Page 85 of Rhodes

Funny words for this family. Hearing him say this, my mind immediately goes to Vin. We found the line and didn't cross it, leaving the man who ordered the hit on our father breathing, and called it worse than torture. I'm the only one who still thinks we called it wrong.

I keep it to myself and drink what’s left in my glass.

"You good?" I say.

He drains the glass, ice knocking his teeth. "I've never been better. I've got a beautiful woman who loves me in Italy, a boy and his baby sister asleep in Mississippi with his grandparents, waiting for his mom and dad to come home. What else is there?"

His hand lands on my shoulder, and he pushes off the rail. Whatever Charli put back in him since they fixed it, it's still strange to see on Reeves. He goes up the steps into the light and the noise and leaves me at the rail a minute longer while I finish my wine.

I head back up to hit the john. The passage between the wings runs dark and narrow, the party gone to a hum behind the walls.

She's ahead of me in the dark. When she hears me behind her and turns her head, we both stop.

Her hair's down now, one hand still damp from the sink where she pushed it off her face. The sconce at the far end barely reaches us, enough to see her face and the fact that she isn't moving on.

Neither of us reaches for a reason.

"You following me, Stone?"

"I guess I just got lucky."

"Yes, you did."

My hand's already cupped behind her head. Hers is already knotted in my shirt, hauling me the last foot till my back hits the wall and she comes with it. The stone's warm from the day. She's warmer.

Her mouth opens under mine, and I get the sparkling water with lime off her tongue, and every last thing I sat on across that table comes off the leash at once.

I slide a hand down her back and pull her in. She makes a sound into my mouth that makes my dick twitch. We go fast and quiet, both of us half-listening past it, one ear on the corner where a footstep could turn up any second and end this in a way we don't walk back from.

Her nails dig in through my shirt, and my thumb finds the strip of bare skin above her waistband. She shivers against me, and it's all I can do not to groan.

I slide my hand farther under her shirt just before the voices swell at the end of the alley, and light spills around the corner. Tallulah is off me before I get a full breath.

She backs toward the noise, dragging her thumb beneath her bottom lip, then smooths her shirt like she has been standing back here doing absolutely nothing.

"You've got a little..." She taps her mouth.

I swipe the back of my hand across mine, and her grin flashes in the dark.

"Got it."

Then she's around the corner and back in the middle of our crew before I can pull her in again.

I look down at the faint pink smear on my hand. Jesus Christ. My dick is still hard enough to make walking back into that party a problem.

I stay against the stone and listen to everybody thirty feet away laughing, wondering how they would react if they knew what we were doing in the shadowed alleys while the party goes on.

I give myself another few seconds before I push off the wall and head toward the restroom.

I don't hate a single fucking thing about my life tonight.

TWENTY-TWO

Tilly

The Blue Roof: After Katrina, federal tarps rated for ninety days stayed on New Orleans roofs for years, blue and taut and holding. Temporary is a word about what people intend, not about how long a thing actually lasts.

Someone finally checks the time at two-fourteen. Birdie nearly drops her wine.