It was useless to focus on it too much until I had someone to talk to.
Decision made, guards firmly back in place, I got up, got dressed, took a couple slow, deep breaths, and made my way back out into the front of the gym where Finch was leaning back against the wall, trying to get one of his Nicotine patches out of the wrapper.
I took it from his hand, tore it open, and looked up to find him rolling up his sleeve, holding it up for me to stick the patch on.
There was maybe even a challenge in his eyes.
And since any soft touches that involved Finch resulted in unexpected and unsettling sensations, I went ahead and slapped that sucker onto his tattooed arm.
"Let's go. I have a busy day," I reminded him, so he didn't get any grand ideas of getting me alone in a restaurant or back at his place.
That was over.
I needed space.
Until I got my head together again.
Until then, I needed to stay as far away from Finch as possible.
Of course, Finch had other plans.
Chapter Six
Finch
She was back to business in the car on the way to the difficult seller.
So back to business, in fact, that she insisted we take separate cars, despite my fake, but impassioned argument about the environment.
She went ahead and tossed out that anyone who was worried about the environment wouldn't be driving a bike like mine, before hopping into her car and taking off.
I'd never met a woman who fought so hard to deny her feelings. Especially if she was single and I was single and there were no real work complications or friendship complications.
It just didn't make sense.
We were both adults.
There was attraction.
It made sense to act on it.
Then again, there was something strange there.
Even with the way she kissed my eye, the side of my lips. There was an unexpected, I don't know, innocence.
It made no sense.
I didn't even entertain the idea that she was a virgin. You simply didn't find a hell of a lot of mid-twenties virgins these days.
But if not that, I had no idea what to think of the way every touch, every moment of connection seemed to confuse her, throw her world off its axis.
I came to no conclusions on the long drive past the beach, through to the quaint shore town right out of a vacation brochure, and finally into a shady part of town that made me regret my decision to leave my gun at home.
"Wait," I demanded, grabbing my backpack off the bike, rushing to catch up with her determined gait. "You can't just rush in there."
"Sure I can."
"Angel, we don't know who this guy is, or what he is capable of."
"His name is Roger Contiga. He is a partially-employed divorcee with a crippling alimony payment due. No child support. He thinks that was because he was shooting blanks. But his wife actually had a copper IUD she never told him about. He is terrified of never accomplishing anything great, and is about two weeks away from a mid-life crisis where he gets up, grabs his keys, and drives to Mexico to start over again."
"How do you know that?" I asked, unable to help the awe in my voice.
"Nothing is as private as people want to believe. Anything you've ever typed somewhere lives forever. All it takes is someone looking for it."
"Why were you looking for it, though?" I asked, brows pinching, fingers and lungs itching for a cigarette. The patches were pure bullshit. The gum wasn't much better and came with the added bonus of making the tip of my tongue feel numb. The damn lollipops were the only thing helping me stay halfway sane.
The fact that I was quitting smoking because she told me to was a topic to tackle on another day.
"I like being prepared for anything," she told me, giving the words a nod for emphasis. "I find that knowing someone's secrets gives you leverage in tense situations."
"This doesn't have to get tense," I told her, figuring she'd seen enough violence for one day.
What can I say? I didn't like any old asshole picking on any old girl. But at the gym, seeing that asshole picking on this girl? It woke up something long-dormant inside me, something wild and uncontrollable, something I was sure I had left in my old life. Apparently, though, there were some things that it didn't matter how deep you buried them. They could always claw their way to the surface given enough time.
"Well, you never know," she said, shrugging, as I grabbed a bag off the back of my bike, taking off down the side street toward a towering apartment building that looked like it hadn't seen a single update since the eighties.
"Can dig up dirt on some poor schmuck from a decade ago, but you can't pick a lock, dollface? Even goddesses have their shortcomings, I guess," I added, reaching into my backpack for a lock-pick set I'd been carrying around since I was eleven or twelve.
"I don't typically do the dirty work," she admitted, shrugging. "I have always been the planner, the overseer."
"Sweetheart, life is a lot more fun when it's dirty," I told her, feeling the lock release, letting me move to stand, sharing a smirk with her before pulling the door open.
I didn't figure she could agree with that. Everything about Chris was neat and controlled--perfect, even.
There was a base part of me that couldn't help but want to messy her up a bit. Show her how much fun that could be.
Clearly, though, she was not in the mood.
She charged in front of me, nearly jogging down the hallway to get to the end unit.
"What are you doing?" she whispered to me when I slide away from the door, flattening against the wall.
"Maybe he's going to check the peephole. He sees me, he locks himself in the bathroom, and calls the cops. He sees you, he lets you in."
"That's ridiculous."
"Trust me," I demanded. I couldn't help but wonder if I didn't just mean that situationally, if I meant that as a general request, as an assurance. That she could trust me.
She rolled her eyes but lifted her hand to rap loudly on the door with her knuckles.
"I told you I can't afford any more cookies!" a voice growled as the chain slid, the lock disengaged, and the door opened a few inches.
I wish I could have seen the shock on his face when the door cracked open and he looked out to see her standing there.
Speaking from experience, hot women didn't just randomly show up on your doorstep. Life wasn't quite that fair. Not for any of us.
Roger Contiga had just won the life lottery.
He seemed to understand that, mumbling a quick apology, shutting the door, sliding the chain off completely, opening it.
"I can't afford the cookies on my waistline," he corrected, not wanting Chris to know how rough he currently had it. As if his shitty apartment building in a shittier part of town wasn't evidence enough of that.
This was the part where she was supposed to assure him that his waistline was just fine. But Chris was not the sort of woman to feed a guy pleasantries. Especially not to someone she thought was wasting her very precious time.
"Roger. We had a deal," she told him, brow arching up.
Unable to help myself, I pushed off the wall, wanting to see the guy's face as he realized he wasn't as lucky as he had been thinking a moment before.