“Indy, you leave this apartment, I’ll come lookin’ for you.”
“Jeez, we haven’t even slept together and already you don’t trust me.”
“I’ve known you all your life not to mention the fact that my idiot sister is in the next room and when you two get together it’s like Laurel and Hardy do Denver.”
“It is not!”
“What about that time you bought scalped tickets to a Garth Brooks concert from Carmine Alfonzo?”
Carmine Alfonzo, better known as Uncle Carmine. We’d known him since we were seven, he used to ride the squad car with Dad.
“He was in disguise!” I defended myself.
“He was wearing a baseball hat,” Lee returned.
“Yes, but he’s a Cubs fan, he was wearing a Sox hat. His head should have been on fire.”
The sides of Lee’s eyes crinkled in a grin that didn’t involve his mouth but was nevertheless ultra-effective and let go of my hair.
“We aren’t finished yet,” he told me.
“Yes we are,” I retorted.
Lee’s crinkles disappeared and his face got serious.
“This is happening between you and me,” he threatened.
I wasn’t entirely sure what “this” meant since he announced to his mother and sister that we were “together”. Considering what I did know was that a goodly part of it involved us being naked, in his bed, participating in activities which required my avid participation, I wasn’t going to have any part of it.
“No, it isn’t,” I snapped back.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“No, we won’t.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do I need to kiss you again?”
I took a hasty step back and watched my toe draw a pattern in the carpet.
“No,” I muttered.
“Christ, I need to get my head examined.”
My head snapped up.
“What does that mean?” I asked angrily.
“Nothin’. Be here when I get back.”
“Sure.”
Not on his life.
* * * * *
Ally Nightingale had yet to decide on a career. Currently, she was on her one hundred and eleventh bartending job. She already had a Bachelor’s degree (majored in political science and squeaked by), was a certified radiology technician (a tough gig but she saw it through and worked the MRI machine at Swedish Medical Center for two months before quitting, Malcolm’s head nearly exploded after that one) as well as a certified nail technician.
Of all those things, Ally gave good nails but she found sitting in a chair all day filing, polishing and forming plastic glop into nail shapes was not compatible with her energetic personality.