* * * * *
After we were done, he held me against his side and made me tel him what happened with Bil y, from the minute he left for his run, to the minute he got into bed with me after I came back. He listened without saying anything but his body was speaking for him, getting tense; his hand, which was stroking my back, going stil every now and then, sometimes, flexing and biting into me.
Then, he made me tel him about the sledgehammer incident.
He said something then. “I’m gonna kil that motherfucker.”
“That’s what Uncle Tex said,” I told him.
Then, he made me tel him about my plan to get rid of Bil y.
In other words, we had the conversation we were meant to have over breakfast five days ago.
“That wasn’t a very good plan,” he said to me.
“I know that now,” I replied.
Then, he told me he knew my place was trashed, Mace had told him at Lincoln’s Road House.
“You’re not safe to go back there,” he said.
“I’m going,” I returned.
“We’l see.”
Jeez, there was just no shaking this guy.
“Yo u do know that there’s this little thing cal ed the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote?” I asked.
“I heard of that,” he said and there was a smile in his voice.
“And there’s this whole movement cal ed fem… in… is…
im.” I said it slowly, like he was a dim child. “Where women started working, demanding equal pay for equal work, raising their voices on issues of the day, taking back the night, stuff like that.”
He rol ed into me, which made me rol onto my back.
“Sounds familiar.”
“Do you have an encyclopedia? Maybe we can look it up. If the words are too big for you to read, I’l read it out loud and explain as I go along.”
He got up on his elbow. “Only if you do it naked.” I slapped his shoulder.
He ignored my slap, threw his thigh over mine and settled in.
I sighed.
Shamus jumped up and walked around on the bed like it was the floor for a bit, then laid down with a loud, doggie groan, his back pressed the length of my side.
I sighed again.
“You Nightingale boys are hard to shake.”
“Remember that,” Hank murmured and wrapped his arm around my waist as if to prove the point.
Chapter Thirteen
This Is Gonna Be Fun