Page 6 of Leather & Lark

He points the light toward his feet and goes still, as though he’s been snared by a thought that won’t let him go.

And the longer he stands there, the easier it is to remember that he’s kind of a dick.

My mind might be a little disjointed and slow right now, but all too soon I come back around to the facts—this guy is a single-word asshole who’s dropped some unqualified, grunted diagnosis on me as though it’s totally nothing to worry about.

Concussed, he’d said.

“What if—”

“Drunk?” he snarls as he whirls on me.

I blink at him. Rage kindles in my chest. “Excuse me?”

“Drunk?”

He leans forward. Our faces are inches from each other. My simmering fury becomes fucking pyroclastic when he sucks in a deep breath through his nose.

I shove him with both hands.Christ, it’s like trying to topple a marble statue. He leans back from my personal bubble but only because he wants to, not because I made him.

“No, I’m not drunk, you one-word asshole. I haven’t had any alcohol at all.”

He huffs.

“Well? Did you smell any when you were all up in my face sniffing my breath like a fucking psycho?”

That earns me a snort.

“Exactly. So thank you for your totally unnecessary judgments, Budget Batman,” I say as I flick a dismissive hand toward his neoprene unitard, “but I would never drink and drive. I’m not much of a drinker, actually.”

He rumbles what might just be a relieved growl. “Right.”

“And I’ll have you know that I’m an adorable drunk. Not an accident-inducing drunk.”

“Accident,” he grunts, and though it’s only one word, the sarcasm in his tone is undeniable. He gestures around us with the flashlight. “No skid marks.”

I snicker. “Wh … what marks …?”

A frustrated sigh spills from his lips. “Skid. Marks,” he snarls, and I clear my throat in a failed attempt to contain my amusement. “There should be skid marks from where you tried to stop.”

This time I can’t hold it in—I laugh out loud. And even though Budget Batman is wearing a mask, I can feel his flat glare on my skin.

“I know you’ve probably been living under a rock with all your other salamander kin, but it’s from a movie.Hot Fuzz. Skid marks. You know, the one with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost …? Timothy Dalton ends up impaled on the church spire in the miniature village? So funny.”

There’s a long beat of silence.

“Come on. The longest sentence you string together in your whisper-growl Budget Batman impression is about skid marks and you expect me not to laugh?”

“He’s not big on talking,” another voice calls out in the night.

There’s a flash of movement to my right. Before I can even turn, Batman’s arm wraps around my waist, pulling me behind him. My bag drops to the ground and my face smacks into the neoprene-coated brick wall that is Batman’s back.

“Motherfucker—”

“Put the gun down, bro. It’s just me,” the new voice says, interrupting the barrage of expletives I was about to unleash. New guy chuckles and Batman loosens his grip on me. Now that my head has stopped spinning, I make sense of what just happened. As though on instinct, he put himself between me and danger, keeping me out of sight.

I peer around Batman’s shoulder to see another masked man standing a few feet away. His hands are raised in surrender and his stance is nonchalant despite the gun my protector points at his chest.

Mygun.