Page 72 of Lawton

"No. I see an asshole."

"I'm not talkingnow," he said. "I'm talking when we found her."

I shook my head. "Screw the ladder."

"Kind of suspicious, don’t you think?"

"No," I said. "She got locked out. End of story."

"In her underpants?" His eyebrows rose. "In November? Right."

"Lay off," I said. "It could happen to anyone."

"Except," he pointed out, "that it didn't happen to 'just anyone'. It happened to some half-naked chick who 'just happens' to be living next door to your new place."

"Yeah. And you 'just happen' to be an asshole." I smiled. "See how that works?"

He crossed his arms. "Pretty convenient she falls over your fence and has to be rescued."

"Like I told you," I said, "she got locked out."

"Right." Bishop's tone grew mocking. "So she just falls over your fence, and you're not suspicious?"

I knew exactly what he was getting at. "Shut up," I told him. "She's no Brandy Blue. She's my neighbor, for God's sake."

"Yeah? Like Brandy was just a cocktail waitress."

At the name, I felt my body go rigid. Brandy was a girl I thought was my friend, a nice girl – or so I'd thought, until the moment I'd seen that sex tape. The thing had starred me and Brandy at her place after she'd pulled the whole damsel-in-distress routine. Now, she was a B-movie actress, just this side of porno.

I stepped toward Bishop. "Listen," I said through gritted teeth. "You compare Chloe to Brandy one more time –" I paused. "Just don't, alright?"

"Listen to yourself," Bishop said. "What are you gonna do? Kick my ass?"

"Do I need to?"

"I'd like to see you try." His voice softened. "I know you don't want to hear this. But she's trouble."

"You're so full of it," I said.

"I'm telling you, she's hiding something."

I crossed my arms. "Yeah?" Usually, he had a good instinct for this sort of thing. But during the whole Brandy episode, he'd been off dealing with his own stuff. He'd never even met Brandy, and he sure as hell didn't know Chloe – which meant he was in no position to be giving me a hard time now.

"Or maybe," I continued, "she's just a nice girl from a nice family, and the concept is so fuckin' foreign to you that you can't stop yourself from being a dick about it."

"A nice girl from a nice family?" He gave a scornful laugh. "What are you gonna do? Put up a picket fence?"

A vision of Chloe popped into my head. A picket fence might not be so bad. I recalled a time when Bishop had wanted one of his own. But that fence, and everything inside it, had gone up in flames, thanks to something – I still didn't know what – that he refused to talk about. He'd been off relationships ever since.

But that didn't meanIhad to be. I gave him a hard look. "Fuck off. Just because you're still pissed about your little fortune-teller –"

"That's not it."

"Whatever," I said. "Just don't take your shit out on me. Or more to the point, don't take it out on Chloe. Got it?"

"No."

"For fuck's sake," I said, "what's gotten into you?