2 Brooklyn James (9 page)

Aubrey peeks around Emily at the man standing beside her. Emily remains dismissive, looking straight ahead sizing the man up from his reflection in the mirror: Average height, nice build, dark black hair, black leather jacket and young…too young.

“Maybe I can get the next one,” he swallows his pride.

“No thanks. No need to give you any hopes of
getting lucky
by allowing you to buy us drinks,” Emily replies, still evading his gaze.

“Jaded much?” he says, causing Aubrey to grimace unsure of Emily’s reaction given her current disposition.

“Look Opie,” Emily scoffs, alluding to his youth, “I’m not sure you’re equipped to drink, let alone buy me one.” Giving in, she turns in the young man’s direction, her violet eyes momentarily caught up in his, piercing blue and mirroring hers, empty. He breaks her gaze, turning and walking away.

“Why do you always have to be so serious?” Aubrey jabs her in the ribs. “Would it really kill you to loosen up? Have some fun?” Frustrated, she scoops up the Sambuca taking a generous gulp.

Emily shrugs. “I thought I took it easy on him.”

“Holy flippin’ Toledo!” Aubrey exclaims attempting to catch her breath, the warm, sweet alcohol seemingly singeing a hole in her throat. “Took it easy on him?” she challenges, wiping at her lips with the back of her hand. “You’re the ice queen, Emily. You could make polar bears cry.” Taking a deep breath, Aubrey eyes the glass of Sambuca. Accepting the challenge, she scoops it up and finishes it off, slamming the tumbler down on the bar alerting the bartender. Wincing, she holds up one finger begging another, as the ability to create audible words escapes her, the black licorice inferno raging inside her vocal cavity.

Emily smiles at her, impressed with her gumption.

The bartender slings another Sambuca down the slick surface of the granite bar. With great precision, she scoops it up, departing from her chair. “I’ll be over here…with all the fun people,” she whispers to Emily, her voice still attempting to recover from the beverage.

Emily watches her walk away into a crowd of people happy to make her acquaintance. Looking into the mirror, the sense grows that someone watches her, as he does, standing at the pool table in the back corner applying chalk to the tip of his pool stick. He tilts his head back and to the side, beckoning her.

She shrugs. “Alright,
ice queen,”
she mumbles to herself, “time to warm up.” Her drink in tow, she joins the man at the pool table, carefully keeping her vantage point in direct line with Aubrey.

“She’ll be fine,” he ensures, extending his hand. “I’m Max.”

She flinches with the contact of his hand, abnormally cold. She looks at him, squelching the urge to comment on his frigid touch as his eyes beg her not to. “Emily,” she divulges.

“Highs or lows?” he follows up, handing her a pool stick.

She looks to the green felt table noticing some balls have stripes while others do not. “Stripes,” she says, attempting to be confident in her choice.

He smiles, seeing she’s a novice to the game. “I’ll break,” he says.

She stands back studying him, making note of his posture and how he holds the stick as he aims at the inverted triangle of ivory balls.
Whack!
The balls scatter from their tightly-knit group, splaying out to all four corners of the table, one rolling into the pocket nearest her. He nods in her direction, declaring it her go. She stalls, questioning her turn as he put one in.

“It was striped,” he explains.

She peers down into the pocket, the 11-ball, accompanied by a red stripe. Positioning herself in front of the white ball as he had, she lines up aiming at a small group of striped balls, her vision skimming over the white ball into the mesh of stripes. She releases, completely missing altogether. She flops her stick down across the wooden frame, slightly embarrassed and demotivated, mediocrity let alone complete failure, two concepts foreign to Emily Truly.

“Don’t take your eye off the cue ball. The white one,” he directs.

She grabs the stick, leveling once again at the cue ball, driving it forcefully through the huddle of striped balls, knocking them to and fro, none of them settling in a corner pocket.

“Don’t hit it so hard,” he coaches softly. “See.” He demonstrates, cradling his stick loosely, gently tapping it off the cue ball, knocking the solid-colored ball behind it into its desired pocket. “You can’t force everything,” he says, glancing at Emily knowingly. He follows up by strategically placing four more solid colored balls into the same pocket before missing, allowing her a turn.

“Alright,
Gandhi,”
she mutters, gripping her stick confidently, pride outweighing reason, she steps up to the table and aims at the cue ball. With one swift
Whack!
every single striped ball left on the green felt scatters into its nearest pocket.
Oh shit!
she stammers internally, realizing what she has done. ‘Your gifts are never to be used in public, outside of Vigilare assignment,’ the reprimanding words of Dr. Ryan replay themselves in her mind.

The young man—Max—stands in awe momentarily before urging an explanation. “How’d you do that?”

“Beginner’s luck,” she dismisses.

He circles the table and her, his inspecting eye intrigued. She bends to the table, uncharacteristically self-conscious, focusing on the pool stick in her hand and its future contact with the cue ball. She closes her eyes, breathing in and out, knowing she must make a clean hit, pocketing the eight-ball in order to keep up appearances and cover up her impulsive display of overzealous talent. Her eyes open with fierce concentration, she lightly taps the cue ball, as instructed. It rolls perfectly in line with the black eight-ball, clinking off of it, driving it into the direction of the pocket closest to Max. In an instant, the ball skids to an abrupt stop right at the edge of the green felt, failing to drop into the pocket. She looks at Max suspiciously, her eyebrows furrowed. His arms casually propped upon his pool stick, he grins. “So much for beginner’s luck.”

