Jack

I’m taking this girl home.

Katie trots towards me on the sidewalk, making her small tits jiggle underneath her tank top. The wind sends that red hair flying off behind her and I can already feel it wrapped around my fingers. Feel it rubbing down my stomach and catching on my thigh hair. Most times, I would be well on my way to reaching that portion of the evening with a girl. Instead, I’m walking her to the park. There’s a first time for everything, I guess.

Not like I’d had much choice if I wanted to keep hanging out with her, since she doesn’t go to bars. Doesn’t go to bars. Where I tend to close my nights. Every night, lately. Meaning she’s not a drinker. A good girl. It was right there in her denim eyes that she has a good damn reason for not wasting hours in watering holes. So God knows that should have been my cue to bail the second she dropped that information, but I still stood there. Waiting for her to choose me. Why?

I have no idea if I’m good for this kind of activity anymore. Park walks. Small talk. In high school, I focused more energy on dates. Hanging out with girls when the focus wasn’t on getting each other into the sack. Around sixteen, sex became a given and I loved it. I listened to the johns talking. I paid attention to my mother’s friends discussing their customers and I learned how to murder in bed. It kind of gave me a sense of . . . value. And there didn’t seem like anything wrong with that when everyone around me was living with that same sense.

I’m good at . . . fucking. No, I’m a great fuck. Do I have other skills? Sure, I can entertain any crowd with a tried and true set of card tricks and the occasional arm wrestling competition. But beyond that, I’m not sure what I think I can bring to the table with Katie.

Katie hasn’t offered too many details about herself, but here is what I’ve gleaned. She’s organized. Those little dog-eared pages in her mob hits book and the way she sealed her camera neatly in its case tell me so. She’s got a sense of humor, but doesn’t use it to flirt. At least not with me. Murder is her jam. Her eyes make my stomach hurt.

And she’s got a great rack.

What do I have going for me? Obviously she doesn’t give a shiny rat’s ass about my devastating good looks. I might be able to impress her by mentioning I’m training to be a police officer, but something tells me she would cut through my bullshit and see the academy is just a necessary evil for me. That it’s not something I’m proud of, unlike my fellow recruits. Getting my badge is just a way to pay the rent and help my mother out with grocery money. If I hadn’t lost a bet to Danika and gotten stuck enrolling, I would have found another way to make ends meet. I always have.

It frustrates the hell out of Danika and our other roommate, Charlie—whose father and brother are big dogs in the department—that I don’t take training seriously. That I show up with a vodka buzz half the time and waltz through the drills like a sleepwalker on Ambien. Maybe I just don’t see the point. A room full of shithead twentysomethings are preparing to call themselves New York’s Finest and I can’t relate to being confident in anything beyond bedroom and parlor tricks. I’m there. I’m training. But I never actually feel present. It seems like an elaborate dream to me, the halogen lights and drills and sweatpants. I’m not meant for it. I’m not sure I’m meant for anything at all but a good time.

Katie catches up with me on the sidewalk, her thumbs looped under her backpack straps. I’ve got a good eight inches on her and since I’m the furthest thing from a saint, I let my attention drop to the edge of her tank top. My body responds to the sight of her breasts swelling against the white cups of her bra and I swallow a groan, aching for the feel of them in my palms.

I’m seriously attracted to this girl. More attracted than I’ve been to anyone in my memory. I’m also anxious to stop pretending I’m the kind of guy who chaperones an innocent out-of-towner to the park and find a flat surface where I remind myself what I’m good for, just for a while.

“So . . . do you live around here?”

Katie looks up at me a split second after I take my eyes off her cleavage. Close call. “Not anymore. I grew up here, but I live on the East Side.”

“Oh, I think that’s where I’m staying.” She’s like a curious meerkat, ducking and shooting up onto her toes to look into the shops we pass. Her camera is back out and she’s taking pictures of damn near everything in sight. “I just flew in this afternoon and I haven’t really gotten my bearings yet, but the hotel is somewhere around the UN. Is that east?”

“Yeah.” I edge closer to Katie as two men pass by us on the sidewalk. Would she have done this walk to the park alone if I hadn’t come along with her? I’m not sure I like that idea at all. No, I definitely don’t like it. “Are you here in New York by yourself, Snaps?”

She pulls to a stop and blinks up at me. “Snaps?”

“On account of you taking literally one picture per second.”

Her whole face brightens with a smile. And then she keeps walking.

Feeling . . . bemused? I jog to keep up. “Look, I’m not saying women aren’t capable of taking care of themselves, but it’s almost nighttime and you don’t know this town. Some precautions might be in order.”

“I appreciate your concern.”

“But you’re ignoring it.”

