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cigarette. Tate was talking. I wasn’t listening. My eyes were trained across the street to the figure moving with an unhurried gait.
    She had her head down, staring with determined concentration at the ground. Unconcerned. Aloof. Mesmerizing. There was something appealing in the way it was obvious she didn’t want anyone to look at her.
    But it was impossible to ignore a woman like that. It was a crime against nature.
    I popped a mint in my mouth and stepped down off the curb. “I’ve got to go see a guy about a thing,” I said absently to Tate before walking out into the road, barely hearing the blast of a horn as someone swerved around me.
    I ran my hands through my hair, wishing I had gotten it cut at some point in the last six months. I had let myself go a bit. There was more cushion in my mid-section. My normally toned arms had lost some of their definition. Somewhere between running and putting down roots I had gotten comfortable.
    Comfort made eating Ding Dongs for breakfast and beer for dinner a common occurrence. I watched the beautiful girl walking in measured strides down the sidewalk. Following. Shadowing.
    I wished I had dressed nicer today. Taken the time to wash my clothes and comb my hair.
    Because then maybe my outside could mask my rotten core long enough to fool her.
    Layna Whitaker, the mystery girl from Denny’s, ducked into the used bookstore, The Lion and the Rose, on the corner of the street. I followed a few seconds later, looking around for her dark hair and slouched shoulders that tried to hide everything.
    I found her over by the counter talking to an older woman and looking bored with the entire exchange. I could tell she didn’t want to be there. She wasn’t interested in whatever the woman was saying.
    Whatever was going on in that beautiful head was more important than the world around her. I wanted inside that head. I wanted to see life in her Technicolor.
    She looked pained and unhappy. She wore the pinched expression of someone hating her life.
    I understood that feeling well.
    She fascinated me.
    I stood there, in the middle of the aisle, blatantly watching her. I wasn’t even trying to hide my obvious stalker behavior.
    Finally the older woman left, leaving Layna alone. She sat down on a stool and pulled out a notebook with a green cover, flipping through pages. She then produced a pencil and started writing furiously.
    I walked toward the counter, not sure what I was doing. I sort of just wanted to stand there and watch her for the rest of the day. I almost didn’t want to ruin the uncomplicated perfection of observing her with unnecessary conversation.
    “Hello,” I said, my voice jarring in the quiet.
    Layna looked up, coal black eyes, sad yet lost, bored into mine. I shivered involuntarily.
    “Hello,” she murmured, placing the pencil in the crease of the notebook and closing it.
    I stood looking at Layna, wondering if we’d stay like that all day, as neither of us seemed in a particular hurry to move or say anything else.
    “Can I help you?” she asked after a time, her lips curving upward in what looked like the beginnings of a smile.
    “I’m looking for a book,” I said unhelpfully, grinning.
    Layna snorted. “Any particular book? Or are pages and a cover your only requirement?”
    “What would you recommend?” I asked, enjoying the sound of her voice.
    Yearning hot and molten uncurled in my gut, spreading outward.
    Lust and attraction were dangerous things. They could make a man rush to his death without thinking twice.
    Layna could easily be my death and I wouldn’t care. I wanted her. I lusted. I longed. I desired. I was a man thinking with his penis first and his brain second. But I was enjoying the unreasonableness of whatever this was inside me that painted itself as rational behavior.
    Layna came out from behind the counter and I took my time looking at her. She was thin but not overly so. Her legs were long and I could just make out the curve of her