Going to visit Lindsay at work had been a mistake. I’d assumed Richard Sabella would be the kind of boss to avoid being in the office when he didn’t have to be, especially early in the morning. However, not only was he there, he was like a security guard, demanding to know why I would dare show up in his office.

I could have handled things better. I knew that. For one, I could have been polite. Men like Richard Sabella were accustomed to being fawned over and feared. If I’d trembled in his presence, he would have forgotten all about me. But instead, I’d challenged him. I’d met him head on, guaranteeing he’d remember me forever. Anytime he saw my face from now on, he’d take notice. It had been stupid, but I just couldn’t help myself.

Moving forward, I would make sure to always check with Lindsay before dropping into her office. I’d make sure Mr. Sabella wasn’t around, and the office was mostly empty. It would be easier to gather information that way, anyway.

That night, Antonio called me for the first time.

“Found anything yet?”

“It’s only been a few days,” I said. “I have to be subtle unless I want to end up floating in the Chicago River.”

Antonio chuckled, but it was a tight sound. “Are you at least in position yet?”

“I’m getting there,” I said. I didn’t have eyes on any information yet, nor any idea where it would be kept, but Lindsay was my in.

“You have to give me more than that, Gabe. The Bianchi family wants to know this is being handled. So, is this being handled?”

“Yes,” I snapped. “Have I ever not delivered? I have a connection with Sabella’s assistant. I’ll get information through her.”

“Now, by ‘information,’ do you mean ‘a fuck?’” Antonio asked, cackling. When I didn’t respond, he became serious. “Don’t let this girl become a distraction. You have a couple weeks, no more. Get the information and get out. I’ll call again in a few days.”

Before I could say anything, Antonio hung up.

Lindsay seemed thrilled that I’d decided to take her up on her offer to show me around the city. I knocked on her door ten minutes after hanging up with Antonio, and we set a date for the next night. Though, we didn’t call it a date.

After work on Friday, we met in the lobby of the building and walked home together.

“I need to clean up a bit,” she said, gesturing to her pencil skirt and messy bun with a quick wave and a scowl, though I thought she was giving off serious sexy librarian vibes. “But after that, I figured we could grab dinner and then I’d take you to one of my favorite places in the city.”

Once we got back to our building, I ran my hands through my hair, traded my button down for a black t-shirt, and waited. Fifteen minutes later, Lindsay knocked on my door.

“Are you ready for your first night out in the city?” she asked, waving a hand above her head like she was at a disco.

However, I felt incapable of speech. She had changed into a black dress that hugged her long body in dangerous ways. It cut deep across her chest, revealing the curves of her breasts, and cut off high on her thigh. She’d taken her hair down, and it hung across her shoulders in effortless golden waves. She looked better than any pin-up poster my teenage-self had ever hung on his walls. I felt myself press against the front of my pants, and I was grateful for the stiff fabric.

Lindsay must have noticed my staring, because she looked down at herself, running a self-conscious hand along her stomach. “I thought tonight should be a semi-fancy affair. I want you to love Chicago as much as I do.”

I didn’t know about loving Chicago, but I sure as hell loved looking at her body.

“You look great,” I said with a quick nod, closing my door behind me. “I’m ready.”

We took a train towards the Museum district, and then switched to a bus for the last ten blocks. When we got off and stepped up onto the sidewalk, Lindsay spread her arms wide and gestured to the gray stone building in front of us. “Here it is. The best pizza in the world.”

There was a large picture window in the front, but it was half-covered with missing pet posters and band audition signs, the other half was steamed over, making it impossible to see inside. A weathered awning hung over the front door and a neon slice of pizza glowed yellow and red next to the door.

Stepping inside felt like stepping into a time machine. Orange tile and countertops covered the mostly-exposed kitchen. The walls were outfitted in wooden paneling, and the booths had vomit green cushions. A woman with black hair piled on her head nearly a foot tall took our drink orders at the door, and then told us to choose where to sit.

“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Lindsay said when we sat down. “But this place has the best deep dish around. And trust me, I’ve eaten deep dish at every restaurant in the city. By this point, my body is at least thirty percent cheese.”

“Nothing can beat New York style pizza.”

She glared at me like I’d just said something blasphemous and raised a hand to silence me. “Excuse you, sir. I’ll give you a chance to apologize to me and all of Chicago once you take a bite of the pizza.”

“I never apologize,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Then it’s no wonder you didn’t have a girlfriend in New York.”

When the pizza finally arrived (thirty minutes later!), the waitress sliced it for us, using a metal spatula to saw through inches of cheese and crust, and then dropped a massive hunk of pizza on my plate. Lindsay stared at me as I grabbed my fork, eyes wide.

“Can you not stare?” I asked, looking up at her from beneath my brows.

“Watching someone take their first bite of Chicago deep dish is my favorite thing,” she said. “It’s life-changing.”

