On The Ropes (Tapped Out 3)

Searching for guns I’d stashed in toaster ovens and kissing paper towels.

I flipped down the toaster oven, saw that my gun was in the same place I’d left it. Then I went into the bedroom and grabbed my phone, thumbing out a quick text to Carly.

Next time, wake me before you leave, and I’ll tomfool you twice before breakfast.

She was my slice of normal. A sliver of light in the center of so much dark.

I’d fight to keep it for as long as I could.

Thirteen

“I can’t park this car. Why does he have a car like this? It’s ridiculous.”

Amused, I watched my sister attempt to parallel park between a Cadillac and a giant SUV. “Fox has a ‘Vette because he’s rich. As are you now. So you could buy something tiny that fits your senior citizen ways. Like a go-cart.”

“Shut up.” She grinned in triumph as she lined up her wheels with the curb. “There, I did it.”

“You did. And I’m sure it won’t cost that much to have that mirror put back on,” I said cheerfully, bending to pick up my purse.

“What? What mirror?” Mia craned her neck to look toward the passenger side of the vehicle. “How did I miss—” She narrowed her eyes as I cough-laughed into my c

upped hand. “You are a liar who lies.”

“Only on Fridays.” I pushed open my door and glanced back at my sister. “Why are we here, anyway? Will you just tell me already?”

“I want your opinion without prejudgments. So no, I won’t tell you.” She got out and waited for me on the sidewalk. “It’s just up here.” She took off on her ridiculously long legs.

My legs weren’t that long and I was wearing strappy heeled sandals, because I hadn’t realized we were going on a walking tour of Brooklyn.

“Why didn’t we park closer?” I asked loudly as we cleared the first block and reached the second.

“Do you see parking on this street? No. Besides, you can use the exercise. Baking brownies at two a.m. last night.” She shook her head as I finally caught up with her.

Yeah, because I’d had the munchies after a late night hookup with Gio, which she didn’t need to know anything about since we were sneaking around and all. The secrecy might’ve bothered me, if I hadn’t appreciated the simplicity. Besides, the sex seemed even hotter when I couldn’t tell anyone about having it.

Who was I kidding? The sex was hot as hell to begin with.

I would’ve just made the brownies at his place, but he didn’t have enough ingredients in his kitchen to make much of anything. I intended to rectify that soon, if only to please my own late night baking tendencies.

In the past couple of weeks we’d been meeting on the downlow, he’d had groceries in his kitchen exactly once, and that could not stand. And if he thought me buying eggs and flour was a violation of our casual friends-and-sex verbal agreement, then he could just bite me.

A quick glance down at my inner wrist made me grin. Oh, lookie, he already did.

Mia stopped in front of a nondescript glass door beside a shuttered storefront with a giant grate pulled down over the windows. Graffiti covered the metal, various slang words in interesting combinations. And in the bottom right, a crude drawing of a sex act I’d enjoyed more than once.

“Hmm.” I cocked my head. “Interesting place.”

“Not there. That’s a different storefront. Not connected. This is the place.” She produced a key from her pocket and turned it in the lock before opening the door and motioning me inside. “Straight down the hall. We’ll start there first. The stairs go to a second level.”

“That’s usually what stairs do.”

She pointed inside, and I went. I could tell when my sister was nervous, and when she was nervous, I got nervous too. She was unflappable most of the time, so if something had her vexed, it probably wasn’t good.

“What is this?” I wandered down the short hall with its threadbare, ancient carpet and opened up another a glass door. Stepping inside took my breath away. “A dance studio?”

“Used to be, yeah.” She stopped beside me and viewed the space with her hands in her back pockets and her lower lip caught between her teeth. She bit her lip all the time too, just like I did. Somehow I’d never noticed before.

I walked over to the ballet barre and ran my hand over the dusty wood, imagining how many other hands, small and large, had gripped it.