Page 66 of Price of Angels

She beamed, and he knew he was sunk.

**

Mercy was saying something in the living room that Ava couldn’t hear above the swish of the toothbrush in her mouth. She spit, rinsed, racked the brush, and said, “What?” as she left the bathroom.

He was doing pushups on the rug in front of the couch, shirtless, in track pants, the morning sunlight gliding across all the muscles in his back and arms as he levered up again and again in quick succession.

Ava propped a shoulder against the doorjamb and smiled to herself, watching. “Mmm, that’s what a girl likes to see first thing in the morning. Work it.”

“Stop objectifying me.” He panted and laughed at the same time.

“I seem to recall there being a comment about my ass last night,” she reminded.

“If your ass doesn’t want a comment, then you shouldn’t go grinding it against a guy’s crotch in the middle of the night.”

“It’s debatable who started that.”

“Whatever. You wanted it.”

She laughed. “Right. So, what did you say before?”

He finished his set with a deep exhale and sat back on his heels, breathing hard.

Ava took a quick, clinical inventory of him in the daylight. He was gaining back some of the weight he’d lost while his leg was recovering. He was still thin, but his chest was hard, glimmering with a light sheen of sweat.

She forced her eyes up to his.

He was nodding toward the babbling TV. “They’re talking about that girl that got murdered on the news.”

Ava turned her attention to the old console set, and the hair spray-shellacked anchor who was reporting live outside of Bell Bar. The woman was bundled up in wool coat, scarf, and bright pink ear muffs, her breath misting as she stood on the sidewalk in front of the bar, her face crimped with displeasure at the awful cold.

“…Police are still searching for a suspect in the death of local waitress Carly Adams. Adams was killed five nights ago outside the popular Bell Bar” – the anchor pronounced the name of the bar with a crispness that hinted she’d never said it before – “where she worked. According to eye witness testimony…”

“Have you guys heard anything about that?” Ava asked, turning back to Mercy. “There’s not some serial killer on the loose, is there?”

Mercy shrugged, frowning as he continued to stare at the screen. “There’s been nothing in the outlaw grapevine. Whoever killed her isn’t on our radar. Musta just been a pissed off boyfriend or something. Mugging gone bad.” But she could tell he wasn’t satisfied with the lack of answers. The Dogs liked to keep a firm finger on the crime in this city.

He got to his feet, and Ava didn’t miss the slight grimace that meant his knee was still hurting him. She bit back a comment. She was going to have to trust that he wouldn’t overdo it with the workouts; she was tired of griping at him about it and getting a stone-faced response that reminded her eerily of her father.

“Are y’all looking into it?” she asked.

He sat down on the sofa. “Dunno. I just do what they tell me to.”

Ava snorted as she went to sit beside him, settling sideways with her legs pulled up so she faced his profile, that sharp French aristocracy line of his nose. “Poor baby. Just an attack dog, huh?”

He leaned back against the cushions, rolled his head toward her and sent her a comically sad look. “Yeah. Poor me. You wanna console me?”

He’d pulled her up into his lap when they both heard the startling sound of a key going into the lock from the landing outside. Ava lifted her head, breaking the kiss the same moment the door opened, and there was her dad, framed by the weak glow of morning sun, standing at their front step.

He greeted them with, “Jesus, are you ever not doing that?” and a fierce scowl as he stepped in and heeled the door shut.

“Morning, Dad,” Ava said, sliding off Mercy’s lap to sit tucked beside him. “How are you? We’re fine. How nice of you to drop by.”

He aimed a finger at her in warning, the way he’d always done.

“My house,” she said, quietly, chin lifting.

“She sasses who she wants to here,” Mercy said, with a decisive scowl. “And forget ‘good morning.’ How the hell’d you get a key?”

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