Made him paranoid and protective, even if his building was pretty safe. She’d been sloppy about that when she’d first started hanging out in his absence, and he didn’t like it. He tested the knob, pleased to find it locked. She lived just a few blocks from the tourist-trap restaurant she worked at but she always came to his place on fight nights, letting herself in with her key and waiting up for him. Tonight she’d worked, and would’ve finished up around ten. Laurel nearly always came to one or the other, whichever her waitressing schedule didn’t clash with.
It kept the chill at bay as he slammed the car door and headed for his building, a hulking old brick behemoth.įight nights were Fridays and Saturdays. Heat crept through him, not the radiator’s doing. Maybe amenable to having that book plucked away, replaced by the weight of her lover lowering down, his lips on hers and sleep be damned.
Maybe already asleep with a book on her chest. He’d be home soon, in his warm apartment, with a warm woman curled up and waiting on his couch or in his bed. You’re not twenty-five anymore, his body bitched, but he ignored it. Not defeated, but he’d taken a couple hard shots in his final boxing match, one to the temple and one to the chin, and his neck was sore, like whiplash. Salt and gravel crunched under his tires as he pulled onto the street, South Boston all but abandoned this time of night, save for the odd car in the distance and scattered drinkers making their way home with clumsy, nervous steps along the slick sidewalks.įlynn was beat, literally. The streets were crusted with brown-gray ice and these flurries would do jack to cover it over. It was late February, the charm of New England winter gone with the abandoned skeletons of Christmas trees weeks before. Sick as he was of shoveling, he almost wished for a final storm. Still, he didn’t bother with the heater-it was a quick drive. He could feel frost in his hair and an ache growling in his wrists and fingers. It had to be ten degrees out, and just the short walk from the bar’s exit to the curb had chilled his sweat and stiffened his spent muscles. Flynn climbed into his car just after one on Saturday night, waking the grumpy engine on the third crank.
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