“Indy, you can have space today but you’re in my bed tonight.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll be here tonight when you get home.”

“I’m not coming home.”

His eyes got kind of scary and he leaned into me a bit. Considering he was pretty damn close to me, leaning in was seriously invasive.

“Honey, you forget, part of my job is findin’ people. Do you think you can hide from me?”

No, I didn’t think I could hide from him, but I was going to try.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I repeated, shoved through his arms, huffed through the living room giving a wave and a farewell to Eddie and Tod, who both wisely kept quiet, and soared on my anger all the way down the block towards Fortnum’s.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Friendly Neighborhood Serial Killer

I almost made it to the door of Fortnum’s when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that stapled to every telephone and light pole down Broadway, for as far as the eye could see, was an acid green piece of paper with what looked like a photo with some writing underneath.

I thought someone really, really wanted to find their missing cat so I stomped up to check it out and stopped dead at what I saw.

It was a picture of Tex, no night vision goggles (thankfully) but with wild hair, a crazy-ass smile on his face looking like your friendly neighborhood serial killer. The picture was obviously color, copied in black and white which made it blobby and grainy and even more frightening.

Underneath his picture it said, “Tex” and underneath that it said, “New Coffee Guy” and underneath that it said, “Fortnum’s”.

Holy crap.

I snatched the flier off the telephone pole and prowled into Fortnum’s.

There were five customers, three standing in line, two waiting at the other end of the counter for their coffee. Tex and Jane were behind the counter.

I shouted, “What the hell is this?”

Then I waved the acid green poster around.

Tex looked up at me, then looked out the window, then looked back at me and pointed the portafilter at me. Unfortunately, he hadn’t pounded out the used coffee grounds so they went flying in an arc in front of him and the customers stepped wide on either side to avoid them.

“What’re you doin’, woman? That was prime advertisin’ space, right outside the store. Why’d you pull it down?”

I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t want to tell him he looked like a serial killer.

But, for God’s sake, he looked like a serial killer.

“Tex, you look like a serial killer in this picture!” I shouted.

“Yeah, so?” Tex answered.

I stared.

“You think people wouldn’t pay good money to have a serial killer make them coffee?” he boomed.

He had a point. This was America, people would stand in line to touch the swastika on Charles Manson’s forehead.

I stomped to the back to get the mop to clean up the grounds. After I did that, I spelled Jane behind the counter. Tex cursed, banged, slammed and crashed through every cup of coffee he made, as if each creation had to be wrenched by force out of the seven thousand dollar machine. I tried to put this down to the fact that he was making coffee one-handed, due to the sling, but it took all my willpower not to put my hands to the sides of my head and scream bloody murder.

“What’d you…” Bang! “get up to last night?” Clank! Tex asked.

“Bar brawl…” Smash! “stunned-gunned a few people…” Kablam! “Lee caught some guy who jumped bond, then we came home.” Crash! I answered then asked, “You?”

“After doin’ the posters, the cats and me had a quiet night.” Bam!

The morning passed relatively normally, not counting Jane and I jumping every time Tex bashed the espresso machine or cursed (which was a lot). I spent the morning trying to decide where I should go to avoid Lee for the night, because, let’s face it, telling your girlfriend what to wear was bad enough, doing it in front of someone else was a serious transgression.

If he was anyone else, he’d have his walking orders. Since he was Lee, and he loved me, and he wanted (or, more to the point, was going) to marry me, I was willing to be pretty f**king angry for awhile and then carry a mean grudge.

I couldn’t stay with anyone I knew because Lee knew everyone I knew. This meant hotel, which was easy pickin’s. He’d probably get Brody to write some program to hack into the computer register of every hotel in Denver and find me in half an hour.

No, I needed to be clever. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that clever.

Around eleven thirty, Duke staggered in looking hungover because he was. Duke being hungover and Tex banging on the espresso machine was not a good combination, so, fifteen minutes later, Duke took off for some hair of the dog.

The coffee crowd was long gone and Tex snatched up the poster I’d pulled down and I watched him stalk outside with a staple gun to put it back on the pole. It was then I got a brilliant idea and followed him out.

“Hey Tex,” I said.

“What?” He stapled the semi-mutilated poster so many times it was going to have to wear off the pole.

“Would you mind if I crashed at your place tonight?” I asked.

“Don’t you have a place?”

“I can’t go to my place,” I told him.

“Doesn’t your boyfriend have a place?”

“His place isn’t an option.”

Tex stopped stapling and turned to me. He watched me for a couple of seconds, ciphering something in his head, came to a decision and then shrugged.

“You can share the couch with Tiddles, Winky and Flossy.”

“Thanks.”

I had to admit, I really liked sleeping with Lee. His body was comfy warm but strong and solid so I felt cozy and protected all at the same time. I didn’t think Tiddles, Winky and Flossy were going to have the same effect but it was just one night, I’d cope.

* * * * *

It was three o’clock and Duke hadn’t come back. Jane was off doing whatever Jane did when she wasn’t at Fortnum’s (I imagined her tapping away at an old electric typewriter like Angela Lansbury). I was sitting behind the book counter reading through a magazine someone had left behind and Tex was sitting in the middle of one of the couches, looking wild-eyed and frightening.

“This is boring,” Tex said.

I looked up from the extraordinary tale of the courage of a young man faced with a rare form of cancer and then looked back down without answering.