standing there in a pair of cast-off tennis shoes with holes in her jeans and an old Rocket Girl T-shirt, she wondered if he was talking to somebody else.
A quick glance around killed that idea. There was just the two of them up there on the Sprechts roof.
“Stunning, really.” He looked back to her, meeting her gaze with a half smile teasing his mouth. “I’ve never seen anyone like you, not ever, and I’ve been from one side of this planet to the other.”
Okay, well, ten minutes of this wasn’t going to be so hard to take, even with a blush warming her cheeks.
“I’ve never seen anybody like you, either,” she admitted. “But I’ve mostly just been from one side of Denver to the other.”
He laughed at that and dragged his hand back through his hair, and looked like he was feeling a little shy.
Geez. She must be having a darn good hair day.
“So what’s your name?” she asked.
“J. T. Chronopolous,” he said. “Ask around, you’ll hear about me and my friends, Christian Hawkins and Creed, maybe a few of the others. We used to run a pretty tight crew around here.”
Good. Great. It never hurt to have a few names to throw around.
“Does your friend Creed have a last name?”
He laughed again, a rich, deep sound that warmed her heart. “Just Creed. Come on, have a seat. We can finish the general’s takeout. I’m sure the guys have gotten him a whole new dinner by now.”
Chinese food, her backpack, and ten minutes of conversation with J. T. Chronopolous, her ex–hot crush. She’d sure had worse offers and, truthfully, seldom, if ever, had a better one.
She sat where she stood, a few feet away from him, and he grinned but didn’t press the point, sitting down where he’d been standing and leaning over to hand her the small white carton with the rest of the wontons.
“A general,” she said, taking a bite without taking her eyes off him. “So are you with the Army or something?”
“Something like the Army,” he said, opening another of the cartons and bringing it to his nose. “Sesame chicken, mmmm.”
She loved sesame chicken, and when he cracked open a pair of chopsticks and offered her the carton, she didn’t hesitate.
“So how old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty-two,” she said without hesitation. Twenty-one always sounded like you’d made it up, but twenty-two was solid.
“Twenty-two?” he repeated, sounding damned doubtful.
She gave a quick nod and kept eating, sticking with her story. That was always best—to keep it simple and to keep it straight.
“How did you get the scar on your cheek?”
“The same way I got the one on my nose.” Her gaze down, she kept eating.
“Which was how?” he persisted.
“You’re damn nosy.” She snagged another piece of chicken and popped it in her mouth.
“I’m interested in you,” he said. “And because of my work, I don’t always have a lot of time, so if I want to know something, I ask.”
“Your Army work.” She liked that he was a soldier. It fit him perfectly and had a solidness to it.
“Yeah, my Army work.”
She ate another two full bites of sesame chicken, watching him the whole time, before deciding to answer his question. In her work, being able to size up people and risk was second nature, and anyone who couldn’t do it in a split second wouldn’t last a day on the streets, let alone a night.
J. T. Chronopolous checked out.
“Before I went independent, I used to work for this guy, and he was always knocking us around. Not just me, but the whole crew, and we were so damn little, we just kind of took it. Then Sandman and I went out on our own—so there’s been no more knocking around.”
“Does this guy have a name?” The question came out immediately, not like he had to think about it, which she found interesting. Cops were like that, quick with the right questions.
“He used to,” she said. “Now he’s got a number down at the prison in Cañon City.”
He definitely thought that bit of news over.
“I checked with the cops, asked them about you, too,” he finally said, and she almost choked on her chicken. “They told me you and Sandman are headed for a fall. That you’ve had a good run, and they like that you’re trying to take care of all those homeless kids, but that you’d be better off shifting the whole kit and caboodle over to Social Services and giving yourself a break, before