by Gina LaManna
The way he was acting now – casting suggestive gazes over my body, smiling lazily as a one-armed hug turned into a two-armed squeeze – was unusual. His arms hooked around my lower back and his face remained relaxed and smiling.
“Is now the proper time for this?” I asked, looking down. I didn’t pull away, however. I didn’t have the willpower to take a step back. It felt so nice to be tucked safely in his embrace, so for a birthday gift to myself, I savored the warmth.
Anthony ran a hand through his already ruffled hair. “Fine,” he said. “Your choice to stop this, not mine. What is it you wanted to tell me?”
I almost told him to forget about it, but he was already off down the last flight of stairs, taking them two at a time. He stopped and waited for me at the bottom while I hustled to catch up, urging myself to stay on the topic of business.
“You know how I looked like a garbage disposal earlier tonight?” I asked. “At Meg’s bar.”
“A cute disposal,” he said, holding the garage door open for me to walk through first.
“Wow, lovely manners,” I said in a fake English accent before I marched through. “Thank you, dahling.”
“Keep it up and I’ll take you right back to the car,” Anthony said, tugging on the back waistband of my pants.
I whirled in a circle. “All right, what’s up?” I asked, his finger still hooked half in my pants. “This isn’t like you. We’re on a mission and you’re threatening to bring me back up to the car.”
“Which part is so unusual?” he asked.
My cheeks could’ve been a pair of plums. “Well neither is separately suspicious, but put together – usually you don’t mix business and pleasure.”
Anthony’s lips parted with a comment he didn’t have to say aloud. I instantly regretted my word choice.
“What is it you had to tell me?” he asked instead. “I apologize for distracting you.”
Thankful for the question, I wriggled away from his prying fingers, remembering the wild chase Meg and I had survived in Stillwater only hours ago. The memory of my wacky hair was enough to make my blood boil all over again.
“I didn’t tell you the whole truth about what happened earlier today,” I said.
“Go figure,” Anthony said, though his eyes showed no signs of surprise. “You didn’t tell me much of anything.”
“So technically it was an omission then, and not a lie,” I pointed out.
Anthony crossed his arms, perching against the pillar of the building. He checked his watch. “We have five minutes before they’re expecting us. Start talking.”
“Meg and I couldn’t find Dave or his special sauce anywhere today,” I started, looking down at my hands, which were clasped together for lack of something better to do. “We looked for ages, riding up and down the same street, asking questions all over Stillwater. We even stopped to ask directions. Twice.”
“Was one of those two occasions a stop at a candy store?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“A very special candy store with samples?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But you’re missing the point. My hands are still vibrating, thanks to riding on Meg’s bike all day.”
“So which part are you still not telling me?” Anthony asked.
“Remember Horatio, Clay’s friend?” I gestured as if I had a volleyball strapped to my stomach. Anthony nodded, and I continued. “He gave us his grandmother’s phone number. She’s apparently lived there all her life. What he forgot to tell us is that she’s a witch.”
Anthony’s lips pressed tightly together. “Yes, of course. A magic one?”
“Seriously!”
“Are we talking literal or figurative here?” he asked.
I thought for a moment, biting my lower lip to stall. “Both,” I said eventually. “It’s hard to say.”
“I didn’t take you for the type to believe in magic.”
“She was very convincing,” I said, a hand on my hip. “But anyway, that’s not what I wanted to tell you. Long story short, I made a deal with her—”
“If I hear you’ve sold your soul to the devil...” Anthony interrupted.
“Then that would make two of us, wouldn’t it?” I shot back. “But in response to your question, no, I didn’t hawk my soul to Satan. But the woman does cook up an amazingly good sauce. She offered to make us enough for the barbecue if we couldn’t find Dave’s Special Sauce.”
“In exchange for what?”
“That’s the weird part,” I said.
“Because the rest of this story isn’t weird at all,” Anthony pointed out.
I glared at him. “She asked us to find out what was going on at this house on Sixty-sixth Street in Stillwater. Meg and I figured that she was just concerned about a new guy moving to the neighborhood and it’d be an easy peasy, lemon squeezy sort of task. Just show up, say hello, and leave.”
“I’m guessing that’s not what happened,” Anthony said.
“I wouldn’t be telling you if it was,” I said with an agreeing nod of my head. “Nothing is ever easy peasy, apparently.”
“Nothing?” Anthony stepped forward and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, though his hand didn’t pull away afterward. He brushed his fingers against my earlobe and dragged them with painstaking softness down my neck. “Hmm.”
By the time I realized my mouth was half open, I was annoyed at myself for letting him take my mind off the issue at hand, once again. “Fine. Maybe you’re easy,” I said, snapping my mouth shut and opening my eyes, which had at some point closed during Anthony’s gentle caress.
Anthony laughed a deep belly laugh, but when he looked at me with a wink, his voice was serious. “Not as easy as you think, sugar.”
I gulped, but I didn’t have anything to follow it up.
“About the deal with the witch?” Anthony prompted.
