My mouth opened and then closed.The comment was too direct and too sweet and too Wheels somehow.Not polished.Not practiced.Just honest.
I looked down at my hands, then back up.“You’re going to keep doing that, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“Saying things that make me forget about everything that is going on around us.”
He hit the button on the coffee maker and turned to face me.“Probably.”
“Watch out, people are going to start thinking you’re nice.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled me into his arms.“I’m just honest, babe.”
I shook my head, but I was smiling.
A few minutes later, we had two mugs of coffee and zero desire to wake anyone else.
Wheels nodded toward the back door.“You want to go outside?”
I hesitated.
“We’ll stay out back,” he said.“I’ll be with you.Door stays open.No going far.”
I wrapped both hands around my mug, and my fear tried to stir.The instinct to stay inside.To stay hidden.To remember the note.The gunfire.The fact that The Ledger had already gotten too close.
But the morning was quiet, and the sun was out.I was so tired of being afraid of air.
“Outside sounds nice,” I said.
Wheels nodded once.
He opened the back door first and stepped out before me, scanning the alley, the rooftops, the parked bikes, the dumpster, the mouth of the street beyond.Only after he was satisfied did he step aside and let me through.
I walked out into the morning.For a moment, I just stood there breathing.
The alley wasn’t pretty.It was brick walls, cracked pavement, bikes lined up in careful rows, a dumpster, and a few stubborn weeds growing along the edge of the building.But overhead, the sky was a clean, pale blue, and the early light hit the brick buildings across from us in gold.
It was the most peaceful ugly alley I had ever seen.
Wheels carried his coffee to the small metal table near the back wall.I hadn’t noticed it before.Two chairs sat beside it, both mismatched and slightly rusty, but someone had wiped them clean.
He pulled one out with his boot, and I sat.He took the chair beside me, angled so he could see me and the alley at the same time.
Of course.
“Do you ever turn it off?”I asked.
“What?”
“The watching.”
His eyes moved from the alley to me.“No.”
I nodded.“I figured.”
He took a drink of coffee.“Bother you?”
“No.”I looked down into my mug.“It should, maybe.But it doesn’t.”
