Grade braced his foot against the base of the drum and levered it up onto its rim. He balanced it there as he cleared his throat.
“I didn’t recognize her at first either,” he said. “Not until I saw her and Arlo together. That was Elizabeth, Arlo’s cousin.”
“Fuck off,” Ezra said in surprise. “Elizabeth Hall? She used to work at the Choke.”
Grade shrugged. “Yeah, a couple of years ago,” he said. “She was friends with my sister. They went to Lexington together a couple of times. I saw all the photos on Twitter. She had stripper heels tattooed on one shoulder and sneakers on the other.”
He looked at Clay, who pulled a dubious face.
“She hadsomethingtattooed on her shoulder,” he said. “There wasn’t much left of it. It could have been a shoe.”
“She took off a couple of years ago,” Grade said. “Dory thought she’d hooked up with some big shot in Lexington who had come through for her.”
“I guess that didn’t last, then,” Ezra said. He closed his eyes and scratched the back of his neck. “Fine. I’ll call Fisher and try to sell this story to them. The rest of you get out of here. If the shit’s going to hit the fan, it won’t be until later tonight. That’s when the fish come up to feed.”
Clay hung back while Harry held the door so Grade could manhandle the drum out into the hall. It scraped against the concrete floor as they shoved it down into a storeroom. Harry clapped a hand on Grade’s shoulder on the way out.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Ezra could sell a strip club membership to a nun. He’ll get Fisher’s crew off our back. Do you need a lift?”
“No,” Grade said. “I got one.”
§
It took another hour before Clay came out of the Slap. He looked tired and irritated, the sort of dull, exasperated anger that you felt for something you couldn’t do anything about, and was halfway through lighting a cigarette. He stopped when he saw Grade perched on the hood of his car, his feet braced against the bumper and weight leaned back against his arms.
“Hey,” Grade said.
Clay rubbed his thumb along his jaw. He’d washed his hands, but there was still blood in the creases of his knuckles and around his nails. The corner of his mouth curled in a lazy nod to charm.
“You need something?” he asked.
Grade slid off the car and brushed dust from the backside of his trousers.
“Do you?” he asked.
Clay snorted as he finished lighting up. He took a drag and exhaled a plume of gray smoke down his nose.
“That’s a bit of a long list today,” he said. “You want to be more specific?”
Grade ran his fingers through his hair. The ghost of yesterday’s hair gel was sticky in patches as he flattened the light brown quiff down.
“I don’t want to go back to the house and pretend it might not be the last time I see my family,” Grade said. “Meanwhile, you’re hot and have been on the raw edge of needingsomethingfor hours, so…”
He trailed off with a shrug.
Clay flicked ash onto the ground and raised his eyebrows. “So… why not?” he finished Grade’s sentence for him. “Wow. I’m going to blush.”
Grade rolled his eyes. He walked over and hooked his fingers into the waistband of Clay’s jeans, worn denim soft against his fingertips and lean muscle taut against his knuckles. Something imperceptible tensed in Clay, and Grade felt the old, scratchy fear in his throat that he’d read it wrong. It happened.
He kissed Clay anyhow. The taste of smoke and whiskey caught on Grade’s tongue as he deepened the kiss, the sudden demand ofhungerin the pit of his chest unexpected. He had to make himself pull away and step back.
“So why not,” he repeated. The warmth of Clay’s body distracted him. He had to make himself step back again to stop from touching. Grade took a deep breath thatdidn’tsmell of Clay and tried to look like he wasn’t the one who wanted this more. “Do you have anything better to do?”
Clay dropped the cigarette to the ground and scuffed it out to smoke and bits of charred paper with the toe of his boot.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. Then he reached out and grazed his thumb over Grade’s kiss-damp lower lip. “But what the hell. What’s the point in being a criminal if you can’t do what you want, right?”
§
