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“The shampoo’s under the sink,” Daniel said. “Try not to clog it up.”
Okay, this was getting way kinkier than I’d expected. I’d need therapy when it was all said and done. No, wait, I already needed therapy. Never mind.
As my overactive imagination conjured all kinds of scenarios of why Muffy and I would need shampoo, an adorable Yorkie yapped at me from behind a recliner. “And do her nails,” Daniel said as he plopped into a creaky recliner. “Last time the girl didn’t do her nails.”
Wait? Was he serious? I thought I was supposed to be a prostitute or something.
I sca
“Fine, whatever.” He picked up the remote and turned off the mute. A game of some kind was on, the sound of a cheering crowd blared through the room. Good thing. The noise would muffle any ruckus the guys made.
I scooped up Muffy to keep her out of harm’s way, then texted Garrett the situation:
One male. Alone. And a Yorkie. Count to thirty
. I wanted to get Muffy into another room before they broke down the door.
“I ain’t seen you before,” Daniel called out to me. “You work with Crystal long?”
“Um, yeah, you know.”
He muted the TV. Damn it. What’d I say?
“How long?” he asked. He stood again and came into the kitchen just as I sent the text.
I stuffed my phone into my pocket. “Only a couple of months. She needed someone while Valerie was out.”
“Who the fuck’s Valerie?” he asked, easing into the kitchen. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. But before I could answer, he asked, “Is she that ski
I laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I never met her.”
“That chick was psycho, man. You should have seen what she did to Muffy’s ears. She just needs a trim, okay? I don’t want no sissy-ass do with bows and shit. Fuckin’ Valerie. I told her that, and she still gave her pink highlights.”
You could give a dog highlights? “Okay. No bows. No highlights. Got it.”
“Okay. Just so we’re—”
The front door crashed open, and I took a dive with Muffy. I couldn’t keep the term
muff diver
from popping into my head as I did so. Daniel wasn’t stupid. He didn’t hesitate a second before he went for the large kitchen window. He slid the dirty pane up and scrambled headfirst through the thing, his large body deceivingly quick.
“Swopes!” I called out, tossing Muffy onto her pallet and hurrying through the window after him.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that Daniel was a pla
I never got the memo. Thus, the moment I basically fell through the window, following him onto the rigged fire escape, the railing gave beneath our weight and toppled over, secured to the exterior wall only by the bottom bolts. Daniel clung to a set of bars he’d installed, probably for that very purpose, but without a stable foothold, he couldn’t hang on for long. The railing swayed, metal clanging against metal as the third guy from our party stood in the alley at the bottom, his eyes large as he watched. Daniel grunted as his hands slipped, and he fell onto the rocking fire escape, his weight causing another bolt to go.
In an instant, we dropped a perilous foot. I had a death grip on the bars, my feet dangling as I tried to get a foothold. I looked down again before I remembered the old adage: Never look down. Five stories was freaking high!
“Charley!”
Garrett was hanging out the window above me.
“What?” I asked. “Get me off here before I plummet to my death.”
But he was gone. Seriously?
“Having fun?” Reyes asked me. My adrenaline had spiked, and he was there. It was kind of nice, but he was incorporeal. He couldn’t really help me. Or, well, I didn’t think he could. He was sitting on the railing, his full robe waving like the sails of a flagship in the wind. He pushed back the hood, then let the robe settle around him and disappear.
“Not really.” I heard sirens in the distance.
“Son of a bitch,” Daniel said, trying not to make the metal contraption sway. He was more on the top part of the escape and I was more on the bottom part, hanging on by my fingertips. Memories of the elementary school playground flashed before my eyes. I sucked at monkey bars. I was always the girl who got blisters and fell into the dirt halfway across.
“Any ideas?” I asked him.
“You could climb up,” he said matter-of-fact.
I was literally hanging by my fingertips. Climbing up from this position would require way more upper body strength than I currently possessed. “You’re not putting any weight on this metal thing, are you?”
“I don’t think so. I can go if you want.”
“No!” I shouted.
“Bitch, what?” Daniel said. “I didn’t do a damn thing to you.”
I groaned. I had to be stuck on a collapsing fire escape with a guy who could give a sumo wrestler a run for his money.
“I could help you,” Reyes said, and I felt my fingers slipping, the wetness of my palms making the bars slick. “Do you want my help?”
Clearly we were playing games. I gave him my best death stare.
He chuckled and said, “It’s a simple yes/no question, Dutch.”
Before I could say anything else, a sheet floated down from overhead.
“Grab hold!” Garrett yelled, but I couldn’t let go. If I did, I would fall.
My fingers slipped a centimeter more, and I heard Reyes at my ear, his voice as deep and as beautiful as he was. “Let go.”
“I can’t,” I replied in a whispered strain.
“Of course you can.”
But before I could argue any further, my hands slipped again and the bar disappeared from my grasp entirely.
10
I used to be indecisive.
Now I’m not so sure.
—T-SHIRT
My reaction was instantaneous. Adrenaline spiked hard and fast. Sound ceased. Gravity let go. And time slowed to a stop. The blood pumping in my ears was replaced by a thick, odd feeling of pressure all around me like a vacuum.
I looked up. The sheet floated over my head as though it were rising instead of falling. I could just see Garrett as he stood at the window, holding the sheet, his expression severe. He’d cut his hand. Blood that had been dripping off his palms was headed back to where it came from as time not only slowed but reversed itself.
Amazement consumed me. I literally felt the shift of gravity. The pull of the earth beneath my feet became a soft, subtle push in the opposite direction.
I was flying!
Or, well, floating. But before I could get too happy and lose the precarious hold I had on the moment, I felt Reyes’s strength surround me like a force field, his hand wrap around my wrist as I took hold of the sheet.
“Ready?” he asked, but the moment he said it, time bounced back in place with a vengeance. It crashed into me in one giant wave. Sound rocketed through me and gravity staked its claim, jerking back toward the earth and almost wrenching the sheet out of my hand.
I slammed against the building and struggled to hold on as Garrett pulled.
“Hold on!” he said from between gritted teeth.
He didn’t need to tell me twice.
* * *
I tucked my errant hair behind my ears as Garrett walked up. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, raising my ire. “We had a guy waiting for him below. You didn’t have to go out the window.”