Hard Rules

“Considering I’m six two and I’d guess you to be a foot shorter, I’d say both.”

“Hey now,” she reprimands me. “I’m five four. Don’t take my two inches.”

“Five four,” I amend, reaching for one of her arms to roll up the sleeve.

“Don’t do that,” she objects, grabbing my hand. “This is at least a two-thousand-dollar suit. You can’t roll up the material.”

For a woman who tries not to talk about herself, she’s just told me there’s a good chance she’s been around money, even if she doesn’t have it now. “The jacket will be fine. The dry cleaners can handle it. I promise.”

For a moment, she looks like she might argue, but instead says, “Thank you,” and there’s an odd hint of something in her voice that reaches beyond simple politeness and stirs further interest in me. She interests me and remarkably, the edge of minutes before has eased slightly, and I haven’t even gotten her naked yet.

I grab the lapels again and inch her closer. “My place is a mile from here. I want to take you there. This is where you say yes again.”

“You know my answer.”

“Say it,” I demand, needing her to be clear about what she wants, and what I want.

“Yes,” she whispers, then seeming to understand I’ll ask for more, she firms her voice to add, “Your place is fine.”

“Good answer.” I don’t give her time to get nervous on me, draping my arm around her shoulders to sweep her into the shelter of my body, and set us in motion down a fairly deserted section of the sidewalk. “The walk is longer from the direction we exited the restaurant,” I say, noting her hands grasping her purse, not me, where they belong. “But I need to drop by the building and pick up my car. Is yours in the garage?”

“I walked,” she says as we enter the dark patch just before the bustle of Sixteenth Street. “Good grief, this back street is spooky. I’d never walk it without you.”

“Just another half a block and we’ll be back on the main road,” I say, when someone jumps out of the darkness, and starts cursing at us. I quickly pull Emily to the opposite side of me, away from the action, and hustle us forward. The minute we’re on Sixteenth, I place her in front of me and turn to find a homeless man hanging back and laughing.

“Little bastard,” I murmur, joining Emily, who’s now facing me. “He’s not following us,” I say, my hands settling on her arms. “Are you okay?”

“Now that my heart is out of my throat. That was scary.”

“I’m pretty sure that was a guy known as ‘Joe’ who has some notoriety around him. He’s a street person who enjoys scaring people.”

“Enjoys it? What a horrible way to amuse himself. And how can I be mad at him and still feel sorry for him?”

“Don’t,” I say, draping my arm around her neck and turning her to step us into action again. “My understanding is that he has family who’ve tried to help but he always ends up back here.”

“Drugs?”

“Yes. Drugs. He won’t stay clean. Addiction is an evil monster that comes in many forms.”

“Yes,” she whispers, delicately clearing her throat. “Yes. It is.”

She cuts her gaze, hiding what I might find in her eyes, her response suggesting the topic is personal to her and I wonder if that has anything to do with her coming to Denver alone. “Have you ever lived downtown in a major city?”

“No. Why?”

“I’ve traveled enough to know that every downtown located in a major metropolis is packed with convenience, but also comes with a rough side. I was with you tonight, but you never know when you’ll run into another Joe, or someone with worse intentions.”

“I’m always careful.” She cuts me a look. “As you can tell, considering I’m going home with a stranger tonight.”

“I’m not a stranger. You know where I work. You know a restaurant I frequent and plenty of people saw us together. And by the way, Jeffrey’s really does make a damn good plate of ravioli. You would have liked it.”

“It smelled and looked amazing but…” She hesitates. “I guess it’s good we didn’t decide to stay. I’m sorry about your father.”

“Yes well, it really shouldn’t have surprised me the way it did. I mean this is a man I caught fucking our neighbor, my buddy’s mother, on our kitchen counter when I was sixteen.”

“Oh God. That must have been a nightmare for you.”

“It wasn’t one of my brighter moments.”

“I’d say it’s more like it wasn’t one of your father’s brighter moments. But your mother stayed?”

“Yes. She stayed.”

“So, they worked it out. Are you sure this dinner was inappropriate?”

“Inappropriate is about as ‘appropriate’ as it gets,” I say, remembering the way the woman was hanging on my father and wishing like hell I hadn’t opened the door for more questions I won’t answer.

But she doesn’t ask another question, instead summing things up perfectly with, “Then he’s an asshole.”

“Yes,” I agree. “He’s an asshole.” Silently adding, An asshole dying of cancer. And yet he seems to revel in pissing people off and watch them catapult their anger to guilt.