Page 15 of Jingle Belle's Biker

Teacher?

Grade school. If she works with kids, it’s probably little ones. No high school teacher dresses like her.

“I’m not the super,” I tell her.

“Oh, we haven’t had one in ages. Last one left about a year after I moved in. That was four years or so ago.” She glances around, and I go into the kitchen to grab a beer for the both of us. “You don’t have much.”

“So noted,” I grunt and hand her a can of the Porkslap Ale, some New York brewery shit, and lean against the wall as she perches on the arm of the sofa. It’s black and white striped and covered in that cheap, brushed, shiny fabric. “I don’t need much.”

I watch her as she glances around and shivers slightly.

“I had to open up the windows, air the place out some,” I find myself explaining the reason for it being cold as hell in the apartment even with the heat I’ve got blasting.

“Fine by me,” she says in the kind of voice that makes her sound like she hikes mountains in winter in her underwear. “Not a problem. Pity you’re not the super . . . a new one, I mean. It’d be nice to have one again.”

“I’m only in town for a month or so.”

Her nose wrinkles as she smiles. “Hence the decorating by Serial Killers R Us?”

“Not a serial killer either.”

She looks up at me from her perch, all straight-faced and innocent. “I’m not saying you are. Just that the store has discounts on account of how bloody the furniture gets.”

“They have a no-return policy.”

“Yes,” Belle says, running a finger along the top of the unopened can, “but a lot of return customers and a high and fast turnover of stock.”

“Their designs are less than desired.”

“It’s more about cost than making Architectural Digest.” She pauses. “Unless it’s the underground one.”

I take a swallow of the beer. “For murderers?”

“You know it?” she asks.

“Subscription.”

“Me, too.” She bursts into laughter and then pulls the ring, opening the can. She takes a sip, and her nose wrinkles a little at the bubbles and, quite possibly, the taste because she doesn’t strike me as a beer drinker, but she gamely sips it. “You’ll be here for the holidays, then?”

“Not sure,” I say, hedging.

There are plenty of things I could say, tales I could spin, and some of them would be true if I wanted them to be. Family sprinkled across the country always has a place for me, and I found family’s family, just like blood and sometimes even more so.

I lift the can and drink some more. I don’t say more.

Belle nods, smoothing a hand down her skirt, her cheeks turning that pretty pinkish red of her blush. “I sound pushy, nosy, I know. Thing is, I’m just like that. I want everyone happy and cared for.”

“A caring murderess?”

Her lips turn up. “It’s the only way to murder.” Then she turns her can and studies the two leaping pigs on the front. “There are lots of people who either don’t have anywhere else or have to work too much over the holiday to make it home, so we do something here.”

I take we to mean her.

The thing is, if this Lance has his way, there won’t be anyone left or not enough because I can’t see Miss Rosso ever being late with a bill or rent.

Fuck, two minutes in her presence, a man starts to feel a little domesticated.

Pathetic.

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