Page 69 of Lovesick Titan

“The sex was good, Cho—”

Cho.Cho.

“—you know it was, but really now. I’m done wasting my time on trash.”

If you start out as trash, well…you’re just trash forever.

Mal’s throat went dry for something to say, when only days ago he might have snapped back, acted out, reached for his amplifier that he hadn’t bothered to bring along. But today the fight dripped out of him like blood from a wound he should have seen coming.

Danny grinned at him, pleased with himself andcoldenough that for once Mal was the one left to shiver.

Then he saw them, from the reflection in the window at his left—two OCPD officers headed for the entrance into Pronto. The door was behind him, but he knew how to watch his surroundings, how to catch the glimmer of that particular shade of blue through a storefront window. Danny had set him up.

“It was fun though,” Danny said as he sat back and picked up his coffee to take a sip. “Maybe I’ll call you sometime. If my bed gets cold. But then what would I need you for?”

Mal didn’t answer. He couldn’t look at Danny. With precious moments to act, he did the only thing he could if he wanted to get out of there unscathed. He took his coffee cup and stood, walking at a practiced, unhurried pace for the bathrooms to better blend in with the crowd.

Women’s bathroom. Men’s bathroom. Emergency exit. The police would already be inside behind him, probably tipped off that he’d be there, looking for him, but not looking for a man in a ball cap and glasses. He could make it.

He tensed anyway, expecting at any moment to hear, “Police!” but Danny didn’t say a word. Instead, he heard the faint haunting trail of the kid’s laughter following him as he hurried faster and faster toward escape.

No alarm blared as he pushed through the door; it wasn’t that type of exit. The cool air felt like a blow to his chest with how hot he felt, how dizzy, but he couldn’t pause for breath. He kept moving. Kept walking. Stared forward as he tossed the full coffee cup at the ground and it splattered onto his shoes and jeans.

He didn’t need to wipe his face—he wasn’tcrying. He wasn’t sad, he couldn’t be sad or as devastated as the distant din of Danny’s laughter threatened to make him feel.

He was numb.

And he needed to do something, anything,immediately, to make that feeling go away.

Pulling out his cell phone, the streets around him became a blur as he hurried away from any threat of the police or Danny Grant.

“Dom? Where are you?”

Chapter18

Mal downed a shot of whiskey—expensive, smooth—and immediately asked the bartender at Haven for another. It didn’t matter that it was barely 9AM and the bar didn’t open until 11 for lunch. Frank, the bartender, was there and more than willing to let Mal in and let him slap a $20 on the counter and demand a shot or two. Mal needed them if he was going to get through the day—and he needed to drink them in plain view of the mirror over the bar.

Dom came in with a telling creak of the door, since the rest of the bar was silent, only Frank and Mal there, not even the cook or whichever waitress would be filling in for Carla.

Raising his new shot of whiskey Dom’s direction, Mal watched her scowl as she approached the bar.

“Not my speed,” she said, and since Mal knew she didn’t mean whiskey in general, it had to be the early hour. No matter. Mal shrugged and downed the shot.

He still wore his baseball cap and glasses, no way around it with cops sniffing around. Now that he felt the warmth and faint buzz of liquor hitting him, much as his stomach turned at being otherwise empty, he steeled himself for what came next, for what he had to do.

“Thanks, Frank. We’ll be in the corner,” Mal said, passing over the $20. Frank nodded and continued wiping down the bar, while Mal gestured Dom to the farthest booth in the back, away from any reflective surfaces.

They sat across from each other. Dom looked alert, well-rested, which meant she hadn’t been drinking or getting into trouble last night. Good. She’d probably been up early to tinker on one of her manyprojects in the garage she ran—even thieves needed hobbies or day jobs on occasion—but no smudges of grease marred her skin or clothes. Mal had caught her just in time.

“Better not expect me to give those paintings back,” she grumbled.

Mal cracked a smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Need your assistance with something else. Though before we get to that…heard you punched Zeus clean across the jaw the other night. How’d I miss that, I wonder?” He eyed his friend with a mixture of humor and calculated challenge.

“Punk deserved it,” Dom shrugged. “Lucy seemed pretty sure he’d make good, but yer breakfast of choice has me thinking yer finally ready to let me fry ‘im.”

“Your particular skillset will be required.” Mal tapped his fingers on the table. “But for now, I need you on damage control. Whatever we can manage in the next few hours. Not out of the woods yet with the boys in blue coming to the neighborhood like I’d hoped. Haven’t seen any, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Someone snitch?” Dom leaned forward with a crack of her knuckles.

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