she would have peeked. As his eyes moved slowly over whatever had been texted, she had a thought that he might be dyslexic.
“I have to go,” he said.
Jo nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Of course—” When he started to get some twenties out of his pocket, she put her hand on his arm. “Nope. This is my treat. I’ll cover it.”
He froze and stayed that way. To the point where she removed her touch. Maybe she had offended him—
“I don’t want to leave you,” he blurted.
Something about the way he said the words made her feel warmth in the center of her chest. Or maybe it wasn’t the way he said them. It was the fact that he said them at all.
I don’t want to be left by you, she thought to herself.
Knowing that she only had another couple of seconds to stare at him, she drank in his face, that hard, harsh face that she knew she was going to see in her dreams—assuming she ever slept again.
“Who are you?” she whispered. “Really.”
“I’m a friend.”
Ouch, she thought as she sat back.
The pain that shot through her rib cage made her realize that sometime between when he’d been prepared to shoot at some innocent Civic owner to keep her safe, and the ordering of their cheeseburgers and fries, she’d made a decision she wasn’t prepared to look too closely at. But it seemed like that was a door being shut on his side.
Well, he’d have sex with her. It wouldn’t mean anything to him, however. Friends, benefits, all that.
Syn slid out of the banquette, and now he got serious about the water. He took the glass and downed everything that was in it. Even the ice.
“Are you going out to fight?” she said.
“What’s your number? I’ll call you.”
Jo had a thought that she didn’t want him to die. Which was hyperbolic and silly. Then again… two dead bodies in as many nights? Kind of made catastrophizing look like a sensible attitude to take about life.
“Are you married?” she asked.
The recoil he pulled would have broken the neck of a lesser built man. “No.”
Okay, that was a relief. At least she wouldn’t be fantasizing about someone else’s husband. Not that she was going to be imagining anything. Nope. She might be reckless, but she wasn’t a masochist.
I’m a friend.
The three most crushing words in the English language when you were attracted to someone. Then again, given that she shouldn’t be with someone like him anyway, maybe they were a lifesaver.
“Take care of yourself,” she said softly.
Syn nodded his head, and then he was gone, striding out of the bar, out into the night. As if he hadn’t really wanted her phone number. As if the fact that they wouldn’t see each other again didn’t matter.
Where did all those only-I-can-help-you’s go? she wondered bitterly.
And P.S., how come she was turning into a chick? Real women didn’t wait for Prince Charmings to come along and give their lonely, spinster existences meaning. Chicks did, though. They got doe-eyed in the wake of departures and they finished their dinners by their lonesome in mourning and they waited to be called.
Reaching up to her lips, she thought of the kiss they’d shared.
“You’re just going to get hurt if you go after him,” she said.
Jo lasted another second and a half.
Shoving her hand into her purse, she grabbed some cash. Tossing however much it was on her half-eaten cheeseburger, she took her coat and jogged through the tables, through the patrons, through waiters. Breaking out into the spring chill, Syn’s name was on the tip of her tongue.
She didn’t let it fly.
Looking left… looking right… looking straight ahead, she saw nothing but an empty four-lane city street, and sidewalks without anyone on them, and a parking lot across the way that had two cars in its slots and a kiosk without an attendant.
“Where did you go?” she whispered into the night wind.
* * *
The evil is here. Oh, Jesus… the evil is here.
Butch ran as fast as he could, blocks of city streets flying under his shitkickers as he skidded around corners, and tore down straightaways. He was breathing like a freight train, his fists clenched and pumping, his leather jacket flared out and flapping behind him, his weapons moving with his torso in their holsters.
As he rounded a left-hand turn, he ran into some kind of a human and shoved them out of his way. When they shouted at him, he didn’t bother to apologize.
Faster, for fuck’s sake,