“Fuck you, Layne!” she screamed.

Layne went silent. He rarely heard much from Mimi’s downstairs but, then again, people weren’t usually screaming at the top of their lungs while ordering coffee.

She stayed silent too for five very long seconds.

Then she accused, “You’re crushing me.”

“And I’ll keep doin’ it, sweetcheeks, until I know you won’t take another swing at me.”

“Stop calling me sweetcheeks,” she hissed.

He put his face in hers and whispered, “Rocky, you got two sets of cheeks. One of them has one dimple, the other has two and you gotta know I remember both bein’ sweet.”

He’d meant to shock her or at least knock her off guard.

He did neither.

“I don’t believe you!”

“Rocky –”

“You are unbelievable!” she repeated with a slight amendment.

His hands tightened on her wrists. “Listen to me –”

“No!” she cut him off. “No way, you jerk. Get off me!”

“Listen!” he barked in her face, she fell silent and stared up at him. “You stop and think for a second, what just happened was good.”

“Oh yeah? Which part? You walking all over my plan? You slapping my ass where my brother works? Or you freaking out Colt and Sully which means Merry and Dad’ll hear about this if they haven’t already?”

“None of those. The part where Rutledge, who thinks he knows what’s goin’ on, now isn’t so damned sure.”

That shut her up for a second before she asked, “What?”

“You order a hit on a man, six weeks later, he isn’t gonna tell you he’s thrilled he got bullets drilled into him and he’d take more.”

That shut her up too and this time she didn’t speak. And she didn’t speak long enough for Layne to realize this wasn’t just good, it was good. Because now they had Rutledge guessing and instead of Merry, Dave and Layne being cornered and forced to watch while Rocky did whatever the hell she intended to do, Layne had her cornered and she had to do whatever the hell he told her to do.

It would keep her safe. She could make friends with Rutledge and he’d never suspect she was up to something and it was unlikely he’d share anything that would put Rocky into danger. And it would keep him safe because, while Rutledge was trying to figure out what, if anything, Layne or Merry were doing, Rocky would deflect attention so Layne could do what he needed to do. And lastly, it would mean Rocky would feel she was doing something when she actually wasn’t doing much of anything except innocently providing cover.

So he made a decision.

“We’re gonna work this,” he informed her.

“Work what?”

“You and me and Rutledge.”

Her eyes grew big and her lips parted.

Fuck it all, that was cute as hell too.

Then she repeated, “You and me and Rutledge?”

“Only thing less likely than a man tellin’ the man who ordered him to be whacked about his newfound joy at bein’ reunited with his ex is that man’s woman doin’ it too.”

Her wide eyes narrowed. “We are not reunited.”

“Rutledge doesn’t know that.”

“This is –”

“You cozy up to Rutledge a different way. I’m at that Station all the time. Merry works there. You start hangin’ there, with Merry or with me. You strike up a friendship with him. You start to confide in him. You convince him all you know is he’s a cop, you’re a cop’s daughter and sister. You convince him that to you, he’s in the family. You confide in him, no way he’s gonna think Merry’s his man. Hell, he’ll start wondering if I was close as I was. I was investigating who got to him, whose payroll he’s on. I feed you what to say, we can turn his mind off us thinkin’ he’s dirty to us just lookin’ into his boss and havin’ no clue he’s got ties. You can also turn his mind onto the fact that I’m not doin’ that anymore.”

“But you’ll be doing it,” she surmised.

“Yeah, but I won’t go in hard, I’ll go in easy.”

She stared at him and he knew he hadn’t convinced her.

So he kept at it. “Same plan, Roc, except with this one, you don’t have to put yourself out there.”

“I have no problem putting myself out there,” she returned.

“Yeah? You can let a dirty cop stick his tongue down your throat?”

She was a cool customer, when she wasn’t taking a swing at him that was, but he saw her cringe before her eyes shot over his shoulder.

Until he saw her cringe he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t have done it.

Now he knew she couldn’t have done it.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I suspected that’s where your plan would go south.”

He let her wrists go and her hands went directly to his chest where she put pressure, just not much.

“I would have done it,” she declared and he had to hand it to her, she did it with only a hint of obvious bullshit.

“I believe you,” he lied and made it clear he was lying.

“It would have been gross but I would have done it,” she reiterated.

Layne grinned. “Rocky, you’d get squeamish seein’ blood on your finger if you gave yourself a paper cut. Don’t think you’d be able to convince Rutledge you had the hots for him if you puked into his mouth when he stuck his tongue in yours.”

“I wouldn’t have puked in his mouth,” she snapped.

“Okay, so I don’t think you’d convince him you had the hots for him if you puked on his shoes after he stuck his tongue in your mouth.”

Her face paled and she hissed, “Stop talking about him sticking his tongue in my mouth!”

It took a lot for Layne to choke back his laughter but he did it by asking, “Sweetcheeks, if you can’t even talk about it, tell me again how were you gonna pull off this grand scheme of yours?”

“Shut up, Layne,” she whispered irately and he knew he had her.

“Just sayin’,” he whispered back, smiling at her.

Finally remembering where she was, her hands put more pressure on his chest.

“Get off me,” she demanded.

“Sure,” he replied, “Once I know we got a deal.”

“Well yes, now that you’ve pointed out how gross it would be to… whatever, then obviously your plan is better than my plan so fine,” she bit out that last word, “we’ve got a deal.”