She looks me up and down again, and after what seems like forever, she places it at her feet.
“Thank you kindly, ma’am.”
“You ‘ma’am’ me again, and I go straight for the face.”
In true Hitman style.
“Deal.”
“I was gonna make coffee,” she says curtly.
“Sounds like a plan. I’m gonna head for that door over there. Don’t worry, no sudden movements, or anything…”
“Like I said—I’m making coffee,” she snaps.
Get me out of here!
“Okay…” Seems like this is some kind of order, rather than just chitchat. “In that case… Black. No sugar.”
She nods at the coffee table, and I sit myself down, praying Firebird is an early bird. I thought she was scary—but she’s got nothing on her sister.
“What’s your name?” she asks, setting a mug down in front of me.
I eye the piping-hot coffee warily. “Lewis Conley.”
“Oh, come on!” She snickers. “Poison is for pussies.”
“That’s a quote. And kinda reassuring. In a way…”
“Raven Hitman,” she offers.
“Nice to meet you.”
In a way…
“Study buddies, huh?” She laughs. “It’s hard to imagine my sister having an actual friend.”
“Tell me about it!”
We exchange grins.
“I guess ‘friends’ isn’t exactly the right word,” I say. “We’re more like colleagues.”
“What’s the job? And please don’t tell me it has something to do with RJ—don’t make me go gangster on your ass again.”
She nods over at the baseball bat propped against the wall.
“Nothing like that! I mean, I know RJ because he does my Dodge—that’s all.”
“You’ve got a Dodge? Okay, that’s more Amy’s vibe.” She nods thoughtfully. “So, tell me about the job.”
“We’re the Campus Drivers,” I say, and I’m waiting for her eyes to light up when she realizes I’m her sister’s mentor, but she just stares at me blankly.
Oops.
“Come again?”
It’s too late for me to backtrack now, and so I launch into the whole story—what I do, how Amy got involved.
