I should have spent investigating the warehouse and focusing on saving lives.
“I couldn’t find the stupid sauce,” I said, as a short explanation for all my emotions.
A smile quirked up the corners of Anthony’s lips. “Is that all?”
I shrugged, not really wanting to get into the whole I made a deal with a witch and then got in a firefight with a Grease Ball.
“Yes,” I said, barely holding in a whimper. I was determined not to become dependent on Anthony, no matter how nice he was to me or how capable he was at his job.
I worked in a man’s world, which meant I had to try even harder than everyone else to prove myself, whether right or wrong. Maybe I was being stubborn, or maybe I wanted to feel like I fit in with my Family. Maybe I just wanted to feel like a badass mobsterista – I really wasn’t sure. But I was sure that running to Anthony for help every time something didn’t go according to plan was not the way to show Carlos I could do a good job, particularly since things so very rarely went according to my plans, as Anthony had so kindly pointed out.
“Really,” Anthony said, his eyes twinkling. “You make a bad liar.”
“I’m not lying,” I said. But I didn’t even convince myself.
“I happen to know you’re lying for a fact,” he said. It was hard to get offended because as he spoke, he slipped one hand up to brush my cheek, cupping the side of my face and lacing his fingers through my hair.
“Oh,” I murmured. What I meant to ask was how do you know? My mind, however, let me down and forgot to say the right words.
“I don’t call flying down the freeway without a helmet being careful,” Anthony said. “Passing up all sorts of cop cars on the way.”
I frowned. “We didn’t get pulled over. Plus, I had a helmet with me. It just wasn’t on my head.”
“Any idea why you didn’t get pulled over by one of the fourteen cops you passed between Stillwater and Uptown?” His smirk was telling, and I squinted with suspicion.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I have some friends on the force, and I put in a request for a few license plates so every time they scan one of the vehicles on the list, they call me first before pulling anyone over. Let me tell you, my phone was ringing off the hook. I knew the second you squealed into Shotz’s parking lot.”
I crossed my arms, but didn’t pull away. “You put Meg’s bike plates on that list?”
Anthony nodded.
“What about my car?” I asked. “Er – cars. Plural.”
Anthony gave a short laugh. “You’re hard to keep up with. I have to make up excuses to my cop friends for why you change cars so often. I’ve tried telling the truth, but they don’t believe it.”
“So you waved all the cruisers off?” I asked.
Anthony shrugged. “I kindly suggested that they keep an eye out for you and that if you were flying away from Stillwater, you probably had a reason. And I mentioned that it might not be worth the effort of trying to stop you. Between your stubbornness and Meg’s, uh, personality, you two make a formidable team for any cop.”
I smiled. “I take that as a compliment.”
“Next time, take my advice to be careful or I’ll let them give you a ticket,” he said.
“Let them try,” I said with a wink, my spirits already lifting. There was something about Anthony – something beyond the rough, muscular exterior that calmed me to the core. Simply being in his presence raised my happiness level a few notches. All of the little disappointments of the day began to fade away until I forgot them completely, small little blips on the radar that didn’t matter in the overall picture.
I stepped back, afraid I’d say something I really regretted. Like thank you or I super-duper like you.
Anthony, too, seemed to pull back a bit, as if we both realized the conversation had moved from our historical playful chatter into something that felt a little bit too real. We’d done some kissing, hugging, and talking about where this relationship could potentially go, but neither of us was quite ready to put words into action. It was a kinda good thing, since there’d be ramifications to us getting together. After all, dating Anthony would be complicated. He worked for the Family, I worked for the Family – office romances could be tricky.
“Uh, what’s next?” I asked for lack of something better to say.
Anthony reached over my shoulder and I thought he was coming in for a smooch. My heart sped right up, and then slowed right back down when I realized he was just retrieving the two cocktails from the counter. He handed one to me, and I smiled as we clinked glasses and drank deeply. This was more like it. Back to normal.
The crisp bubbles with a hint of vodka slid down my throat with a refreshing bite. Without thinking, I chomped on an ice cube, a nervous habit I’d picked up at some point in my life. Maybe when I was a kid sitting on the counter at TANGO late at night, the bartenders refilling my Shirley Temple over and over again.
When we were both finished with our drinks, except for the rattle of ice cubes against glass, Anthony cleared his throat. “About the warehouse...”
Happy to be back on a safe subject, I pretended not to notice that talking about mob business was a safer subject than discussing feelings. “Did you find the warehouse where the fireworks are being shipped?”
“We’re about ninety percent sure,” Anthony said. “There’s going to be a stakeout tonight and some of my men will enter if the opportunity arises.”
“What about me?” I asked. “I want to help.”
“There’s not much for you to do,” Anthony said. “I’ll be there to watch over the operation, but I doubt I’ll even be going inside.”
“Then let me come with you,” I said, giving him a nudge with my elbow. “Think of it this way – it’ll actually make things easier on you. You’ll be able to keep me physically by your side, and that means that you won’t have to worry about me and Meg taking off and gallivanting around the Cities for special sauces or rogue fireworks on our own.”
Plus it was my birthday tomorrow, and I needed every distraction I could get. Turning thirty was something I didn’t want to think about yet. It also wouldn’t hurt to spend midnight with Anthony, even if he didn’t remember or even know it was my birthday.
Anthony’s eyes looked past me as if he was considering it.
“Please?” I
asked. “I didn’t accomplish a thing today, and I wasted a bunch of time and I want to help. The deadline is in less than two days, and I am no further along than when I started.”
Anthony shook his head. “That’s not true. You happened to find out Dave’s stand wasn’t where you thought it was. Process of elimination – maybe the next shot will be the right one. Your time wasn’t wasted, sugar.”
“It sure feels like it,” I grumped.
“And hanging out with me tonight would make you feel better?” he asked, leaning in so tightly that his lips brushed my forehead.
I nodded.
“Then so be it,” he said, pressing a kiss firmly to my forehead. “I’ll see you tonight – I’ll pick you up at ten.”
Anthony turned and left, taking quick steps across the bar as the rest of the patrons scurried to pretend they hadn’t been following the exchange closely.
Meg appeared from behind the bar, where I was fairly sure she’d been hunkering down and spying. She was as bad as the rest of them! What did a girl have to do to get some privacy?
“That was adorable,” Meg squealed.
I worked on getting my breathing under control.
“Wait – wasn’t he your ride?” she asked, collecting the discarded drink glasses.
“Oh, crap,” I said. “Yes, yes he was.”
“You better run after him,” she said.
I considered it. “I have three hours before the stakeout. I could just wait here and tell him to pick me up at Shotz.”