I blinked and continued the story. “At first glance, the guy on Sixty-sixth Street appeared to be a normal dude. Er, normal-ish with the exception of really greasy hair,” I amended. “But when we poked around a little bit more—”
“Is ‘poked around’ code for ‘stuck your nose where it didn’t belong and trespassed on an innocent person’s property’?” he asked.
“That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t think he’s so innocent.”
Anthony nodded with skepticism, and the fact that I’d ignored that whole part about trespassing without real cause was evidently not lost on him. He sighed. “What makes you think he’s not innocent?”
“The fact that he shot his gun at us,” I said. My voice raised a few notches. I hadn’t meant to burst out with the goods so early on, but his skepticism got the better of me and I wanted him to take me seriously.
It worked. Any sign of a smirk or a smile was stripped clean from Anthony’s face. “He shot what at you?”
The murderous undertones had me backpedaling. “I mean, I don’t think he was trying to hurt us.”
“Why else would you shoot a gun at someone?” Anthony’s very good-sized bicep twitched.
“That is a very logical question,” I said, stalling until I could think of an answer. “To scare them?”
“Why would he need to scare two young women away?” Anthony asked, stepping close to me. I backed up, my eyes stinging the tiniest amount with emotion.
“You think I’m young?” I asked weakly. As a new thirty-year-old, I’d take all the reassurance I could get.
Anthony kept walking and I kept back-stepping until my rear end hit the cement pillar at the edge of the parking garage. He reached an arm over my shoulder and rested his palm against the cement pillar, trapping my body where I stood. “Why would he need to scare you away?”
I started to shrug, but Anthony’s expression said he didn’t want to be messed with. “We explored parts of his yard that we weren’t invited to. Meg had a suspicious feeling, then we found this dirt path – one thing led to another – and we found a cabin tucked away on his property.”
“It’s not the cabin,” I said. “It’s what he keeps in the cabin. It looked like he was carrying a sack of guns out to the shack when he drove by us on his four-wheeler. Meg and I were almost caught, but we managed to hop onto her bike and take off. Unfortunately, we weren’t exactly sneaky about it.”
“Did he see you?” Anthony asked.
“He doesn’t know who we are,” I said.
“But he saw you.”
“We didn’t tell him our names,” I said.
“Small matter if he’s part of a big corporation,” Anthony said. “Living with Clay, you should know that it’s incredibly easy to find out information about people. Even without their names.”
I hoped Anthony couldn’t see my spine stiffen. The helmet. Meg and I hadn’t made even a semi-clean getaway. We had to go back and get the helmet. Forget about the deal with Horatio’s grandmother. Screw the sauce. We needed the helmet. Sure, there was a chance the man would forget about us and write it off as an isolated, freak incident. But in my experience, men with guns had long memories. They also didn’t write things off as chance. And I was quickly gaining a lot of experience with men and guns, not necessarily in that order.
“There’s nothing I can do,” I sighed, trying to change the subject. I didn’t want to worry Anthony with something small – not when we had a much bigger assignment to work on. One that affected hundreds or thousands of people. “I shouldn’t have told you about it now. Let’s go to the warehouse. The bomb is more important.”
Anthony cleared his throat. “Your life is important.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, looking at my feet. “But we have to figure out this fireworks issue before a lot of people get hurt.”
“You misunderstand,” Anthony said, moving closer until his black-attired body pressed against mine.
Hesitantly lifting my eyes to his, I sucked in a ragged breath as he placed a hand just above my hip.
“Your life is important to me,” Anthony said. “And I don’t like when people I care about are threatened.”
My throat constricted with an overwhelming sensation I couldn’t yet name. It wasn’t lust – no, I knew what lust felt like all too well. Gratitude, maybe? A warm sensation bubbled in my stomach and tears threatened to leak from my eyes. I took a painful swallow and forbade those pesky, salty drops to slide down my cheeks.
It wasn’t until Anthony kissed me that I realized one of the feelings swirling in my veins. It wasn’t a passionate kiss on the lips or a sensual brush against my cheek. It wasn’t even the tingly spot to the side of my neck and just under my ear. He pressed his lips to my forehead so lightly that if I hadn’t been concentrating from the bottom of my soul, I would have missed it. It was a gesture so simple, yet one that meant so much.
I hadn’t felt this safe since I’d lain in my mother’s arms as a child. She used to come home from TANGO at all hours of the night, and she’d always crawl into my bed. It didn’t matter that she smelled like whiskey, or that I’d wake with glitter caked on my sheets. It didn’t matter that her mascara leaked onto my pillow or that I inhaled secondhand smoke from her hair when I nestled up against her shoulder.
All that mattered was the soft feel of her skin against mine, the sensation of safety and warmth when I heard the knob to my childhood bedroom slide open at three, four, five a.m. The whisper of three simple words – I love you – pressed against my ear and sealed with a kiss as light as a puff of air, made it all worth it.
I rubbed the corner of my eye, sinking into Anthony’s shoulder for a moment. A moment of weakness, but it was allowed. Though I was now a woman of thirty years, one old enough to have a family of her own, the pain of missing my mother never fully went away. It lessened, but it didn’t disappear.
And there were some moments that I couldn’t push the sadness away. This was one of those moments.