I shook my head and took a bite. As I chewed, I tried to keep my face neutral. I didn’t want her to know she was right. New York pizza had its place. It was greasy and quick, and I could eat ten slices before I even began to slow down, but Chicago deep dish was an entirely different level.

“You love it,” she said.

I shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Lindsay laughed, her head thrown back, and then pressed her pouty lips together in a smug smile. “I’ve been around long enough to recognize a man’s sex face, Gabriel. You are moments away from taking this pizza back to your place and giving it one hell of a night.”

“Just for that, I get to keep the leftovers,” I said.

Her smile disappeared. “Like hell.”

In the end, I let Lindsay take the leftovers because she begged me for them, and then before we even made it back to the bus, she had given them to a homeless woman on the street corner.

“Where are we going now?” I asked, sitting next to her in the small bench seat of the bus, my thigh pressed up against hers, so I could feel the warmth of her skin through my pants.

“I already told you. My favorite place in the city,” she said with a wink.

We got off the bus one block over from the Chicago River. The wind off the water was strong and chilly. Lindsay crossed her arms but didn’t move any closer to me. I wasn’t sure what I would have done even if she had. I didn’t have a jacket to offer her and walking around with an arm around her shoulders felt too much like something a boyfriend would do. She was a way for me to infiltrate Richard Sabella’s business, nothing more.

We made a pitstop at “The Bean,” which Lindsay was quick to tell me was not her favorite place in the city. “Too many little kids and tourists,” she said. “But it is a Chicago must-see.”

We walked around the perimeter of the giant mirrored sculpture as kids made faces in the reflections and couples snapped photos of one another, and then cut across an outdoor concert venue where an electric orchestra was giving a performance to a crowd of mostly elderly people. One older woman shot me a nasty look as we cut in front of her and her husband, taking in all of my tattoos and Lindsay’s short dress, before crossing her arms and turning away.

As we made it back to the sidewalk, I could finally tell where we were heading. A large stone building like a Greek temple sat up ahead, flags in the archways declaring it The Chicago Institute of Art.

“An art museum?” I asked, barely hiding my judgment. “That’s your favorite place in the city?”

“Sorry I’m not more exciting,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I wanted to show you why I love Chicago, and this building is it. It was my favorite place to come as a kid. I would spend entire Saturdays exploring the exhibits and studying the sculptures. I saved all of my allowances so I could pay to see the traveling exhibits. This building is why I’m an artist.”

I wanted to make another snarky comment, but I couldn’t. Her passion for the place was apparent, and I found it oddly inspiring.

The woman at the receptionist desk recognized Lindsay and waved as we walked through.

“So, this really is your favorite place in the city, then?”

She grinned. “I might have an annual pass.”

She took me to the modern wing first, pointing out her favorites, all of which looked like someone accidentally spilled paint on a canvas. She talked at length about her favorite aspects of landscapes versus portraits, cubism and impressionism, pointillism. She rattled off more technical art terms than I’d ever heard in my life, and I just tried to keep up.

We were standing in front of a two-story tall painting of some political leader I only vaguely recognized when Lindsay nudged me with her elbow.

“You look like someone is holding a knife to your neck,” she said.

The teenager next to us looked over, Lindsay’s voice echoing off the wood floors and into the high ceilings.

“I’m fine,” I said. “This is fun.”

She laughed, drawing even more eyes, and then slapped a hand over her mouth. She lowered her voice and continued. “I know this probably isn’t your scene.”

I wrinkled my forehead in confusion. Lindsay widened her eyes and gestured up and down my body with both hands. “You don’t exactly look like someone who would enjoy an art museum.”

“You don’t exactly look like someone who would work at a security company,” I said.

“I guess we both defy expectations.” She looked up at me from beneath her long, blond lashes, and a mess of dirty thoughts crossed my mind.

Thankfully, a crowd of tourists moved up behind us, distracting me from the warmth building in my midsection. They were taking turns standing next to the paintings for pictures, so we moved on down the long white hallway. Windows filled the wall to our right, looking out over a sculpture garden, the city shining beyond that.

“I didn’t plan to work in security,” Lindsay said, picking out conversation back up. “I’m just trying to save enough money to go to art school.”

“Do you need a degree to be an artist?”

She shrugged. “To be a serious one.”

“That sounds like bullshit to me. If you’re good at what you do, you shouldn’t need to pay someone to teach you how to do it.”

“But you don’t know if I’m good,” she said. “You’ve never seen any of my paintings.”

“True. You might be terrible.”

She gasped and slapped my arm playfully. Then, she sighed. “The truly bullshit part of all of it is that my parents paid for my brother’s college, but they don’t think being an artist is ‘practical.’ So, I moved out to do it on my own, and we don’t really talk anymore.”

