“Tyrell Walker,” he stated.
“Detective Angel Peña,” Walker replied.
There it was. Neither had the upper hand. Not yet.
Peña’s gaze slid to the Viper then back to Walker.
“Nice wheels,” he remarked.
Walker did not reply.
Peña held his eyes, surprisingly not uncomfortable with the height difference that was near to a foot. The world did not fit Walker’s height or size nor did most of the people in it. He had never had a problem with this. He’d duck his head every once in awhile knowing his frame intimidated most men, his bulk made them underestimate his speed and both (for some you could add his color) made most people, men and women, mistake his intelligence. This put him at a near constant advantage.
It occurred to him vaguely at that point that Lexie was one of the few women who fit him. Even in bare feet, she was tall for a woman. But she wore heels almost all the time. He didn’t have to bend or stoop as much with his wife.
He liked this too.
But now, he saw that Peña was not intimidated and he also didn’t underestimate Walker. He found this surprising and disquieting.
This meant Peña had spent some time digging and he’d dug deep. Walker just had no idea what he’d found.
“Figure,” Peña ended their silence, “you know I got an interest in Alexa Berry.”
“Walker.” His correction was a low, swift, deliberate rumble and he was shocked as shit to see his response surprised Peña so much it took two seconds for the man to hide it.
“What?” Peña asked softly.
“Walker,” he repeated. “Lexie’s last name is now Walker.”
Peña, face now closed, studied Walker but even with his face closed off, he did it intently.
Walker let him then he was done letting him.
“Got a wife to get home to, Peña. You gonna stare at me much longer?”
Peña blinked. Then he asked quietly, “How is she?”
“She’s the wife of a man who doesn’t like it much when a man he doesn’t know asks how she is.”
“That’s an interesting response, Tyrell,” Peña noted.
Walker did not reply even though he wanted to tell him not to call him Tyrell. His mother called him Tyrell. When his father was pissed, which was often, he called him Tyrell. Therefore no one called him Tyrell.
But he didn’t tell him this.
Peña carried on. “She’s a friend.”
“Now that’s interesting considering she hasn’t mentioned you.”
Another score. That one hurt. He thought he factored larger in her life.
“Things she’s tryin’ to forget, I reckon,” Peña guessed inaccurately.
And Walker didn’t hesitate to inform him of this fact. “You’d reckon wrong. Lexie doesn’t need to forget. She’s smart enough to learn the lessons life’s got for her, eyes open, no bullshit.”
“That may be so but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things she wants to leave in the past,” Peña returned.
“You got one right,” Walker told him, his point hard to miss and he was done so he decided to move them in that direction. “You come all this way for this shit?”