Anthony’s arms wrapped around me, his chin perched perfectly on the top of my head. “It’s okay, sugar.”
“I know,” I said, my voice heavy with tears. “I know.”
“I’m here,” he said softly, his voice floating away over my head and drifting into the night.
I nodded into his chest, feeling a small wet splotch blossom on his shirt beneath my cheek.
“I’m sorry, I got you all wet,” I said, pulling away.
“My shirt is yours for the taking anytime,” he remarked, his eyes reflecting a sadness that matched my own. What sadness did Anthony know?
I managed a watery grin. “Taking...off?”
Anthony gave a single shake of his head, as if exasperated.
“Sorry,” I said again. “I’m not good with the emotions business. Jokes are easier.”
“Believe me,” Anthony exhaled loudly. “I know.”
“You joke?” I asked, my fingers toying with the material of his shirt, just below where I’d left my watermark. “Since when?”
For a moment, Anthony’s mouth turned to a frown, but when he realized I was kidding, he broke into a grin. Sliding his arms down to my waist, he tickled me lightly until I squirmed in his arms. When it was too much, I gave as soft a shriek as possible and, nearly crying with laughter, pushed him away.
“No finger humps,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Anthony, still laughing, stopped with a hand halfway through his tousled hair.
“Er,” I said. “That’s what Meg calls tickling. Finger humps.”
Anthony’s eye roll was so large, I wondered for a moment if his irises would get stuck pointing into the back of his head. Thankfully, his beautiful brown eyes turned back to mine and softened, his mouth turning up in a gentle smile.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I am,” I said, meaning it. “Now, about this fireworks business.”
“Shall we?” Anthony asked, offering his arm. “It’s better if we pretend to be a couple. Nobody will expect two lovebirds out for a nightly stroll to be investigating a warehouse.”
I hooked my arm in his and we marched hand in hand from the parking garage, heading slowly down the sidewalk. Our eyes alternated between faking gooey eyes at one another and actively scanning the surrounding scene. Anthony was on high alert – though he held my hand loosely, his muscles were tense and his breathing shallow. But that didn’t stop him from looking into my eyes now and then.
We marched onward toward the warehouse, acting to beat the band. At least, I pretended to act. The glow in my cheeks and the warmth in my heart couldn’t be faked. I tried my best to pay attention to my surroundings, but there was only one question on my mind – was Anthony a world class actor, or was the look in his eyes real?
“OOH, HE’S GOOD,” I whispered to Anthony. I pointed to a man who appeared homeless, holding his hands over a fire burning brightly in a garbage bin. I gave Anthony the thumbs up, but he mostly looked confused.
“Good at what?” he asked.
“You said you had undercover men all up and down this block, right?” I nodded towards the man in a thick parka, which was little more than a dirty rag. “He is quite convincing.”
Anthony opened his mouth to respond, but I leaned into him, teasing. “Do you send all your men to acting classes now, as well?”
Anthony’s eyes tightened. “He’s not—”
“He’s a world class actor,” I said. “A-plus, boss.”
“What makes you think he’s one of my men?” Anthony asked.
“You mean, what gave it away?” I poked Anthony in the abs. Most people would’ve squirmed or shrunk away. At best, they’d give a little Pillsbury-dough-boy-esque giggle at my touch. Anthony, however, didn’t even flinch, while I wondered if my finger was broken.
“Sure,” Anthony said. “Humor me.”
“Honestly, he’s doing a fantastic job pretending,” I said, surveying the man in the homeless garb. I g
ave him the thumbs up as we passed. Anthony nearly choked on his own saliva.
The man returned the thumbs up, and I smiled back at Anthony. “First of all, he should never break character, not even if they see me walking with the boss.” I gave his arm a pat, this time a lighter one. My fingers couldn’t bear any more jabs.
“But—”
“Second of all, and this one is most important: I knew he was yours immediately. You know why?”
“Humor me. Again.” Anthony stared at the man as we passed him.
Cheerfully, I laced my arm through his. “Because this is your assignment. You always do things perfectly, and you’d never leave something to chance. A real homeless person is a wild card,” I said proudly. “A planted homeless person is an asset. Plus, he’s been building that fire since we arrived.”
Anthony’s face was a wall of seriousness.
Tugging his arm, I peered up. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings by picking apart your operation,” I said. “I just wanted to help. See? Maybe I’m getting better at this mobsterista business.”
Anthony made a noise in his throat. “Too smart for your own good, I’d argue.”
For some reason, the bittersweet compliment made me grin. “Hang on one sec, will you?”
“Lacey—” Anthony called after me, but I had already darted away.
“Hey, buddy,” I said, walking up to one of Anthony’s men dressed as a homeless person. “I just wanted to let you know you’re doing a great job. Just – two quick things. One, don’t ever break character,” I said, leaning in. “Even for the boss.”
The man looked up at me, his face dirty and ragged, his mouth cracked partway open.
“I know he can be a bit scary at times,” I said, leaning a little bit away. The overwhelming smell of homelessness was all too real. I waved a hand in front of my face. “Did you buy that scent? Yeesh. You’re burning my nose hairs.”
The man simply cackled and continued to roast his hands over the fire.