Small Blessings

Chapter 6

December 25, 2019

"I'd invite you up," she laughed as we kissed against her condominium's lobby wall, "but I think it's best if we take some time to get to know one another first."

I had been trying to say goodbye to Aoibheann (Pronounced "Ay-Veen") for the last ten minutes.

First outside under the entrance way, then inside while checking her mail. Moving on, we came into the lobby where neither one of us wanted to walk away.

When the guard went on break somewhere outside, and Aoibheann leaned over to kiss me, it wasn't long before we were pinned against the furniture making out like two horny teenagers. Standing from under her, I tried to find my equilibrium but was doing a piss-poor job of it, now holding the drywall up with Aoibheann and our tongues.

"Hmmm," she hummed while suckling my neck, the four-alarm fire in my netherlands blazing against my sense of decency.

Cripes.

I leaned into her mouth and captured her tongue with my teeth, sucking the lingering trace of syrupy cheeries from her.

When a flash of movement caught my eye a moment later, though, I found sure footing and tried to scale things back slowly without giving any outward signs of my awareness.

"Dillon," she whispered stoicly, catching me off-guard.

"Yeah?" I replied seriously, now assessing the situation while she continued caressing my neck.

"Do me a favor, will you?" she asked quietly determined.

"What?" I asked absently.

The large front window was a problem. Two stairwells; one to the immediate left, the other to the rear. I couldn't find the fire exit the way I was currently positioned. It was behind us but I couldn't see where. A wall was in the way.

Shit!

"When I reach for the gun under my bra, cover me," she instructed, calm as could be. "Then I'll do my best to distract our tails while you retrieve the pistol on your ankle. Hopefully, we won't need either of them, but I'd feel better just the same if we had them in hand when we ran out of the exit door behind us. It's hidden behind a mailroom partition on the right. The lobby halls should give us some cover in case we need it, but we have to be quick."

If not for the fact that I had just spotted the additional threats she had referred to, I would have fallen on my ass into the plaid excuse-for-a-couch the condominium company provided. As it was, I didn't have the luxury of a what-the-fuck moment.

Doing as she said, I made sure no one saw her reach into her holster. Then, when she turned towards the glass window to all but flash our enemies with her boobs, one hand on them, the other on her Glock behind her back, I cursed and got to my own gun as fast as I could. Son of a bitch!

Grabbing my hand, Aoibheann pulled me into the recesses of the building, skirting around the vased décor of silk flowers at the elevators and behind the mailroom. We wasted no time running through the frame of the first floor exit, and she pulled me down a dark alley hidden off to the side.

"Don't worry," she explained. "This leads to a bakery. I know the owners. At this time of early morning, they'll be baking specialty loafs to sell in a few hours.

"On Christmas?" I whisper-yelled, still rattled by the fact that we were running from multiple assassins and that she had marked me from the start.

"They're only open for 2 hours," she continued. "They love their customers. What can I say?"

When she knocked furiously on a heavy metal door I waited on anxious feet for it to open.