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“We met each other fresh out of the academy. I’d been labeled as having an attitude problem,” she tells me. A ghost of a smile flickers across her face and I have to hide one of my own. I’d bet that’s putting it mildly. “I’m not sure who they were trying to punish by putting us together. Me, him…or both of us. There are still a lot of deep-seated issues in this city. Some people don’t like the color of my partner’s skin.” She says it simply but the tenor of steel in her voice tells me everything.
She’d mow anyone down for talking bad about Devan.
“We just clicked, though. Tough shit for the haters. He’s the only person I trust to really have my back when bad shit goes down.” Layla turns to me, her face vulnerable and open.
Something uncomfortable twists in my chest at the expression. To cover my own suddenly raw emotions, I push Layla toward the chair and lean a hip against the cement edge of the building. A stiff breeze from the west brings in the stench of still water and dead fish.
“Do you ever wish you could see the stars?” she asks suddenly. “Like they do out in Montana?”
I shake my head no.
“Why not?”
“Because then I’d be in fucking Montana.”
Layla chuckles darkly. “They call it Big Sky Country, I’m pretty sure. Can’t be all that bad.”
“I might start to get itchy without all the skyscrapers.” The thought of wide open spaces scares the shit out of me. Anti-claustrophobic. “The city is all I’ve ever known.”
All Layla has known too, by all accounts, but her expression is wistful.
“Guess you need a constant reminder of your manhood.” She gestures with her nose toward my dick.
“I could giveyoua reminder.”
“Oh, please.” She holds up a hand to stop me. “I’ve seen enough.Big Daddy.”
“Seen, felt, tasted…” I trail off, noting the way her tongue darts over her lower lip at the wordtasted.
It’s easy to sit here with her and talk, easy where it should feel awkward. Just as it felt easy to slide inside of her onstage when there should have been a bit of unease, given the charade.
“This used to be a thriving place, you know,” I murmur.
Layla is staring at something in the distance and her gaze sharpens. “Still is, from the looks of it. There are two groups of people approaching the old place, from different directions.” She points toward one of the groups.
She’s not wrong.
I narrow my eyes and focus on our newcomers.
For a while we sit, watching who is coming and going, keeping our thoughts to ourselves.
It’s impossible to make out specific faces from this vantage point without the binoculars, which Layla immediately grabs for her own, but at this point none of them are recognizable.
“We’ve got to get closer,” she mutters.
I reach out, tentatively touch her elbow. “What do you see?”
“They’re all there assembled under the awning, but why? It’s like they’re waiting for something. What would they be waiting for?” She’s curious now, fully in cop mode.
The entire situation reeks of bullshit.
It takes less time than normal for Layla to wiggle her way down the stairs and along back alleys to a better, closer vantage point. She’s good, capable, and energetic. Even after the pounding I gave her onstage.
Makes me wonder what else she can do, and how much she can take.
I grab her wrist and feel her shaking as though she’s got too much pent-up energy trapped inside her. “Don’t bolt,” I hiss out.
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