“Yes.” We’re a block away from the park now and I can see it’s empty, except for one old man in a ball cap feeding the pigeons. I’m trying to decide on another tactic to keep this cute-as-a-button redhead from getting mugged while she’s in New York, when she cuts off my uncharacteristically noble line of thought. “Tell me a story about this park. If you grew up here, you must have one.”

Is she really so confident in my ability to entertain her with my memories and thoughts? The idea both pleases me and makes me nervous. “Sure.” I scratch at my sideburns, a series of images and sounds flickering in my head. “All right. Some of the locals used to have chess tournaments in the park.” I squint an eye and point off into the distance, rubbing our shoulders together in the process. “At those tables near the basketball court. Only six or so regulars would be allowed to play and the same dude won every time. Isaiah. They had like a . . . trophy of sorts the winner would take custody of, but it was really just some knife carvings on a plaque.”

We reach the corner across from the park and I slide an arm across Katie’s shoulders. Maybe I do it because I don’t usually go this long without touching the girl I’m interested in. Or maybe I’ve designated myself as the one looking after her tonight and the responsibility is making my palms sweat. I don’t know. But I do it and she stiffens, but doesn’t pull away.

“Anyway . . .” I let the oxygen in my lungs seep out slowly. “Same guy won the chess tournament again, only the loser didn’t feel like being gracious for the hundredth damn time. So he tossed the plaque into the back of a passing garbage truck.”

“No,” she breathes. “Terrible sportsmanship, that.”

“Terrible.” God, the fluid, husky way she talks is addictive. As soon as I’m finished with this story, I’m done talking so I can listen to all her, all the time. “So off goes the winner, chasing after the garbage truck and his beloved plaque. He manages to stop the truck after four blocks, but the compactor has already mangled it.”

She shoots me some narrow-eyed suspicion. “Is this going to make me cry?”

“If it does, be forewarned that a woman’s tears have no effect on me. Sob a brand-new river straight through the city. I’m completely immune.”

“Is that true?”

“Hell no, it’s not true. I’d curl into a fetal position and beg for mercy.”

Her laugh tickles straight through my bones. “Better make it a happy ending, then.”

I let out a slow whistle. “Isaiah walked back to the park with the mangled plaque and the runner-up helped him put it back together?”

“Oh no, you don’t, liar.” She gasps and pokes me in the ribs. “You changed the ending. I want the real one or I will launch a formal protest.”

“With who? The storytellers’ union?”

“Yes.” She giggles through the word and I realize two things. I’m doing all right here. Not a single drink in me. No expectation of sex. Yet. And I’m doing fine. I’m not sure how long I can keep it up, though. We’ve been walking for only five minutes and already my heart is starting to hammer, my tongue feeling thick. I want a drink. I want Katie spreading her legs for me in bed. I want the high of feeling useful I only get from giving pleasure.

“Uh . . .” I tug on the string of my hoodie, forcing myself to chill the fuck out. But seriously. What am I doing here? Walking with this girl who giggles and wears a backpack. Trying to pull off the long game. Why? What is it about her that’s got my chest so tight? “Okay, here’s the real ending. Don’t say I didn’t try to soften the blow.”

We walk into the park and she eases away from me, turning in a circle to take in the scenery and, I swear to Christ, for a second I really believe she’s a mirage and I’m imagining the whole thing. “Fair enough. I’m prepared for the worst.”

“Isaiah fell down a manhole on his way back to the park.”

The old man feeding the pigeons on the bench behind me hums. Mmm-hmm. Probably because he was sitting in the same spot a decade ago and witnessed the whole thing.

Katie is staring at me as though the fate of mankind is in my hands. “Did Isaiah survive the fall?”

“He did.” I ease the backpack off of Katie’s shoulders because it looks heavy and I decide I should be holding it for her. She doesn’t even seem aware I’m removing it, she’s so intent on the story’s ending. “He would have landed on a subway gear switch, but the plaque blocked it from sticking him in the ribs.”

Her nod is slow. “So the moral of the story is, it’s okay to be a shite loser.”

“No, the moral of the story is this city has hidden dangers and you shouldn’t be exploring it all by yourself.”

I take the camera from her hand and snap a picture of her adorable outrage. Which makes her bristle even more. “How dare you try to teach me a lesson when I’m on holiday.”

Time for more cajoling. I tilt my head to one side, slipping into a contrite smile. “Forgive me, Snaps? I only have your best interest at heart.”

“How did you fit my best interest in there with all the lies knocking about?”

“Persistence.”

Our fingers brush as she takes her camera back. “I’ll be keeping my head around the likes of you, Jack.”

“We’ll see about that.”

I don’t like the touch of worry I see trickle into her expression as she leads the way farther into the park, but I follow anyway, wanting her more with every step.