When I came back out to the entry, he was at the closet by the front door. “Here, put this on so you don’t get chilly.” He handed me a sweat jacket and grabbed another one for himself.
He picked up a frantically yipping Bruno and tucked him under one arm, grabbing my hand and leading me toward the stairs. Other residents were already on their way out and we joined the crowd.
When we got to the sidewalk, we crossed the street where emergency personnel were directing people. We waited on the sidewalk as Bruno paced around at the end of his leash, probably on the verge of passing out with excitement. Braden put his arm around me and held me close to him. We mostly just watched what was going on around us as the minutes started to tick by. I eventually began to get the weird feeling again, like someone was watching, and my eyes started to wander over the immediate vicinity.
“You know, we’ve never had alley sex,” I said, staring at a fairly dark side street.
“That’s because alley sex is also known as disorderly conduct and public indecency. Talk to me again in ten minutes.” More time went by.
“Braden, why don’t we just go to my place?” I asked after we had been out there for what felt like quite a while. I looked around us at the crowd of tired-looking people and saw something odd. There was a guy in a baseball cap standing alone some distance away and it almost looked like he was staring directly at us.
“It doesn’t usually take this long. Normally we’re back in in less than ten minutes.” I turned toward Braden when he spoke, and when I turned back, the figure was gone. I assumed that I must have been mistaken. My imagination was working overtime these days. Still, it didn’t hurt to mention it. I had learned my lesson not telling Braden about the notes.
“Braden, I need to tell you something. I had a weird feeling like somebody might be following me earlier and just now I felt like someone was watching us. When I looked around, I saw a guy over there who seemed to be staring in our direction.”
“Where?” he asked, suddenly sounding very alert.
“He was standing over in that direction. When I looked back a couple of seconds later though, he was gone. Like I said, I just had a weird feeling and I also had one earlier, although I didn’t see anybody at all then.”
“I don’t see anybody there now. Are you sure he was looking at us? It’s pretty dark out here and there’s a lot going on.”
“No, I’m not sure. He was wearing a baseball cap and it hid part of his face. It was probably just my imagination or nerves or something.” The crowd started to move then and people began re-entering the building. Braden stopped to talk to the concierge on the way in.
“So, what’s going on, Anthony? They don’t announce nighttime fire drills anymore and it takes twice as long to do them?” Braden wasn’t in a good mood and Anthony was in the line of fire. It’s a good thing we weren’t in court or a whole lot of people would be doing hard time. No pun intended.
“It wasn’t a fire drill, Mr. Pierce. Somebody pulled a false fire alarm.”
“Do you know who it was?” For their sake I hoped that if they ever got caught they wound up in someone else’s courtroom. Braden might go after the death penalty.
“No sir. We think that the person might have snuck in through Roxie’s,” he said, referring to a restaurant and lounge located in Braden’s building. “Either that or it might have been a kid who lives here.” That kid might not be living here for long. Or living for long in general. We thanked him for the information and headed back up to Braden’s apartment. The elevator doors slid open disgorging us and half a dozen other disgruntled-looking residents, and just as we began to head down the hall, I saw it. There was a small, white object sitting in front of Braden’s door. I felt adrenaline rush through my body and I got goosebumps.
“Braden! Look!” I pointed. “You don’t think that’s another note, do you?” We quickly went over and I retrieved the object. It wasn’t an envelope, though, it was just a cocktail napkin that said ‘Club 51’ on it.
“I didn’t see that here when we left,” he said, looking confused.
“Somebody must have dropped it on the way out,” I suggested.
“Right in front of my door?” he asked dubiously.
“Maybe they were checking to make sure everybody was out. Why a firefighter had a cocktail napkin on him is probably something we shouldn’t contemplate too deeply.” I turned it over and saw that there were numbers written on the back. “It says seven one six …”
“Maybe this litter was intended for a different apartment. If you want, we can give Mr. Lewis in seven sixteen his trash.”
“Seven one six, one zero three zero,” I continued. I thought about it for a minute and then a light went on in my head. “Seven sixteen, ten-thirty! It sounds like a date and time!”
“So, maybe somebody’s got a date at this Club 51 on Friday,” he said, as he unlocked the door and stood aside to let Bruno and me go in. Bruno took off to check the place out as usual and made his way back speedily with a twelve foot butt slide that made the base runners in the game earlier look bad. Luckily, he didn’t hit the wall this time. His aim was improving. We gave him a treat for being such a good boy and he ran off somewhere with his treasure. Then Braden turned and gave me his hot sex look and my cha-cha cheered for joy. We were finally going to get grand slammed. Thank you, Lord!
“So, Gabrielle, are you going to be a good girl for me now?” he asked in a low husky voice as he started walking toward me slowly.
“Define ‘good’.” I started feeling shaky again. I could feel my face heating up and my pulse started to race like a stock car engine. Not that I knew what a stock car engine actually sounded like.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, looking at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking. Braden could read me far too well. I think he could probably detect my sexual arousal from the next room. Or the next county. Or the next planet. He was getting closer by the second and I was starting to pant.
“That sometimes I like it when you get all ‘take charge’ like that. You going to show me who’s boss, bad boy?” I taunted seductively, standing my ground firmly even though my legs felt very wobbly at that moment. I knew that within half an hour I would be having a screaming orgasm and the fact that I was still vertical, let alone still teasing him, was a minor miracle.