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He kisses my forehead and steps away. “Talk soon,” he promises, then he leaves, closing the door behind him. The air in this room is electrically charged now, pricking my skin with tiny bolts. The broken lamp on the floor holds my attention. I really did almost get shot twenty minutes ago. As far as I know, Johnny could be inflicting some sort of mortal punishment on Glo right now.
Yet, I’m not as terrified as an outsider should be. I’m not going to cower into a fucking corner and wish for my mom. That shit fucking sailed years ago.
I turn to the door closest to the main door, hoping for a closet. I’m right. Inside, I find a dustpan and a broom and start picking up the broken shards of the lamp that fell to the floor. Behind me, the door swings open. I startle, some of the lamp pieces falling to the floor again.
“What are you doing?”
I look over my shoulder and find Magnum, one hand still on the knob but staring at me as if I’ve lost my mind. I shrug. “Cleaning?”
He comes over, maneuvering his hand around my upper arm and gently tugging me upward. “Let someone else do that.”
“Oh, is there housekeeping I don’t know about?”
“Of course, there is,” he snaps. The ferocity of his voice makes me take a step back. He takes the broom and dustpan from me and bends at the waist to complete what I started. “There’s no way in hell you’re cleaning up after the fight where you could’ve died.”
“I didn’t know who else was going to do it.”
“All you have to do is say something to Johnny. He’ll take care of it. If he wasn’t so furious about Glo, he would’ve handled it already.” I take a step toward him to try to take the broom back, but he moves it out of my reach. “Just relax. You had a gun pulled on you today.”
I’ll say one thing for gang men. They’re all fucking stubborn. If he wants to clean up the mess, more power to him. I step around him and head back to the sofa, kicking the bags of clothes Glo brought aside. I bet Lynette’s going to have to find a new worker. Even if they don’t kill her, they won’t let her work there again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Magnum asks. He’s brought the trashcan in from the kitchen, sliding the sharp blue shards into the bin before grabbing the top half of the broken lamp and tossing that inside too.
I shrug, still eyeing the clothes. She definitely had it in her. I have to give her props for that. She was just a little too dumb. She didn’t think with her head, she thought with her heart. It’s a good reminder that if I’m not strategic about what I’m doing here, I could end up “downstairs” just like her.
“She fired the gun, you know,” I find myself saying. “I mean, she pulled the trigger, it just didn’t fire.”
Magnum’s face tightens. He leans the broom against the couch and drops the dustpan on the floor. It clatters before everything in the room falls silent. “She shot at you?”
“I was distracted,” I tell him, mistaking his tone.
“She shot at you?” he asks again.
I finally move my gaze to look at him. Usually Magnum has exactly one face. Determined. Stoic. Fierce. Even when we were being shot at, he looked like he had everything under control. Right now, he doesn’t look under control at all. He looks like he’s two steps away from crossing over a line. “Yeah,” I say, my voice catching.
“There were bullets in that gun. I checked it myself.”
“Guess I’m just lucky.”
“No one here is lucky, Kyla. Not unless your name is Big Daddy K.”
6
By the time Monday rolls around, I can’t stand staying in Johnny’s suite any longer. I was right about the clothes Glo brought, and I can’t help but think she’d smile if she knew how irritating it would be for me to wear these outfits. Hell, she might have even done it on purpose in case she didn’t get me. Then again, I wasn’t her target—at first, anyway.
I get up early, sliding out of the bed I now share with Johnny. Nothing as interesting as what happened the other night has happened again, but as curious as it sounds, he’s a good cuddler. In fact, since the shootout, he’s been almost a gentleman. Glo invading his space and attempting to kill me has brought out the best in him.
After showering and putting on the least risqué outfit Glo brought me, I step out of the bathroom to find Johnny sitting on the edge of the bed, his hair mussed from sleep. He cocks his head, taking me in. “What are you doing?”
“Getting ready for school,” I say, walking toward the main room. Magnum was right when he said there was housekeeping here. There’s also someone who stocks their kitchens on the regular. Johnny even told me last night after turning my nose up at the fish he was going to cook that I could give him a list of foods I liked and he would make sure we had it. Living here is honestly like living in a fairy tale. It’s the dream of all adults everywhere. You barely have to lift a finger.
Johnny’s footsteps sound behind me. “You’re not going to school.”
I stop, my jaw snapping shut. I try to keep my cool when I turn because Johnny does not respond well to fighting, but what the fuck? “You can’t keep me here forever, Johnny.”
“Keep you? You don’t like it here?”
“It’s not that, but I’m going crazy,” I tell him. I’d already watched two entire TV seasons because Johnny spends most of the day with his father working on “business”, which leaves me in here alone. “I can’t just sit still. It’s not in me. I have to go out and do things.”