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Crosby is pissed, and I completely understand it.
Where to, ma’am?”
I give the driver Crosby’s address. “I suppose we have unfinished business?” I say, turning to Crosby.
“I won’t…I won’t cancel the check if that’s what you’re worried about.”
This feels like I’ve been stabbed in the chest. “That’s not what I’m worried about,” I tell him.
He blinks at me. “But I thought…at the restaurant, you were so uncomfortable.”
I huff and grab his hand. “I was. But not with you. I was pissed that they were grilling you and trying to get you to sell them weed.”
“I didn’t hear any of that,” Dean says, shutting the door behind us as the car pulls away from the curb.
“I thought you were embarrassed that everyone was making a big deal about us being together. And like, you weren’t ready to be a couple. Officially.”
I shake my head, amazed at how far off base he is.
“You were acting so weird; I thought you were about to break up with me.”
The way Crosby is looking at me is like watching cogs turning. “How can I break up with you if we’re not actually together? You said you would consider the idea of a relationship.”
I take the leap. “If we were in a relationship, would you break up with me for bailing you out of jail and finding an attorney for you?”
“I would tell you the same thing I told you when they arrested me. You don’t want to get mixed up in this. You’re mine, but at the same time, I have to protect you at all costs. Even if being apart from you kills me.”
I shouldn’t laugh, but the man is so dramatic. “Babe. It’s too late for that. The house is burning down, and you’re spitting on it.”
Crosby throws back his head and laughs loudly, and I join him as if the two of us are releasing the tension we’ve been holding on to since we saw my friends at the restaurant this morning.
As we approach the stairs leading up to Crosby’s apartment, a strange stiffness comes over him. He’s frozen in place, his eyes focused on the top of the stairs.
I follow his gaze and see what he’s seeing: his apartment door is ajar.
“It wasn’t like that when we left this morning, was it?” I ask.
Without looking at me, Crosby blocks me from ascending the stairs.
“Probably the cops ransacked my apartment looking for weed. Fuck. Stay here,” he says. “I just want to make sure no one’s in my apartment, just in case.”
I wait uneasily at the bottom of the stairs and watch him go up and disappear into the faint glow from the doorway to his apartment.
“Everything okay?” I call up to him.
When I get no answer, I take one step up before everything goes black.
The hood placed over my eyes disorients me as my body is wrenched backward, off the stairs, amid my instinctive screams.
“Crosby!”
Instinctive screams, yes, but pointless as my mouth is being covered by a big hand that holds something doused with a chemical-smelling substance. I stumble backward off the step and again attempt to scream.
“Oh my god, help!” Where is he?
And then I hear him. “Leela!” He sounds like he’s got his own physical struggle going on, and my heart starts to sink. Is this how we die?
Two strong hands have me by my upper arms, and I’m being dragged down the sidewalk. I kick, flail, and jam my elbow backward into someone’s soft gut.
