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“No.”
“Ask Pumpkin’s people for a pen after the kid gets done screaming bloody murder, then this is what I want you to write on it.”
She tells me, then hands over the little creature, which promptly bites me. The door to the landing swings open again, and a big guy is standing in it. He’s wide and beefy with a buzzed head and a face that’s probably red no matter what he does with it.
“You the folks who are terrorizing children?”
I stand up, my back straightening, and lift up the squirming rodent. “This yours? It ran down the stairs and made my friend drop her box and fall. Looks like she broke her ankle.”
He loses some of his swagger. “Yes, that’s Pumpkin.” He lifts a hand to his stubbled jaw. “Your friend okay?”
“No,” I say slowly, then repeat, “Shebroke her ankle. You have a pen we can borrow?”
I could ask him to keep the box for us, of course, or bring it upstairs. But this is what Mira asked me to do, and I really would give her anything right now.
“Uh, sure,” he says.
“Stay put,” I tell Mira, mostly because I want to amuse her.
“Asshole,” she says with a small smile.
Then I head upstairs. By the time I get to the landing, the big guy’s back. I exchange Pumpkin for the pen.
“My name’s Big Mike.”
Well, that’s accurate, anyway.
“When you’re ready to give the pen back—”
I interrupt him. “I’m not going to pay you a visit to give it back, buddy. She has a broken ankle. That your pet caused. You’re lucky I don’t call my lawyer friend.”
Not that Shane would bother with such a small case, even though he’s my best friend. Even so, the threat’s always a good one to keep in your back pocket.
“Right, right,” he says, but he gives the pen a longing look before he backs through the door, Pumpkin hanging on to his hand with her teeth, the little devil. I’m not sure what he likes about the pen so much, it looks like a promotional giveaway from someplace called The Treasure Club.
“Danny?” Mira calls. “Can we hurry this up?”
I scrawl the message as quickly as I can onto the surface of the box, then push it up against the wall by the door so it’s out of the way.
If you steal this box, you’ll be cursed to have seven years of bad sex. So don’t steal it.
Then I hurry back down the stairs, nearly tripping in my haste.
“This might hurt,” I say, worry twining through me. I don’t want to hurt her. I might not want her to live in my apartment or sit in my chair, but suddenly it seems very important for nothing else to hurt her.
“I’m sure it absolutely will,” she says.
Then I scoop her up, taking care not to touch her ankle.
I know she’s in pain. I know it from the way she buries her head into my shirt, her head tucked beneath mine, and wraps her arms around my neck, her fingers brushing the hair in a way that sends pleasant sensations through me. But she doesn’t cry out or make any kind of sound at all.
Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable to touch people I don’t know. The awkwardness of it. Their skin might feel strange against mine, their scent unwelcome. But I don’t feel that way with her. Her body seems to fit against mine, and her scent fits her in a way that meets my sense of order—spicy and confident, cloves with a hint of vanilla. A feeling of protectiveness fills me, demanding that I make it all right, even though I know it’s impossible to rewind time. Cradling her against my chest, I start down the stairs.
“I guess we should have taken the elevator,” she says in a small voice, her voice muffled by my shirt.
“Yes,” I say, “I thought that was obvious.”
ChapterTwo