“How’d you do that?” Now questioning him, Emily circles the table toward the eight-ball.

“Guess you didn’t put enough English on it,” he jeers.

She grabs up the black ball, quickly letting it fall back to the green felt, clasping her hand together from the stinging cold. In full investigative mode, she grabs for his hand, shockingly cool to the touch. “How’d you do that?” she demands again, her expression skeptical albeit slightly hopeful.

He shrugs with a smile, “Must’ve been you…
ice queen.”

“You heard us? From all the way back here?”

He leans into her, whispering, “By the way, I think you could be a lot of fun.” Her heartbeat enhances with the nervous energy firing off in her system, subconsciously causing his to do the same. “Whoa!” he exclaims, his hand clutching the left side of his chest. “Quite the little spark plug aren’t ya.” A devilishly handsome grin surfaces.

“Shit!” she reprimands herself in a whisper. “Sorry.” Shaking her head, she follows up completely frustrated, “Wait a minute. I’m not sorry. I don’t have to be sorry. Who the hell are you? What are you?”

“Nothing you haven’t seen before.” He walks to the rack on the wall, placing his pool stick in its rightful position.

Still disbelieving, she turns to the pool table, pressing down on the cue ball with her eyes, willing it to move. Her fingers busily wiggling at her sides, the white ball begins rolling, clearly free from any contact with a pool stick. Answering her curiosity, he returns the gesture, commanding the ball with his eyes until it stops, pushing against her will. Determined, she presses harder. The ball does not move; it simply begins to crack under the force. He exhales with great momentum, his focus catching the broken fragments melding them back together. The ball once again cohesive, ricochets his glare, causing Emily to gasp, clamping her eyes shut blocking out the frigid intrusion. Her body shivers.

He rushes to her, simultaneously scoping the noisy crowd, content to find no one witnessing their interchange. “Are you okay?”

She holds her hand out, pressing against his chest. “I’m fine.” Her eyes follow her hand growing cool in contact with his shirt against his skin. “Why are you so cold?”

“I didn’t realize I was,” he says, that coy smile forming again.

His playfulness wasted on Emily Truly, she maintains her quest. “How’d you pick me out of the crowd?”

He leans into her, dipping his head until it lines up with her neck, causing an unwarranted moan to escape her, her skin tingling under his refreshingly chill breath. Closing his steel blue eyes, he inhales indulgently. “I could smell it all over you from the moment you walked in.”

Emily exhales, fighting her primal instinct, pushing him away. “Easy
loverboy,”
she forces words between them. “This just keeps getting more and more interesting.”

A loud clatter interrupts their moment as William Truly and Officer Sam Marks, still garbed in full Lancelot gear, enter the establishment. The metal links in his costume offer up a ruckus, as well as comedic relief to the majority of the lounge patrons. Their heads bob up and down, weaving to and fro in search of Emily and Aubrey.

“Here comes the cavalry,” Emily mutters, watching them spot Aubrey, the easiest mark with her extravagant get-up.

Max turns to her, his hand extended. “I know the back way out.” Emily looks to him then at her roundup party, indecisive. “It’s your call,” he encourages hopeful, keenly putting the ball in her court.

Still disgusted with the whole crew of
experts,
she shrugs her shoulders, putting her hand in his. “Why the hell not?”

“Atta girl!” he beams, stealthily leading the way.

The dispatcher giggles. “Be safe, Detective.”
Click!
goes the radio.

Moments later, Tony pulls up to the Tulane residence, a dingy bungalow in a seedy area of town. His lights and sirens long since muted, he climbs out assessing the scene. One light shines dimly in what appears to be the living room of the dreary abode. Making his way to the front door, Tony pulls his side arm from its holster, preparing to enter, which all of a sudden seems easier, what with the lock broken and the door loosely ajar. He stands to the side of the casing, gently pushing it open with his foot, securing himself against the building. With no movement from inside, he quickly shifts his body, peering in, his gun aimed and cocked. As he rounds the door, his sidearm leads by a slim margin.

A heavy boot assertively connects with the iron piece knocking it from his grasp. The gun tumbles across the floor as Tony engages with a familiar form. By the time she recognizes him, his shirt collar is already wound in her hands, her body following its preconceived momentum to the hard wooden surface below. Her boots plant into his abdomen, propelling his body airborne.

“Ugh!” His lungs release as his back slams against the floor.

She opts for a shoulder roll into a kneeling position at his side, inspecting him, her expression scolding. “Dammit, Gronkowski. You have
got
to quit sneaking up on me.”

“Call me a glutton. Any attention is good attention,” he mumbles, accepting her hand, pulling him into a standing position. He arches his back, waiting for his spine to give into the urge to snap at its juncture with his shoulder blades. “Aw…that’s the spot,” he sighs. Taking note of Gina’s company, bound, gagged and tied to a chair sitting in the middle of the living room, he tilts his head accompanied by an arched eyebrow. “What do we have here?”