“Do you know who I am now?” he whined to me.
Jude sniffed. “I think the problem is shedoesknow who you are.”
“I won’t be disrespected like this in my own town,” he said as if the town belonged exclusively to him and no one else.Give me a reason, I wanted to beg him.Any reason at all.
And then, like an autumn miracle, he did. He reached out and grabbed my arm. Muscle memory from years in the dojo took over, and I swept his leg with mine. Stokes went flailing, in a flurry of bright orange hair, as one boat shoe went flying. He landed flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him.
Bill and Gary guffawed.
None of us heard the church door open and close.
“I leave you alone for one minute,” came the voice of Russo, who’d made it to my side in three strides. The sharp tailored suit jacket only enhanced the broadness of his chest with the shirt underneath unbuttoned just enough to show the tempting hollow of his throat.
He clocked me at the bar with an admiring sweep of my low-cut dress and my balled fists, and then glared at Stokes on the ground and Jude hovering nearby, the hint of a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” he demanded.
“He touched me without permission,” I said, nodding down at Stokes, whose mouth was opening and closing like a fish flopping around helplessly in the bottom of a boat as he desperately tried to suck air into his deflated lungs. I wasn’t proud of the fact that I liked watching him try to gulp air. “He has a habit of doing that.”
Russo’s nostrils flared.
“Want me to cuff him?” Russo glared down at Stokes, whose green eyes went round with terror. Russo now loomed large over him, putting a hand on his hip and flipping back his jacket to show his hidden holster and pistol.
“You don’t have jurisdiction here,” I pointed out.
“I didn’t say I planned to arrest him. But if I cuff him, he’ll be easier to punch.” Russo glared at Stokes, and I could’ve sworn Iheard a squeak of fear escape him. Might have been a nervous fart. Hard to tell.
“Careful. He’s the mayor,” I warned Russo as I took a step
back.
“Not my mayor,” Russo said, eyes narrowing.
Stokes managed to pull himself off the floor, wheezing, as he limped toward his shoe and picked it up. He stuffed his foot in it and then gingerly made his way to the door. He hesitated there. “You’ll regret this,” he sniffed.
“Not as much as you will if you don’t get the hell out of here,” Russo promised.
Stokes’s eyes widened just a little and he scurried out, probably instantly running off to tell his friend the judge. Well, let him. I had witnesses. He touched me first. I didn’t care if the town gave him a free pass. He’d pay any time he touched me.
Russo frowned at the church door as it closed behind the retreating mayor and then focused his attention back on Jude.
“And who is this?”
“This is Jude, my brother’s best friend.”
“Brother’s best friend,” Russo echoed, with some skepticism, giving Jude a calculating sweep from head to toe. Jude was a smidgen taller than Russo, which I never would’ve believed if I wasn’t witnessing with my own eyes the two men standing shoulder to shoulder. In my mind’s eye, Jude was always hunched over a laptop or calculator, and I never realized how tall he was.
Back in high school, he and my brother were opposites—Oscar was the varsity quarterback who enlisted in the Marines after school, and Jude was the quiet bookworm who lived for the science fair. How they managed to remain such good friends over the years, I’d never know.
“I’m Russo,” he said, grasping Jude’s hand hard. He didn’t addNice to meet you.
“Russo?” Jude echoed, not flinching as Russo squeezed his hand so hard his own knuckles flashed white. “The Chicago detective Ella interviewed on her podcast?”
I swiveled to look at Jude. Oscar didn’t bother to listen to my podcast, but Jude did?
“The same,” Russo acknowledged and then let Jude’s hand go. The two men stared at each other for a beat. Benji, noticing a new arrival for the first time, trotted out from behind the bar and sniffed Russo’s expensive loafers. He then sat on his hind legs and waited patiently to be noticed.
“Look at this mutt,” Russo said and smiled despite himself. He bent down and gave Benji a little pat on the head. Russo was full of surprises. Tough on everybody except dogs and babies, I guessed. “What’s the barrel for?”
