“Where did you learn to fight like that?” John asked.
Leo scratched harder as he lifted his shoulders in a quick shrug. “Here and there.”
Mattie had only watched Leo scrap a few times, mostly to break up her brothers. But each time, he’d moved with a wicked proficiency. She wondered why she had never questioned it. But with so much of Leo a mystery, at some point, she had started accepting his quirks automatically.
Yet now something... something was changing. During their conversation in Vera’s garden and then on her beach, Mattie had caught a glimpse of the part Leo kept tucked away like an engine hidden under a steel covering. And she suddenly wanted to pop that hood open—not to tinker but to understand how he worked.
“The night is still as young as unaged whiskey.” Vera’s declaration interrupted Mattie’s thoughts. The flapper twirled, her cherry-red skirts swaying about her silk stockings, the beads catching the light of the nearby streetlamp. “There is another little place just a few doors down. That way our poor feet will only get sore from dancing and not walking.”
“Haven’t we had enough excitement tonight?” Aida asked.
Vera simply began to twirl and trip away, presumably in the direction of the other establishment. “Darling, you know me better than that! We are just getting started. I promised a night on the town, didn’t I? A little ole brawl is hardly sufficient entertainment.”
“It is a wonder I survived boarding school.” Aida rolled her eyes, but no one could miss the affection in her voice. She headed after her cavorting chum, and the rest of their group followed. Mattie was about to when she felt a gentle touch on her upper arm, so different from the drunken dunderhead’s grip earlier. This was questioning, light. Asking permission, not taking it. From the familiar warmth, she knew at once it was Leo touching her.
“We can borrow John’s Ford if you want to return to Vera’s,” Leo offered in a low voice.
Mattie slowed. Leo hadn’t spoken the words like an order, but she wasn’t sure if he was being overprotective again.
“Are you saying we should go back to the castle?” she asked carefully.
“Not necessarily. I just thought you might have been a little shaken after what happened back there. Most folks would be, men or women.”
“It’s not that you think I shouldn’t frequent speakeasies?” Mattie asked.
Leo didn’t answer right away. Instead he looked down at his polished shoes, and Mattie wondered what he was thinking.
“It’s not the place I’d choose to go with you,” he finally answered, lifting his chin to shoot her one of his slow, shy smiles, “but you certainly showed you can hold your own in one.”
“I was pretty impressive, wasn’t I?” She tossed her head back in mock dramatic pride, but the real reason for the gesture was a lot simpler... and much more complicated. Leo’s words had caused a sweet arc of energy to burst through her, and she had to make some sort of gesture to release the raw giddiness.
“I wouldn’t have minded having you at my back when I was a boy; that’s for sure.”
Mattie might not have thought much of the offhanded statement if she hadn’t just been wondering how he’d learned to fight so proficiently. “Did you get into a lot of tussles when you were younger?”
His pace faltered ever so slightly, and he glanced away from her again. This time he trained his eyes on the brick walls surrounding them. Of course, he gave as cryptic an answer as possible. “Something like that.”
Vera’s voice broke into their conversation. “And we are here!”
“The back of a button factory?” Sadie asked.
“Clearly it is a front for a club,” Lily said in a dramatic stage whisper.
“You are both right.” Vera knocked twice on a door that Mattie had almost overlooked. It had been painted to resemble the rest of the redbrick facade. Vera waited several beats and then gave three short raps followed by a thud. A small crack appeared in the wall.
“What’s the matter?” a rough voice croaked.
“I’m here to complain about my last shipment. It was pink. I wanted green.”
The two inches became several feet. Vera breezed inside the dark hole first, while Mattie and Leo were the last to enter what appeared to be the bowels of a factory. Crates rose above their heads, while odds and ends from bits of rope to broken pieces of machinery cluttered the floor. It made the other storeroom look practically neat and tidy in comparison. Vera, however, did not need the doorman to guide her. She wound her way through the warren of buttons, wood, andeven seashells with the confidence of someone keenly familiar with the potential death trap.
The guard at the door tipped his hat to the rest of the Flying Flappers as they hurried to keep up with Vera. The bouncer’s face was surprisingly as smooth and refined as his voice had been coarse and rough. He gave Mattie a particularly devilish wink. Unlike the dreadful Crenshaw, he exuded a kindhearted charm despite his job as an enforcer. She responded with a bright smile but nothing more. She hadn’t come to the speakeasies for meaningless flirtations, although she supposed it was part of the experience. But she would much rather talk to Leo than a handsome stranger, no matter how chiseled his jaw or jade green his eyes.
Vera’s cherry-red dress sparkled in the dull, dusty room as she ducked behind a rather large coil of rope and opened another obscured door. Within moments, they all found themselves in the low-lit interior of a bar. This didn’t have the opulence of the first speakeasy. Cigarette smoke, dense and thick, hung in the air. People were jammed into the small space, especially near the stage, where a band played. The tin ceiling seemed to trap and amplify every sound, making it hard to hear the bluesy music. Mattie’s head swam from the press of bodies, the jumble of raised conversations, the smell of alcohol, and the heat of the hidden room.
Vera, however, plunged into the swarming crowd. She was soon swallowed up in a sea of colors, followed by John and the rest of Mattie’s friends. But Mattie stayed back with Leo.
“You can go on.” He jerked with his head in the approximate direction of the stage. “I’ll stay back here.”
