9. Chapter 9
As we head back to Sagebrush, my awareness of little Miss Rocky Horror Picture Show grows. She doesn’t smell like calzones; she smells like that moment I walked out of the pen and felt the cool breeze of freedom waft around me.
I know I’ve been living in a self-imposed prison since I got out, and I can’t seem to break away from it. X is the complete opposite of me. She does what’s needed in the moment and says what she means. As we drive, she lapses into silence since I’m not carrying my part of the conversation. I’m hyper-aware of her. Got these images in my head of us, in bed, fucking. I know it would be better than anyone I’ve ever been with before. This girl doesn’t do things half-way, but my boner dies when I think of Miguel. I’m jealous of a dead man, and I don’t like that loss of composure.
The calzones make me stupid because I forget that X lives on the fifth floor of her shabby apartment building.
“Fuck,” I say as I pull up to the curb.
“What?” X asks. She’s swiping at the bomber jacket I’m still wearing, taking longer than necessary to wipe the crumbs off me. It’s not quite enough to distract me from where she lives.
“I don’t like apartment buildings.”
She gives my chest another pat. “You’re claustrophobic.”
“No,” I quickly deny. “I’m sensible.” I don’t go into detail because I don’t know her well enough. Actually, I don’t know anyone well enough to share the story of my life behind bars.
She twists her lips as she thinks. It takes her three seconds. “You can stay here and I’ll go up and change.” She glances at the watch on her wrist. “It’ll take a half-hour tops.”
“I don’t think so,” I say tonelessly. “I’m not letting you of my sight.”
Her grin is as big and warm as the sun. “Then you’ll have to sit on the toilet seat while I shower.”
Our gazes lock over her innuendo and my awareness of her grows with each passing second. I want to take her in my arms and kiss her until she can’t breathe. I shudder as I think of how fucked up my life would be if I opened my door to the little disaster sitting next to me.
“Let’s get going,” I say in my chillest voice. If prison taught me one thing it was how to deaden myself. No emotion, no friendships. Nothing that can be exploited.
X sucks in a breath as I unbuckle her belt. When I look at her, she refuses to make eye contact and her face is flushed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, though I already know. It’s gratifying that I’m not the only one feeling the burn of attraction.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she mumbles as she hip bumps me. “Get out so I can.”
I follow her order but grab her arm when she lands on her feet. “We’ll leave Spot here.”
Spot has other ideas as he forces his way out the door before I can close it.
“It’s okay,” X says. “Spot’s been here before.”
I’m gonna have to gag her soon if she doesn’t stop talking about her former life with her former fucking dead boyfriend.
It seems unnatural to me to cross the street with her without taking her hand. And that unnatural feeling seems even more unnatural.
“Are you thinking about me?” X asks with a sly smile as we approach the building.
I resist the urge to wrap by arm around her shoulders and tug her close to me. “Yeah. Explains how Paulie got his grey hair,”
She chuckles at my teasing.
I hesitate at the front door and X arches an eyebrow. “Coming?”
“Fuck,” I mutter as she leads me into the lobby.
It’s small and smells like it needs a good scrub. And it’s a shithole compared to where Miguel lives… lived. “Paulie let you live in this slum?”
She furrows her forehead at me as she walks to the elevator and hits the button. “I’m a grown-up. I do what I want.”
I barely register her reply as I realize what she’s doing. “We’re taking the stairs.”
She turns to me. “I’m on the fifth floor!”
“Don’t matter. We’re walking.”
The doors slide open and she takes a step towards them, but I yank her back. Spot, however, wanders inside, turns around, sits, and looks at us.
“Spot!” X exclaims as the doors slide shut.
Fucking dog. “They’ll open again.” We wait, they don’t open.
And that’s why I don’t do elevators. I grip X’s arm and pull her towards the stairs. “Let’s go.”
She digs in her heels. “I cannot walk up five flights of stairs.”
“Can’t or won’t,” I growl.
“I will die by the third floor. Do you understand?”
“I’m not taking the fucking elevator!”
“Then you walk. I’ll ride!” She presses the button again and the doors slide open. No dog.
“Where the fuck did he go?”
She steps inside and presses the button. “He’s Houdini, I guess.”
The doors slide shut.
I linger in the lobby for maybe a minute, then decide I better haul ass. I have this image of X throwing out a grappling hook and rappelling down the building to escape me. Oddly, the panic is unrelated to Miguel’s death.
On the fourth floor, I find Spot, who sees me and yips.
“Where the fuck have you been?” I growl at him as I jog past.
He doesn’t explain as he follows me the rest of the way. When I step into the hallway on the top floor, I see X leaning against the wall next an open door to what I presume is her apartment. She’s pale and trembling and my heart falls to my toes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone broke into my apartment,” she says, close to tears.
I look inside. The place is a disaster. Broken dishes, cupboards empty, couch and chair slashed, bookshelf toppled. I pull my gun. “Stay,” I say.
Spot slides by me and walks inside.
“Jesus fuck,” I mutter.
“I’m not staying either,” X says as she crowds against my back using me as a shield. “I don’t wanna be alone out in the hall.”
She has a point. “Stay behind me,” I say redundantly.
I kick the door shut and then move from room to room. It doesn’t take long. The kitchen, dining room and living room are all one open space. Other than that, there’s a bedroom and a bathroom.
In the bedroom, the mattress and box spring have been slashed, and the closet is gaping open, its contents strewn everywhere.
“Goddammit!” X cries as she steps around me and picks up a pair of lacy black panties. “Goddamn assholes!”
No tears, but she’s close. “Hey, it’s okay.”
She rounds on me. “It isn’t okay! This is all I have.” She waves her arm around the bedroom. “I worked so hard for this. I can’t afford to replace it.”
“You’re not thinking right, X. It’s just stuff that we can deal with later. Right now, we got bigger problems. Miguel is dead and your apartment’s been tossed. The assholes looking for whatever Miguel stole are not fucking around.”
“Neither am I.” She bares her teeth as she starts picking clothes off the floor. “I’m gonna track those… those… bastards down and neuter them.”
I have to get her head in the right space, so I grab the clothes she’s holding and toss them on the bed, then pull her into my arms and give her a tight hug. “Listen to me, baby. These fucks are killers. If you’d been home, I’m guessing you’d have joined Miguel in heaven.”
“Purgatory,” she mutters barely audible, her face pressed against my chest. “Miguel probably has to go to purgatory first, then heaven. Me too. I haven’t been to confession in a couple of months.”
I ignore her digression. “They’re looking for something that everyone seems to think you have. Your friends… ex-friends,” I quickly correct before she heads off on another tangent. “Are running scared. We have to find them and get them to tell us what the fuck is going on.”
She freezes in my arms, then pushes off my chest. “And Pops. God.” She grabs a backpack, stuffs some of the clothes on the floor into it and runs towards the door. “I gotta get to Pops.”
Spot and I catch up to her at the elevator, where she’s frantically pushing the button. “C’mon. C’mon,” she says under her breath.
I know from experience there’s no point in panicking. Paulie’s already dead or he’s sleeping peacefully in his bed. “We’ll take the stairs.” This time I pull her with me so there’s no escaping. “We’ll go to your pop’s place first.”
She looks at her watch as she puffs beside me. “He’ll be at the bakery by now.”
“Then we’ll head there.”