Page 56 of Sweet Ruin

My feet make the choice for me.

Bratva boss it is.

“You know that’s nuts, right?” I call, catching up. “Just strolling off. You didn’t even wait to see if I’d come.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Yeah,” I mutter to myself, “but you didn’t know that.”

He’s a fast walker, courtesy of the longest legs I’ve ever seen, but he shortens up his steps so I can fall in beside him at a comfortable pace. It’s rudely thoughtful.

We get half a block before he stops and looks at me.

“What?” I say. “Do I have something on my face?”

“You have no coat.”

“We covered that. You did the whole concerned Mom bit already.”

But he’s already shrugging out of the overcoat. Under it, the black shirt is open at the chest. I get a look at ink running up under the collar before I make myself stare intently at the sidewalk instead.

“No,” I say. “Not happening.”

“Take it,” he insists, thrusting it at me.

“I’m not taking your coat. That’s how you end up owing somebody.”

“You already owe me four million dollars.”

“I don’t think I agree, but I’m really not in the mood to argue. Fine. Do your worst.”

He whips it out like a cape and settles it on my shoulders. It’s so heavy that I stagger for a second before I right myself. The sleeves go a good four inches past my hands and the hem sweeps the slush on the sidewalk, muddying it. His dry cleaner is gonna have a hell of a time getting this thing right again.

It’s also warm from his body heat and smells like his cologne. Something in my stomach squirms in delight.

“Well,” I say, “not quite my style, but I guess it’s better than death by Brooklyn winter.”

“You look better in it than I do,” Kane says.

“That’s not true and you don’t have to say it.”

“I don’t say things I don’t have to say.”

We turn down toward the water. Sunset Park at nine on Christmas Eve is deader than dead. Every window has lights in it and nobody is outside. There’s a plastic Nativity on a stoop with a floodlight aimed at it, in which one wise man has fallen over to faceplant in the snow.

“So,” I say. “Repayment. What does that mean?”

“Do you want a dictionary definition?”

“See, no. Now, you’re just being an asshole. I’ve had a big night, okay? I’d like to know just how much worse it’s about to get.”

Kane’s face is half-lit by the streetlights on his right-hand side. He’s got a beautiful profile. Long, proud nose, strong chin, full lips.

“Ask me tomorrow,” he says.

“Why not tonight?”

“Because tonight you’d only argue.”