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She shrugs. “One of my favorites. It’s ‘Axes and Exes — When Relationships Go Wrong.’ I like to listen to it while I get ready.”
“You aren’t planning on going to the Cuff & Chain, are you?”
She laughs. It’s a light laugh, and I wonder if that’s how she’d sounded before her brother died. It both makes me smile and breaks my heart, thinking about how much darkness I brought into her life that day.
“Not without you. I wouldn’t go in there without protection.”
“We’ll need backup when we go to turn the flash drive in. I don’t trust Seraphina and Kyle not to try something.”
“Especially that Kyle. How sketchy can you get?”
“I know. Who the fuck but a deviant goes by the name ‘Kyle’ when they’re living that lifestyle? Surrounded by a bunch of people wearing all those outfits, doing all that kinky shit, with names like Seraphina, or Angelus, or Octavius, fuck, I feel like I’m naming the cast from Gladiator, and then you just have fucking Kyle over there chilling in the corner like his name isn’t massively out of place. It’s not right.”
"Maybe he's so twisted he doesn't need a moniker to stand out. Maybe he wants us to know. It could be that’s part of his kink.”
“So, if you’re not going to the Cuff & Chain, where are you going?”
“Some of us have jobs.”
“You’re seriously going to work?”
“Yes. And I’m going to Cuff & Chain after. Listen, I may have devoted most of the last few years of my life to discovering the truth about my brother’s death, but just because I want to murder the person responsible doesn’t mean I’m not a contributing member of society. People need alcohol, Dixon, and I need to give them that alcohol. Plus, I want their money, so I can afford the things I need.”
“Like this amazing apartment?”
“Again, this place was a necessary evil. I needed to live somewhere where people don’t ask questions.” She puts on a bra, panties, jeans, and a shirt. I take a moment of silence for losing sight of the best naked ass I’ve seen in my life, then take a moment to appreciate the sight of the best ass in jeans that I’ve ever seen in my life. “Something on your mind? Because, if you’re committing it to memory, you better hurry. I’m leaving in ten.”
“Not without me, you aren’t. With all the people we’ve pissed off, not to mention the fact that a hired killer did just break in here to murder you, I am not letting you out of my sight.”
“Are you trying to say you care about me, Dixon Green?” She says with a smirk that would rival one of my own.
“Not a fucking chance. Fine. Maybe. But I also want the truth. And if I walk into our meeting with Seraphina and Kyle with the flash drive, but without you, I’ll look like an unreliable bastard.”
“And if I object to you stalking me at work?”
“You can either let me come along with you to work, or you can deal with the fact that I’ll show up to your job anyway, because there’s no way in hell you can keep me out of that bar.”
“Fine. But you sure as fuck aren’t coming in to work with me without a shower.”
“I’ll use deodorant. It’ll be fine.”
“Dixon, you smell like you’ve been dipped, head to toe, in every kind of sexual fluid. And you know why? Because you have been. Deodorant won’t cover that mess up.”
“Dipped six times over, and unless you were faking those screams, you loved it. I don’t think I need a shower. I’ve smelled worse. In the Marines, I was on—”
“I don’t want to hear about you getting covered in the sexual fluids of an entire battalion of Marines. All I want to hear is either you getting back into bed or you getting into the shower. Got it?”
“Fine.” I shower. I dress. It takes four minutes, because the military taught me to be quick at both, or else I’d suffer the naked shenanigans of grown men with the emotional and mental maturity of heavily armed toddlers.
Not long after, we’re parking outside her bar and I follow her inside.
My guard post for the evening is a barstool with an old cushion that’s had a very particular butt groove worn into it, which tells me one extremely determined man has probably made this spot his post for at least the last couple of years. While Alexandra starts her prep work for her shift — cutting limes, washing mint, and prepping orange and lemon peels for cocktails — I get bored and start imagining what strange man would be so determined to grind his ass into one particular stool over such a long period. It’s a big groove, too. Wide. Expansive, even. It feels like two blimps landed side-by-side.
So, I have one thing to base my imagination on: this man has a juicy ass.
“Reggie sits there,” Alexandra says. “You’re going to want to move.”
“I think Reggie can sit somewhere else tonight. I’m good here.”
