I start toward the stairs, sweat dribbling along my spine and down to soak the waistband of my boxer shorts. Before I head down, I pause on the top step and peek back at the man already laser-focused and formidable. “If shit escalated in there—” I tilt my head toward the door. “Which Malone would you have taken up arms for?”
His eyes flicker to mine. Subtly, barely noticeably, the corners of his lips twitch. “I’d have employed what my colleagues and I call the ‘oh shit’ maneuver.”
My brows sling high on my forehead. “Theoh shitmaneuver?”
“Yes, sir. It’s where I pull dueling brothers apart, ensuring they live long enough to make amends tomorrow.”
I cough out a soft laugh. It’s the closest thing to relief I’ve felt in two days. “Something you’ve had to do for Micah and Felix in the past?”
He shakes his head, dropping his gaze and smirking at the floor. “It’s what my brother and I say when our mom has grown sick of our shit. We could be dropping bombs on each other’s heads and setting the world on fire, but the minute she steps into the fray, usually wielding a broomstick to whack us with, we shoutoh shitand scramble. Hundred percent success rate of living long enough to say sorry the next day.”
“Would you have called Lix and snitched on us?”
Finally, he releases a full-blown smile and brings his eyes back to mine. “Yes, Boss. I would have. Just as soon as the bombs stopped dropping.”
Nodding, I start down at a fast clip, circling at the next landing and grabbing the rail to keep going. “Keep an eye on my wife, Mr. Harrison.” I drag my phone out of my pocket and unlock the screen. “Keep her alive. No exceptions.”
I don’t see him anymore. He can’t see me. But his ‘yes, Boss’ echoes down the stairs long before I hit the second floor.
MINKA
Iwake in the dark with a start, soaked in my own sweat and with a headache pounding in the back of my skull. From unconscious to alert in a split second, I glance around my room and take stock of the space I know is mine.
I don’t remember crawling into bed. I don’t even remember trudging up the stairs after the hospital last night. But Idorecall Doctor Cleary’s gentle touch as she slid Factor into my veins, her thumb on the syringe plunger despite my assurances I could do it myself.
You came to me, Chief. So you’ll allow me to do my job.
Lying impossibly still, I study the old, discolored curtains as they dance in the world’s faintest breeze, the window pushed wide open to allow me reprieve from the heat. A screen sits in the frame, shielding me from the bugs that wish they could escape the outside, too, and the mosquitoes that wouldn’t mind feasting on my already faulty blood.
I take a moment to fill my lungs, to draw fresh air and expand my chest, then I exhale again and, steeling myself, I turn my head to Archer’s side of the bed.
It’s foolish. It’s the kind of wishful thinking small girls cling to as they picture a prince sweeping them off their feet, and it’s all for naught, because Archer’s body is not beside mine. His strong, broad thighs aren’t, for the second morning in a row, wrapped around my legs. My skin is sweaty, as it so often is, but it’s not because we’re touching from top to toe, overheating because we’d prefer discomfort over isolation.
Don’t come back to the house, Minka.
Sighing, I sit up in bed and study the shadows filling each corner of our room.Myroom. The room I continue to pay rent for, even after Archer’s insistence that we move into a perfectly suitable house in the hills.
Smartest decision I made this month. Grumbling, I crawl off the edge of the bed and set my feet on the floor, ignoring the annoying ache that rolls along my calves in waves.
If I’d listened to him and given up my apartment, I’d be homeless right now.
Or, more probably, sleeping amongst the forgotten office chairs and busted printers scattered across the fifteenth floor of the George Stanley building.
Could I sneak an entire bed up there without anyone else noticing? A fridge. A kitty litter tray, on the unlikely chance Archer would agree to a week-on, week-off co-parenting schedule for the bitchy cat I don’t even like.
I drag my hand up through sweaty hair, resigned to the fact that Imustwash it this morning or risk Doctor Raquel’s pithyremarks and hardly veiled disgust. Bracing myself, I push to my feet and release a groan that originates somewhere in the far corners of my soul. In the way, way back, where my pain has been relegated, and my heartache remains chained to the walls, such is my desperation for an hour, just sixty measly minutes, of blissful emotional paralysis.
I don’t think it’s so much to ask.
Swallowing the nasty taste on my tongue, a reminder I didn’t brush my teeth before bed last night, I turn toward the door and shuffle across the old, not-well-maintained flooring, over the threshold, and into the hall. I crush the heels of my palms to my eyes, and turning left on instinct alone, I wander into the bathroom without crashing into the wall, close the door, flip the lights on, and open my eyes despite the harsh glare.
Right there, opposite me, is a woman with wild, knotted hair, swollen eyes, splotchy cheeks, and, if I look closely enough, a rough coat of yellowedickcovering my teeth. I snatch up my toothbrush and smear a line of paste on the bristles, then, backing up, I push my underwear down and plop onto the toilet.
What time is it?
Dunno. But it’s still dark outside.
Is my life still on fire?
