Stay put.
A door opens down the hall.I catch the tail of a shadow in a stairwell window, then the low mumble of a man.Keys jangle.A lock protests two doors down from Lindy’s.A woman hisses, “Wrong door, again,” and yanks him inside by his hoodie.
False alarm, Lindy girl.Drunk neighbor.You did everything right.
Lindy Girl:
I feel stupid.
Safety isn’t stupid.Text me when you’re back in bed.
I stand in the hall until my hands stop wanting to rip that drunk fuck out of his bed and scrape his face along the carpet until his skin rubs raw.When herokay, I’m in bedlands, my hands quit shaking.She doesn’t need more.I do.
I stay in the hall for another thirty minutes, reciting the long list of reasons I can’t break into her apartment.An idea hits.One I’m surprised took this long to form.It’s the only reason I talk myself out of leaving.I text my brothers to meet me on my walk down the stairs.
On the ride to the warehouse the dark grows a new set of teeth, ones I’ve never seen before.I see threats to her everywhere.Every idiot peddling a bike.Every person standing under a busted streetlamp.The busted streetlamps.A ride-share that loops past me twice.Maybe they’re nothing, but men like me learn the hard way that “maybes” almost always cash out in blood.
My phone chirps as I park.I hop off my bike and pull it out.
Lindy Girl:
Thank you, Cassius.
I answer immediately.
Anytime Lindy girl.For you, anything.
My chest loosens the smallest degree.I’m not escalating, not obsessing.Threats are real.I’m protecting the woman who might be mine.
The lie is still elegant enough I can almost keep believing it.
Inside the warehouse I don’t make speeches.Atlas’s grin is already there, bright as a fuse.Adrian’s mouth goes flat.Caleb looks like he wants to skin me alive.
“Say it,” I tell them.
“There’s a line, Cassius,” Adrian says.“This is it.Street cams are one thing.Inside her building?Inside her life?You wantprobable causetattooed to your forehead?”
Atlas rocks on his heels.“I can do it in under ten.She’ll never clock it.”
“That isn’t the point,” Adrian says.
My thumb finds the hilt hanging on my hip.One, two, three.“I’m not asking permission.”
Adrian’s shaded eyes cut up.“You are asking us to be accomplices.”
“Youareaccomplices.You’vebeenaccomplices.This isn’t any different from any other fucking day,” I say, too even.
“It’s different and you know it,” Caleb says.“She’s not a mark, she’s an innocent woman.”
“I’m not asking permission,” I repeat.“You three can keep being the brains and I’ll keep being the blade.That’s the arrangement we’re all so fucking grateful for, right?”I blow out a breath.“So, if this blows up in our faces, I’ll deal with it.”
Adrian breathes through his nose.“You think I like that arrangement?You think I sleep?I’m the oldest.It should’ve been me.But instead I’m the one who has to keep you from drowning in your own choices and that might be worse.”
“Then let me drown,” I say.
“Nothing is blowing up in our faces.”Atlas glances between us.“We’re not sloppy, but if you insist on being stupid, Cassius, at least let us make it safe.”
Adrian rubs his temple.“She’s innocent, Cassius,” he says, repeating Caleb’s words.“You cross this line, you don’t get to uncross it.”
