Page 7 of Undeniably Perfect

“Yep, for now,” she replies as she turns to head back to her studio. I start to follow when a kid who can’t be more than fifteen comes running at us from out of nowhere. He grabs Tabitha’s camera and starts to take off in another direction.

“Oh, hell, no!” I curse as I sprint after him toward a nearby alley. He turns and sees me, his face growing pale as I approach him.

“Fuck that,” he yells and tosses the camera on the ground as he sprints off down the alley.

I pick the camera up, examining it as Tabitha runs over to me.

“Are you fucking insane?”

I shrug as I look back in the direction of the kid. “We probably ought to call the cops.”

She sighs as she examines the camera that I’m still holding. “Right. No one is bleeding, so our chances of us getting a cop here anytime soon are not great.” She has a point. The cops have better things to do than worry about a minor attempted theft by a kid. Sometimes I forget that D.C. is a major city and not like my hometown of Banneker where this would never happen, and if it did, I’d know the kid and our sheriff would be there in a minute, and we would all end up going to said teenager’s house and talking with his parents. Yeah, it’s definitely not Banneker.

I look down at her. Her eyes are wide as she glances between the camera and my face. I hold the camera out to her, and she slowly takes it, further examining it as she holds it up to get a closer look.

“Well, it seems to be OK...uh, thanks,” she murmurs.

“You’re welcome.”

She places the camera around her neck, and we walk back. I notice her glancing up at me occasionally as we walk.

“What?” I finally ask her.

“You’re fast.”

I chuckle and shrug. “My career sort of depends on that.”

A smile forms on her face and it’s like she morphs into another human being right in front of me.

“You’re funny, too. I wasn’t expecting that.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What were you expecting?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

We start walking again, but as we turn a corner, she freezes. I nearly collide with her as my eyes follow the direction of her gaze.

There’s smoke coming from her building and three fire trucks outside. Tabitha starts sprinting toward the building, but I’m faster than she is.

“Whoa!” I yell as I grab her arm and stop her mid-stride. She jerks forward and crashes into my chest.

“Let go!” she cries as she tries to get to the building.

I spin her around and grab her upper arms, giving her a little shake. She looks up at me, her eyes wide with fright.

“Breathe!”

She lets the breath that she was holding go and takes another. Her eyes water and her lower lip trembles.

“Everything I have...is in there,” she says slowly, pointing toward the building.

I nod. “OK. Let’s go ask what’s going on. Maybe it’s not your studio.”

She nods but I can tell she doesn’t believe me.

I take her hand and walk over to a firefighter.

“Excuse me, sir, can you tell us what’s going on? This woman’s studio is in the building.” I motion to Tabitha.

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