Page 127 of The Grumpy Defenseman
“I’m not.”
“You are internally smug.”
“I’m internally a lot of things right now.”
She opened the door and pulled me inside by the front of my shirt.
The apartment was dark except for the light over the stove. Her camera bag sat by the entry table. A pair of shoes waited by the couch. A book lay facedown on the armrest.
Her life, unarranged for company.
That mattered too.
She shut the door behind me.
For one second, neither of us moved.
The public part was over. The city had seen us and not taken anything.
Now it was just us.
Sam stepped close and took my hand.
Not hurried.
Not performing.
She turned it palm up and set her thumb in the groove worn there by years of stick tape.
The same place she had found before.
Mybreath changed.
She heard it.
Of course, she heard it.
“This still gets you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Then she kissed the center of my palm.
I had been hit by men twice her size and stayed upright.
That nearly took my knees.
“Sam.”
“Bedroom,” she said.
There were times when the best thing a man could do was follow directions.
This was one of them.
Her room was small, the bed unmade, the curtains half closed against the streetlight. She shrugged off her jacket and let it fall over the chair. I watched her reach for the zipper of her dress and had to close my hand once at my side to keep from moving too fast.
