Chapter 8 #2
“If they call me one more time…” He put away the flashlight, tilted his head, and exhaled so hard, I felt every ounce of his frustration. “Tapley, have Jeremy escort you to my place when you’re done. I’m not asking. I’ll take care of any issues or problems.”
To appease him, I nodded. “Okay.”
He bent, pressed five kisses against my forehead, and wrapped me up in a hug. I didn’t get the chance to reciprocate as his arms circled me completely, trapping mine against my sides. Then he whispered, “Please don’t die on me,” released me, and left through the saloon doors, his footsteps heavy.
Jeremy scrambled to his feet and walked over. “Larke, I don’t think Dez’s orders can override me walking you through Woodhaven,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong—Dez is powerful, but he doesn’t outrank guys like Cerner.”
I patted Jeremy on the forearm. “It’s okay. I know.”
He stared at the doors. “But imagine if we got Dez on our side.”
“You think he’s with ‘them’?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I know he loves you and everything, but what we’re doing is risky. I didn’t want to tell him I’ve been meeting up with you and have it backfire. But it would be sweet as heck to have a Class One, and not just a Class One, but an Elite.”
“Dez and I are good friends,” I clarified. “We got close working together. He doesn’t love me in the way you’re thinking, I don’t think.”
“Are you sure?”
After today, I no longer was.
“Either way, he cares about you a whole lot. He asked the cook at the mess hall about you, asked me about you. When he’s on rounds, he always looks like he’s searching, and I don’t know what or who else he could be looking for.
Then, he told them you two were married at intake.
With training like ours, we usually pick up on something being off from the first question, and his first instinct was to say the two of you were a couple. ”
“It’s not like he could say we were related.”
“True.”
“I see they didn’t believe him, though.”
“They verify relationships, military service, everything. I had a Class Four bunking with me who lied about being a Marine. When they found out, they came for him in the middle of the night, and I haven’t seen him since.”
All of my exhaustion caught up to me at once. At least, with Jeremy’s help, I would reserve enough of my energy to get through the rest of the evening.
He pulled a piece of honey-glazed bread wrapped in plastic from his uniform pocket.
The bread was one of the specialties of a cook named Mae, who worked in Woodhaven.
There was a Mae from D.C. who owned a diner Dez and I had visited several times—fewer times than we visited my favorite food truck—but I didn’t know if it was the same woman.
“Here,” Jeremy said, handing it over. “I’ve got the laundry. You, uh,” he removed his uniform jacket, folded it, and set it on the ground, “sit here.”
I eased down onto the fabric and watched to make sure he went through all of the steps correctly before he added the first load of linens. When he noticed the spots and stains, he grimaced.
“Those are yours,” I teased.
He looked over at me. “No, they’re not…are they?”
“Have you had anyone up to your room?”
“Nope, no one.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Smiling, he returned to his task.
I looked toward the exit. Instead of the saloon doors, I saw my old office.
A memory surfaced, one from several months ago.
It was late evening, and I’d gotten so engrossed in my work that I worked through lunch.
Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for me to skip meals and then attempt to make up for it later that night with something greasy and virtually guaranteed to clog my arteries:
I left my desk and, stretching, walked to the window to peer outside, taking in my first full glimpse of “the day” since earlier that morning.
I didn’t mind the new office, although I did miss my old one on the other side of the building with its views of the busy streets and shadowed outlines of the monuments.
This vantage point, especially this late in the evening, offered the serenity of the courtyard—benches, greenery, cobbled walkways, and a majestic fountain.
I knew the case I’d been assigned was Top Secret, but I didn’t realize how high it went until the cavalry arrived, my private security team led by the quiet yet oddly gentle Dez Harding.
Then, I only reported to four people, which included the Attorney General, the Vice President, and the current president.
So, these days, I needed as much serenity as I could get.
“Time for a break,” I said to the books, furniture, decor, and desk accessories. “Let me see what Wren’s up to.”
I leaned against my desk and called my sister, but she didn’t pick up. Unlike me, Wren had a life and a boyfriend, so her not picking up wasn’t unusual.
Next, I tried my brother.
It was the same thing.
But Jay was probably at basketball practice.
“All right, then. A dance break, it is. The first song, no matter what it is, is the winner. Okay?” I looked around the room at no one. “Okay, agreed.”
The first song turned out to be “Crazy in Love,” which I didn’t listen to in heavy rotation until college.
Then, seeing as how my family lived in Wisconsin, and my parents were college professors, I wasn’t exposed to parties outside of my secret, one-woman bedroom “nightclub” sessions until I arrived in the DMV area.
I warmed up for my routine.
Part of my family’s roots were firmly lodged in Louisiana. Therefore, the ancestors had imbued my curves, of which I currently had plenty, with the spirit of movement.
As I moved, the stress melted from my body.
Tension evaporated from my bones.
I sang the words as if I’d spent the last decade listening to Beyoncé daily. And I danced like I was behind a locked door with a highly skilled security team on the other side, their main purpose to shield me from embarrassment rather than sudden danger.
At the end of the song, I looked back, preparing to walk away from the “camera,” only to clash gazes with Dez standing in the doorway, a brown paper bag in each hand.
I froze.
Depending upon how long he’d been standing there, he saw every “oh-oh,” every part of my attorney-turned-Atlanta stripper routine.
I spun around, breathing hard, one hand on my hip. “Hi.”
His mouth twitched. “Hey.”
“What’s that? Food?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He walked over. “I brought dinner.”
“Oh—”
“Oh.”
I smiled. “Shut up. Thanks for bringing dinner. Where’d you go?”
“The place I said I’d never return.”
“The food’s good.”
“It is, but you, Larke Tapley, have an addiction.”
Silence fell between us.
Then, he held up the bags, hummed the “Crazy in Love” opening riff, and did a little hip motion.
Without thinking, I laughed and wrapped my arms around him.
The soft pressure of his chin settled on top of my head.
We’d never hugged before. Outside of incidental brushes, the most touching we did was when I fixed his tie or collar in the mornings.
Yet, it didn’t feel weird or out of place.
“Don’t skip meals,” he gently chastised.
“I have a lot of work to do,” I countered.
“All right, so let’s eat together for all three. Consider the clock still running on my shift until I’ve seen you through dinner.”
I agreed.
It took a few minutes, but I eventually released him. Not once did he complain or try to step away.
After that day, we started sitting with smaller and smaller gaps between our bodies, another thing I didn’t realize until just then.
We touched more, nudged often, and although it had been a harrowing time, my body had still reacted to the first kiss he ever gave me—the one he placed on the side of my thigh when I fell on the rubble.
Clearly, I’d missed a few signs, but I hadn’t exactly been wrong. I’d told myself that Dez didn’t “like” me. However, if what I saw on his face earlier was any indication, I was now starting to realize that his feelings for me were nowhere that close to the surface.