Page 109 of Rough Hard Fierce (Chicago Underground 1-3)
“All right,” I fake grumbled.
“So one day there was this fox, see, and a scorpion,” she said.
I groaned. I knew this story already. And it did not have a happy ending.
“Hush, now,” she admonished. “Well, the scorpion, she wants to cross the river, but she can’t swim. So the fox, being a gentleman fox, offers to take her across. But he’s worried, you know, because she stings. But she says, now, you’ll be doing me a favor by taking me across, so why would I sting you?”
She paused the story to accelerate through a yellow-red light. I gripped the leather seats, probably leaving permanent nail marks.
“So the scorpion gets on the fox’s back,” she continued. “And they’re going across the river, when the scorpion stings the fox! And the fox says, why did you do that? And she says, because I’m a scorpion. And every day after that the fox knew what to expect from the scorpion.”
I stared at her.
She smiled.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” I said, “but that’s not how the story goes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The fox dies, Linda. And the scorpion. They both drown—that’s the ending.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “If they drowned, then how could the fox ask the scorpion a question?”
“Well.” I considered. “I suppose it’s as they’re drowning.”
“As they’re drowning,” she repeated indignantly. “How long could it take? And why is the fox using his energy chatting when he’s about to drown? Besides, if he died, how could the fox learn his lesson?”
“It was just right then, in those moments, that’s when he—you know what? Never mind. I’m sorry. I think you had it right.”
“Damn straight,” she said as she gunned the accelerator.
It had taken me a minute to catch on, but I hadn’t been lying. I thought Linda had the right of it. It wasn’t the original version. It was better.
Chapter Eight
Linda barely pulled into her driveway when I jettisoned from the car, raced across the lawn, and into Colin’s house. Bailey shrieked, and I cried as I scooped her up into a bear hug of my own. It had only been sixteen hours since we’d parted, but they’d been a hellish sixteen hours, and I never wanted to repeat it.
I breathed in her baby scent and didn’t complain one bit as she ran her sticky hands all over my face. Linda came in for one last group hug before she patted both our heads and left. I collapsed on the couch with Bailey and smothered her with kisses. One for every hour I’d been away seemed reasonable to me.
In my rush to find Bailey, to hold her, I’d barely registered that Colin was in the room. Now I looked over at him, to find him watching us intently. He didn’t look away—which was good, right?—but he didn’t say anything. I couldn’t read him. I usually could, at least a little, but now his eyes were frozen over, so cold, so remote, like they’d been on that very first night in the club. He’d been a stranger, then. He looked like a stranger now.
“Colin?” I asked.
Only the slightest twitch of his eyebrow as acknowledgment.
“Don’t look at me like that. You’re freaking me out. I know you’re angry. That’s okay—you can be angry. But I’m home, and that’s…that’s good, right?”
A long pause, then he said, “Yes.”
I hadn’t necessarily been expecting a parade or anything, but what a welcome.
“Okay,” I said. “So how was Bailey for you? I mean, I know it’s only been a few hours. What time did she wake up?”
“She’s been fine. She woke up at eight and had watermelon for breakfast.”
My face fell. He was so distant. “Colin, talk to me.”
He shook his head, though it wasn’t quite a refusal. His throat worked. Oh no, he wasn’t uncaring. He was upset. I set Bailey, who’d recovered from my absence with somewhat insulting speed, down and went over to him.