Since I’d met Lindsay, she had been this eternally happy person. Like sunshine personified. It had almost been annoying. But now, seeing her face pulled down in sadness, I realized this was much worse.

Rather than head into another large exhibit space, Lindsay took a right towards a side exit and we walked out of the museum and into the cool night. She wrapped her arms around herself, head down, and I hated that the evening had taken such a somber turn. I’d finally managed to steer the conversation to talk of her work, and then it had backfired when she brought up her family. Now, I didn’t know how to steer it back without seeming like an asshole.

“I can’t imagine having family and not being able to talk to them,” I said. Lindsay’s head jerked up when I spoke, as if I’d pulled her from her thoughts. “It’s easy for me not to talk to mine because I don’t have any.”

“What do you mean?”

I pointed to my own face and frowned dramatically. “Orphan.”

I didn’t typically like to tell people about my past, usually because of their over the top reactions. People would squish up their faces and wrap me in a hug, as if their embrace could wipe away years of loneliness. It was all a bit too much for me to handle. But Lindsay only furrowed her brow more and nodded. Finally, she looked up at me.

“That makes sense.”

“What?” I asked, surprised.

“You are quiet and seem fairly independent,” she said. “You don’t seem to mind being alone, and from what I saw the other night, you have zero decorating skills. Surely, a mom would have stepped in and helped you out by now.”

I barked out a laugh and shook my head. “I thought you would feel sorry for me.”

She waved her hand at me, lips pursed. “Your life would need to be a lot more pitiful before I’d feel sorry for you.”

We crossed out of the museum district and back into the regular grid of the Chicago streets, construction scaffolding hanging over sidewalks, train tracks running perpendicular to the roads. The buildings on either side of us were tall—mostly doctor’s offices, convenience stores, and boutique retail space on the first floor, apartments on the top—and they cast the block into shadow. I could hear the distant sound of voices, but the block we were on was empty. Perhaps, the unusual quiet was why I noticed the car turn onto the road behind us.

Lindsay had moved on to talking about the many other places in Chicago she needed to show me. You’ll like these places a lot more than the museum, I promise. But I was only half listening. Something about the black car at the end of the block caught my attention, and I kept turning around to look at it.

“What is it?” Lindsay asked, turning around.

I shook my head and faced forward. “It’s nothing.”

She continued talking, and as soon as we stepped off the sidewalk and into the driveway that came out of the alley, I heard tires squeal. I spun around just in time to see the black car speeding towards us, angled across the road so the headlights blinded me. Before I could even process what was happening, my body reacted.

I wrapped an arm around Lindsay’s waist and pulled her into my side. She screamed, but I barely registered the sound. Blood was whooshing in my ears as I hurled both of our bodies forward. We hit the ground with a thud and rolled, a tangle of arms and legs. Lindsay’s hair was over my eyes and in my mouth, and I felt certain the move had been in vain. We were both about to be crushed. And then, the car whizzed past us down the alley.

As soon as I could breathe again, I jumped to my feet and moved to the alley. The car was moving so fast, the headlights were already little more than red pinpricks in the dark. But it was enough light that I could tell the license plate had been covered or was never there to begin with.

“What in the hell?” Lindsay stood up and straightened her dress. Remarkably, she only had a few scrapes on her legs and a broken heel to show for our near-death experience.

“Did you see the car?” I asked. “Did you recognize it?”

She looked at me, mouth open, eyes wide. She was clearly still in a state of shock.

“Do you think you know who that person was?” I asked, taking a step towards her, grabbing her shoulders so I could look in her eyes.

Her lower lip trembled, and she shook her head. “No. It was just a black car.”

I turned back towards the alley to ensure it was empty and then looked both ways down the street to ensure whoever had tried to kill us wasn’t coming back for round two.

“It was probably just a drunk driver,” Lindsay said.

I nodded, but I didn’t believe her. I’d noticed something was off about the car the moment it turned the corner. Whoever was behind the wheel had waited until we were in the alley so they could run us over without slowing down. It had been a planned hit, I just didn’t know why.

Lindsay moved to stand in front of me, hands on my chest. “Are you okay?”

My heart was still hammering against my chest and my shirt had a rip near the collar where Lindsay had grabbed at me as we fell, but otherwise, I was fine, and I told Lindsay so.

“You saved my life, Gabriel.”

I raised my hand to dismiss her thanks. “I was just—”

Before I could finish my thought, she stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed me. Her lips were warm and soft, and she smelled like fruit and vanilla. The adrenaline in my veins quickly began making the transition to another emotion entirely. My hands found their way to her small waist and then followed the line of her body as it bloomed into full hips.

She pulled away from me, her cheeks pink with exertion—whether from the near-accident or the kiss, I didn’t know. “Let’s get out of here.”

With that, I grabbed her hand and dragged her to the train station.