Page 17 of Below The Surface
Dallas sighs. “No, but thank you.”
I really wish I had my phone on me. “Can you send me the video? My friend might be able to extract more information.” I rattle off my email address.
“And sent. Might take a bit. It’s a big file.”
I grab Dallas’s hand and tug him to me. “Alrighty, thanks for your help. We’ll get out of your hair now.” Mr. Arie slowly shuts his door behind us and I shiver. “There’s something strange about him, but I can’t place it. Like maybe he eats pickles with a fork or something.”
Dallas blinks back at me. “People eat pickles with forks. There are special pickle forks.”
“For serving pickles, not eating them.” I grab his hand again. “Time to securi-ficate your apartment.”
Dallas snorts. “Securi-ficate is not a word.”
“It is now. Don’t argue with me. You’ll lose.”
“It’s not in the dictionary.”
“And you’ve read it from cover to cover to know all the words inside.” I drop my hands to my hips and stare at him. There’s a gleam in his pretty eyes.
“No, but I won my high school spelling bee as a senior and went on to win the nationals.”
“Bull-fucking-shit.”
“It’s true. I swear!” Dallas holds up his hands.
A smile fights for dear life before I let it happen. “Nerd. Come on. Time for securititty.”
He snorts. “What now?”
“You didn’t like securifacation. So now we’re getting tits involved.” I shimmy my chest, making him laugh. Mr. Arie cracks his door open and peers out. “Sorry. Sorry. We’re leaving you in peace.”
I drag Dallas with me to the elevator. It takes forever for it to get to our level and I bounce on my toes.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, I just have a bunch of energy. I planned on hitting the pool, but this is way more exciting.” But I’m still gonna need the pool sometime soon.
“Sorry.” Dallas adjusts his ball cap again and I snag it from his hold and plop it on my own head. He just lets me keep it, pressing it further down on my head, blinding me.
“You have a big ass head.” I don’t mind the sweat, though.
Finally, the elevator car makes its way to us and Dallas sees me coming in for another kiss and pushes me to the corner first.
His mouth is hot on mine. I grip his hair and hold him to me. Fuck, I need something. Sex. Murder and blood. Shopping. Anything at this point.
Dallas nibbles on my jaw, making his way to my throat. Yes, yes, yes.
The elevator dings and bright light shines over us from the front window. Two very startled older folk clutch their chests and stumble back while we adjust our clothing.
“Great day for making out,” I say as we walk away.
“Where should we go for security supplies?” Dallas asks as I push the exit door open and squint into the sun.
“I know a guy.” And I feel kinda bad we didn’t do a sweep to make sure whoever broke in didn’t leave something behind to monitor Dallas. That’s such a rookie mistake.
He drops back into the passenger seat while I settle into the driver seat and shoot Kendra a message about what’s been going down.
Kendra: I’ll check the surrounding buildings for surveillance videos.
