At a clear place between a couple of cars, he pulled over to the curb and put the Cyclone in neutral before engaging the parking brake and reaching into the backseat again.
“You should have this, too. The more of it you can get down, the better you’re going to feel. I can guarantee it,” he said, bringing up an eight-pack of a bottled sport drink.
Electrolytes, just what she needed.
She let out another small sigh, watching him pull a bottle out of the plastic ring harness and unscrew the lid for her.
“Thank you,” she said and took a sip-grape, her favorite.
This was crazy.
He lifted the red pack out of her lap and unzipped the main compartment, revealing an incredibly well organized first-aid kit, of all the darn things.
Watching him, she screwed the lid back on the bottled drink, curious as hell.
“Blowout kit?” She read the label off a sealed plastic pouch in the pack. The pouch was only slightly smaller than the MRE.
“In case one of the good guys gets hurt, me included,” he said, moving aside a package of sterile bandages set above a number of elasticized bands and pockets, each of them fitted with some kind of medical supply.
“What about the bad guys?”
He let out a short laugh. “I don’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about saving the bad guys.”
A little harsh maybe, or maybe not-MREs, blowout kits and first-aid supplies, a pistol he carried concealed in a shoulder holster, for crying out loud, and the way he had of taking charge… especially the way he had of taking charge.
“Do people get hurt a lot in your line of work?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” he said, unzipping one of the kit’s mesh pockets.
“And what is that exactly? Your line of work, I mean.” They’d been rolling through lower downtown pretty much at a dead run for the last hour together; she figured it was time to ask, probably past time.
He gave her a brief glance, and without missing a beat said, “I’m currently between assignments.”
Oh, right. Between assignments. Sure. She’d been there.
Well, actually, she’d never been between assignments, but she could see how some gangster from RiNo could end up “between assignments.”
Bull.
He’d just given her a perfect example of misinformation by omission if she’d ever heard one-and she’d heard plenty. Some days in the private investigation business were just chock-full of all the things people weren’t telling you.
“You’re not one of the Locos, are you?” She just couldn’t get that to line up, him being a street thug, a gang member. It didn’t fit with what she’d been seeing since he’d walked into her dad’s office, no matter how easily he’d fit in with those guys in the alley off Delgany.
He pulled two small brand-name packets out of the mesh pocket and held them up. “Aspirin or Motrin? What do you want?”
“An answer to my question.”
He held her gaze, and, after a moment, handed her the aspirin packet. The Motrin went back in the kit. Then he took the MRE out of her lap and ripped open the top.
“Drink more of your drink,” he said, pulling a tightly sealed package out of the MRE and ripping it open as well.
She unscrewed the lid on her bottle and took another sip, and when he handed her a four-inchsquare cracker, she took a bite.
“They’re a little dry,” he warned.
No kidding.
When she had about half the cracker washed down, he nodded at the aspirin packet she still had clutched in her hand.
At any time during the exchange, she could have told him that she didn’t really have a headache, but she was rather ridiculously enjoying his attention- emphasis on the ridiculous.
She took the aspirin, and when she was finished swallowing, she let her gaze slip to his mouth.
She was doomed.
It had only been a kiss, she told herself, a kiss that made her want more and more, until the more became more than just a kiss.
Her gaze drifted lower, down the strong column of his throat, down the gray T-shirt covering his chest, to his lap, to the zipper on his jeans. It had been a long time for her, since she’d been with someone, which she was absolutely positive would never have come into play tonight-except he’d kissed her, and now everything was in play, especially her response to him.
He’d grown quiet on his side of the car, and when she looked up, she found him watching her, his gaze darkly serious, his attention focused on her face.
Another wave of heat washed through her. Johnny Ramos, all grown-up, the promise of what he could be completely eclipsed by what he’d become- harder, calmer, with a solid confidence she felt coming off him with every breath he took. He wasn’t running wild anymore. He wasn’t running dice in the school parking lot or dope on the corner for the Locos. His world had gotten much bigger, whether he was between assignments or not.
“You don’t answer to Duce,” she said, so sure of it. He didn’t look like he answered to anyone who wasn’t at least as mentally strong and physically tough as he was-which she knew for a fact narrowed the field down to a couple of very specific skill sets, law enforcement and the military. He was either a cop or a soldier. It was in his bearing. She’d been picking up on it since her dad’s office, but she hadn’t put her finger on it until now. The businessmen she dealt with didn’t move like he did. They thought tactically, but their tactics revolved around making money, not survival. Lawyers jockeyed for position in court, not on the street. Accountants, like Pete Carlson, the guy whose office was next door to her dad’s in the Faber Building, or even her own accountant back in Seattle, spent their time anticipating the cost-benefit ratio of tax laws, not threats like Dovey Smollett.
Johnny moved like Dax, who would have seen Dovey zeroing in on her in a heartbeat.
“No, I don’t answer to Duce,” he admitted, handing her the other cracker from out of the package.
She took the cracker, but what she noticed was the ink peeking out from under the cuff of his shirt.
“Oh,” she said, surprised, but then quickly remembering. “I’d forgotten about that one.”
She reached out, her fingers making contact with the letter L inscribed on the inside of his wrist. Almost as quickly, she felt the warmth of his skin.
“This was before Dom got killed, wasn’t it?”
It took a moment, but when he answered, it was in the affirmative.
“Yes.”
“Can I see it?”
She glanced up, and after a moment, he silently obliged, unbuttoning his cuff and pushing up his sleeve to reveal the word “LOCOS.” The letters were styled in Old English, all capitals, ornately strung along a knife blade with “XX2ST” and “C/S” written on the hilt, all of it inked into his skin, the tattoo going from his wrist to his elbow.
Oh, yes. She remembered this.
She slowly ran her fingers up the inside of his left arm. “You were fourteen when you had this done,” she said. “We were both in Mr. Hawthorn’s American Literature class that year. I remember asking you if it hurt, and you told me no.”
“I lied.”
“Yeah, I figured as much.” A grin tipped the corner of her mouth. His tattoo was elegant, professionally done, far better than what some of the other boys had put on their bodies. “I thought you were so tough.”
“Still am.”
Her smile broadened. “C slash S,” she said, reading the hilt. “Con safos, you told me, protected by God, and the XX2ST is for Twenty-second Street.”
“You remembered.” He sounded somewhat surprised.
She remembered everything about him, not that he would know it, and if at all possible, she was going to keep the news flash to herself.
“I think everybody who grew up around here remembers that the Locos started on Twenty-second Street.” His skin was soft, his arm so hard to the touch, the veins running down the length of it a confluence of strength underlying the elaborate design and stylized script of his tattoo.