Page 28 of One Step Sideways

I didn’t realize the warmth I felt on my arm was Danny’s hand until I looked down and saw his fingers resting on it.

“The food...when they gave us it was…” Danny’s breath hitched. “Once it was covered in maggots, as if they were daring us to eat them.”

My hand covered Danny’s, almost of its own accord.

“I’m still not great at eating at restaurants,” Danny said, “but if you’re ever in Tampa, there’s a great little diner called Betty’s. All the team eat there and Betty’s a sweetheart.”

I smiled. The chances of me eating out were less than zero, but I supposed you never knew.

“Are we going to talk about it?” Danny croaked out, and of course I knew exactly what he meant. The kiss. If you could call it that.

“I suppose you were my first, if it matters,” I said.

He blinked and looked confused. “First?”

“First kiss. Mom must have kissed me, not the same obviously, but as I told you, she—” But I couldn’t say it because she might not have just fucked off. She might have even been murdered and I didn't know what to do with that. “And I was inside at sixteen.”

“I always knew I was gay,” Danny said. “Even when I didn’t have a name for it.” He huffed. “But then my older sister outed me on Thanksgiving to my brothers. My Dad already knew though.”

I was briefly diverted and so thankful for the change in subject. “She did?”

“Emily Margaret, named after my grandmother. Six years older than me but might as well have been twenty. My brother Cornan was teasing me about a girl at school. I was just helping her with math, and Emily informed everyone that I didn’t like Theresa. I was much better suited to her older brother Scott. I wanted to die, but no one even batted an eyelash. I guess it was obvious.”

Which explained why he kissed a man, but still didn’t explain why he kissed me in particular. Was he that desperate?Maybe.

Danny let go and stood up. “I need to check on Shae.” I agreed and followed him, not knowing what to make of the conversation, not knowing what to make of any of it.

**

Rawlings came back and checked on Shae himself and listened to what went down. I was sure he’d already spoken to Ringo.

“We still have to get your medical exam and we can’t do much until Shae wakes,” he said, and I gazed at him, wondering if Danny had saidanything about my ability. Probably. Danny owed his loyalties to Rawlings, not me, and I briefly wondered why that hurt.

“There’s two exams,” Rawlings said. “One I need for my insurance, which costs a shit-ton as you can imagine, and the other is voluntary.”

“What do you mean? The voluntary one,” I qualified, suspicion crawling over my skin.

“The team in Tampa has their own dedicated doctor who works for the FBI. Specializes in enhanced. But she has a colleague that’s based in Atlanta, private. I’ve never met her, but her specialty is vision.”

“Eyes,” I clarified, like I was stupid and didn’t know what vision meant.

He nodded. “I’m going to assume you’ve never spoken to a doc or had any sort of eye exam. I place my team members in the roles most suited to them, and the ones least likely to get them or anyone else killed. You have a talent I really need to know about. Blunt, I know, but that’s why all people are employed around the world in the history of forever. If you medical training, you’d be a Danny. Mechanical, you’d be an engineer. Etcetera.”

I gazed at Rawlings. I remembered the zeros on the contract. Remembered how he’d stepped between me and the gun pointed at me by the old guy at the gas station. Remembered how he’d picked me up when I got out. Then I thought about what he was saying and what Danny had told me. Took in the tightness of his eyes and the way he held himself, and I knew this man would never forgive himself for leaving his men alone in that pit. No matter the circumstances. No matter that he wasn’t even in the damn country. They were still his. And somehow with my screwed-up life, I might have landed on my feet. Yeah, he was a boss. He ran a company for profit. But I had a feeling he was so much more and maybe, just maybe, I had a chance to be part of that.

“What about Shae?”

“Danny can keep an eye on him, and he’s not going to wake up anytime soon. Ringo’s on standby and close.”

“Okay.” I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. Shae was still out of it, but we all grabbed a quick sandwich and took bottles of water with us. Then Rawlings and I left.

The first was a generic exam by a bored doctor. The only thing he checked with my eyes was a pupillary response and we were out of there in thirty minutes.

“I think you were just robbed,” I said dryly, getting in his truck, and Rawlings snorted.

“Every-fuckin-day.”

I grinned, feeling lighter—almost normal. Rawlings put an address into his GPS and we pulled out. “Going to take a half hour,” he said. “Can you drive?”

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