Page 33 of Long Way Down

Melissa made a mental note to visit each of Lana’s classes in person; assemble a list of professors and students and conduct interviews with all of them.

The prospect was exhausting, honestly.

Tonight, she wasn’t startled by the shadowy figure sitting on the stoop of her building. He had a plastic shopping bag on the step between his harness boots, and picked it up as he stood, security light skimming his lips as he grinned.

“I brought Chinese,” Pongo said, jostling the bag so it crinkled, and emitted the sharp scent of Szechuan peppers.

She had the sudden, hard-to-fight urge to grip the front of his cut, stand up on her toes and kiss him.

She blamed it on her growling stomach and said, “Come on up.”

He hissed a quietyessssunder his breath that left her smiling, glad her back was to him and he couldn’t see. What a dork.

The food smells intensified when they were enclosed in the elevator, and she couldn’t resist asking, “What’d you get?” Pointing to the bag as explanation.

“General Tso’s and beef and broccoli.” He turned to waggle his brows at her. “And hot ‘n’ sour soup.”

She really wanted to kiss him now, despite – or maybe, embarrassingly, because of – that brow wiggle. She said, “Egg rolls?”

“Uh,duh. What do you think I am, some kinda animal?”

“Your friends gave you a cartoon Dalmatian’s name, so…”

“Hey, they’re not just friends, they’re brothers. It’s a brotherhood.” He made an encompassing gesture with his free hand. “All nicknames are given with love.”

She snorted. “Is yours the worst one?”

“Nah.” He smiled. “That’d be Shit Nugget.”

She blinked at him. “No one’s called Shit Nugget. I refuse to believe that.”

“Wait ‘til you hearwhywe call him Shit Nugget.”

“We’re fixing to eat, so no, thanks.”

He chuckled, and the elevator deposited them on her floor.

Inside the apartment, he started setting takeout containers on the kitchen island while she grabbed forks and beers, paper napkins and the bottle of soy sauce from the cabinet when he bemoaned the fact that the restaurant had forgotten to include packets. When she set it on the bar beside him, she was struck by the intimacy of it all: the food, and the low kitchen light, and his socked feet hooked in the rung of the stool on which he'd perched.

She dragged her beer and the beef and broccoli closer, so she could fill her plate on the opposite side of the island, standing up beside the sink. If he made note of her decision, he didn’t show it; tucked into his food and spoke with a full mouth.

“Do anything awesome today?”

She had to accept the fact that his cheering on/interest in her career was just a weird Pongo quirk – might have even been genuine friendliness, and not MC intel-gathering. She didn’t currently have the energy to push back against it or shut him out. “No. Just interviews and phone calls.”

“Get anywhere?”

“I’m not sure, yet. Our guy was careful. Didn’t leave anything behind.”

“Not anything? Most people are sloppy, even when they think they aren’t.”

She speared a hunk of broccoli and watched him push food around on his plate, debating the wisdom of sharing. She wouldn’t give him specific details…but in her current state – tired, thoughts spinning, and having earned his trust, and thereby that of the club, with a truly massive case on her hands – she decided to take a risk. “Well,” she said, and something in her voice stilled his hand, lifted his head. His gaze, always so full of humor and mischief, had this way of intensifying, suddenly. It usually happened right before he kissed her, or touched her; right before he dropped the doofus act and got serious about taking her to bed. It happened when he was above her, when he was inside her, and she had to turn her face away on the pillow because looking him dead-on in those moments was too much. It happened now, and heat stirred in her belly; tingled pleasantly down her thighs and between them.

She took a sip of beer to steady her voice. “He left a note.”

His pupils expanded. Slowly, he set his fork down and reached for his beer. “Yeah?” His voice had taken on a serious quality, and that stoked the embers kindling in her stomach. “What’d it say?”

She took a breath, because this next bit wasn’t a little risk; was a great big fat one. But she took it anyway. “It said, ‘This one’s for you, Davey.’”