Page 121 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

“You won their loyalty, and you’re not gonna convince me otherwise. Not even with sex. The ‘nefarious criminal’ thing suits you, and you’d throw it all away?”

“The schoolgirl approves? I thought the schoolgirl hated criminals.”

I find that I do approve. This is who he is... and I’m rolling with it. “The schoolgirl likes this criminal. And his barbarian might-makes-right thing.”

“You are so hot when you’re a little bit bad.”

I snort and gaze across the street. That’s when I spot a bookstore. “Look!”

“Uh-oh,” he grumbles.

“Murderous rampages are one thing,” I say, “but fake books? That is not a character flaw that I can overlook in a boyfriend.”

There’s this sudden silence where we both realize I just called him boyfriend.

It’s awkward on about ten different levels—at leastfor me.

Luka not so much. He smiles at me. He likes it. He pulls me to him and kisses me. “Let’s get some fucking books, princess.”

The bookstore is a labyrinth of worn wooden shelves housed in an old three-story building tucked between a bodega and a laundromat. Inside, the mustiness of aged paper mingles with sandalwood incense and the faint scent of coffee from a tiny counter in the back.

“I could live in this smell,” I say.

Luka takes my hand. He’s not a man who puts down his flag, but he just agreed he’s my boyfriend. It feels strange and dangerous and a little bit wonderful, and I’m not thinking of the future. I suppose you could say I’m ripping a page out of his book for now.

We wander around the main floor, all shiny new books on every subject imaginable.

The upper floors hold the used books. Dusty old scholarly affairs from other centuries, colorful cookbooks and art books, and endless sections of tattered, well-loved paperbacks—mysteries, romances, fantasy, and more.

I find an old edition of a favorite werewolf book of mine. “This is the cover it had when I first read it.” I show it to him. We compare it to one of the later editions and discuss which covers are best.

We ramble through the travel section, and I make him show me pictures of Tucumayo. They didn’t get out of the prison-like school much, but there was a jungle-y courtyard complete with monkeys.

We head on through the genres. Luka, as it turns out, gravitates toward military science fiction. He shows me a few favorites, but he refuses to buy those because he “already read them.”

It’s so him not to be sentimental about the past or to buy something he might read again in the future. He thinks of today and possibly tomorrow.

But he does pick out a few new books by authors that he’s liked. That’s something.

Eventually, we drift over to nonfiction.

“Maybe we should get you a book on meditation, like something on ratcheting down your nervous system,” I joke.

“Why would I need that?”

“You almost gutted three men for looking at me.”

“I like my nervous system just fine the way it is.”

I give him a mischievous smile and threaten him with meditation lessons.

We move as a unit down the rows of books, making comments and showing each other our finds. It feels easy. Even silent browsing feels easy. At one point, he stands behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist and his chin on my head. I feel like we’re bandits, spending stolen time together.

I examine some old children’s books, and that’s when it comes to me. I turn to Luka. “I thought of the proof-of-life question. My sister had this doll named Brittany, and the only food Brittany would eat was chocolate chip pancakes.”

“You think she’d remember that?”

“A hundred percent. It was a constant theme. Mom would be angry about it, which was so weird since it was completely imaginary. Mom would randomly add her two cents about eating healthy when she decided to give a shit about us. Which made us embrace Brittany’s love of chocolate chip pancakes.”