Page 67 of Beautiful Harmony

“Yes,” he said. “Do you want to take home the leftover pizza?”

“No, you go ahead,” Emma said. “You bought it.”

“We’ll split it,” he said. “There’s too much left for me to finish alone.”

“Because you barely ate any,” she said. “Are you sure you want to, um, do this friends with benefits thing? It’s okay if you don’t. I’ll understand.”

“I want to,” he said.

“Okay.” She closed the pizza box lid, and before Lucas could say fuck it and give in to what he really wanted - asking Emma if she wanted to come home with him tonight - she said, “It’s getting pretty late, and I have an early morning.”

Keeping the disappointment from his face, he stood and gathered their plates and dirty napkins. “I’ll clean up this mess while you grab your things, and then I’ll walk you to your car.”

“Thanks, Lucas,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

“That’s what friends are for,” he said.

CHAPTER18

“Christ, those are some sketchy fucking dudes over there,” Lucas said in a low voice to Nix.

The tattoo artist glanced across the street, studying the three men before locking his car. “Yeah.”

“It’s a drug deal for sure,” Lucas said.

“Probably,” Nix said. “Preacher told me Dilworth has a lot of drug activity.”

“And yet here we are,” Lucas said with a grin, “heading off on our grand adventure to see a bookcase.”

“It’s a good price for the bookcase,” Nix said.

“You know you can just go to Ikea and get one for, like, sixty bucks, right?” Lucas said as they walked down the street.

“This one is an antique,” Nix said. “Made with real wood, not some flimsy cardboard that’ll fall apart when you set a few books on it.”

To their right was a row of steel and concrete apartment buildings. Their front yards were a mess of mostly dead grass littered with trash and booze bottles. Despite the cold air, a man sat on the front stoop of one in a black tank top and jeans. Scabs and sores marked his pale skin, and Lucas could see track marks running up and down his inner arms.

Lucas nodded to the man as they passed, and the man gave them a suspicious look before scratching at a scab on his hand.

Across the street was a small fish and chips shop with a sign in the window claiming the title of the world’s best calamari. Grime coated its window, and a piece of plywood replaced the front door’s shattered glass. Next to it was a pawn shop with a flashing neon sign and their merchandise hidden behind barred windows. Another aging apartment building butted up against the other side of the pawn shop, and a Sip and Gulp rounded out the block.

A group of half a dozen teenagers congregated in one corner of the Sip and Gulp parking lot, a few holding skateboards and all wearing baggy shirts and pants that barely clung to their skinny butts.

“Do you know how I’ve realized I’m old? I used to wear my pants like that, and now I want to yell at them to put on a goddamn belt,” Lucas said.

Nix slowed to a stop. Lucas glanced at the apartment building they’d stopped in front of. “This the place?”

Nix didn’t reply. The Sip and Gulp was directly across from them, and Lucas followed Nix’s gaze to the woman standing on the street corner in front of the convenience store.

Her light brown hair was in a bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore an ankle-length billowy skirt. Her shoes were clunky loafers, and her top was long-sleeved with a high collar that buttoned to her throat.

She wore just a light cardigan over her shirt, and Lucas frowned. “She’s not even wearing a damn jacket, and it’s freezing out.”

She looked completely out of place, and even from across the street, Lucas could see the pinched and nervous look on her face.

She held a stack of papers, and as they watched, she smiled at an older man walking down the street, said a few words, and held out a sheet of paper. The older man shoved her hand away and glared at her before continuing down the street.

“Do you know her?” Lucas asked Nix.

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