Edison (The Henchmen MC 10)

By the time I reached her door, I felt like I needed a shower to wash this filth off. But I had a feeling that seeing Lenny would help wipe some of the grime away.

I listened for a second, waiting to see if I heard anything inside before I bothered to knock and further piss off the dog I could hear two doors down, growling half-heartedly at my presence in the hall.

"Motherfucker," she hissed from inside a second before I heard a small crash.

For some reason, that made my lips curve up as I knocked.

"Everything alright in there, love?" I asked, and even I could hear the amusement in my voice.

I swear what I heard next was a growl as she stomped across the apartment, and yanked the door open. Her hand was holding a rag on top of her other hand, and there was the strong smell of brewing coffee in the apartment.

"I can get a grown ass man unconscious in under fifteen seconds, but I can't manage to pour a cup of coffee without burning myself," she explained, rolling her eyes.

She was tense.

Tenser.

She was always wound-up, but this was different. It was practically vibrating off of her. Her shoulders were up. Her movements were tight. Something was bothering her.

I knew right then what I was.

A release.

Maybe I was somewhat bothered by that. Insulted even.

I didn't want to be just a tension-relieving fuck.

But then again, if a woman like Lenny was so desperately in need of one, it almost seemed wrong to deny her.

So when she moved inside and walked back to her coffee machine, I moved inside, closing the door behind me, reaching to slide the chain on.

Just a chain.

So that crossed off one of my theories about her situation.

Women who had stalkers tended to double (or triple) up on the locks. Especially in a neighborhood where no one would notice some random shithead, in a building with no doorman or central lock.

It had been my most likely scenario.

After all, one in six women will be stalked in their lifetime, to varying degrees of severity. It wasn't a huge leap that Lenny would. Especially given her penchant for stomping on men's egos. It wouldn't be a surprise if one of the guys who hit on her and got turned down would develop an obsession.

But no way would she drop well over a thousand bucks on self-defense education... and not lock her door if that were the case.

I'd never been inside an apartment in this particular building, but it was what you would expect.

The floors were faux wood printed linoleum, scuffed and torn, peeling up in areas where it was clear furniture had been moved around too often. The space as a whole was cool, drafty from the ancient glass windows lining the wall across from the door. The walls were the plain yellow-faded-white that must have been there since well before Lenny moved in.

Lenny didn't strike me as a 'spruce up the place' kind of woman. Between her job and the gym, it didn't seem like she had much time to spend in her apartment anyway.

Her living room consisted of an ancient couch in a brown, gold, and red plaid pattern, the cushions sloped in the centers from use, the armrests almost threadbare. In front of it was a scuffed coffee table. There was no TV, but a decent stereo system on a small table beside the door. It was definitely not top-of-the-line likely because she couldn't afford it, but also because even if she did invest, there was a very real chance of it getting stolen in a place like this.

"My iPod is in the boot beside the door," she told me without turning, like she somehow knew that was where I was looking.

Just to have something to do, I went to fetch it, plugging it into the AUX, and clicking her Classic Rock playlist.

When I turned back around to a crooning Pearl Jam belting out a tale of blackness, Lenny was standing there with two mugs of steaming black coffee.

I crossed over, taking mine, feeling the strained tension, but unsure what caused it, what was going on in her head.

"How was the party?"

Yeah, she was definitely having some kind of internal struggle if she was engaging in the smallest of small talk. What was next? A discussion on the condition of the roads?

"Loud. Full of booze. The usual." I took a sip of the coffee, feeling it scrape across my tastebuds. "Jesus Christ," I said with a cough.

She chuckled a little at that. "I get like four or five hours of sleep a night. I need my coffee strong enough to jumpstart an elephant heart."

I nodded at that, moving to sit on her couch, putting my cup on the table, having absolutely no intentions of drinking any more of that sludge, though you had to respect a woman who could drink something as bitter as that without so much as a wince.