Page 27 (1/2)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

While staring at Ryu’s ceiling, I flexed ers and wrap ht And not Ryu’s euphe, but stabbed For real With a knife

In fact, there had been no eupheone a bit shocky and blue Two big healings in as ic orchestrated everything, it waseaten up

Plus, I had seen a knife sticking through ot me home, Ryu sat me in his wet roo and the blue-face routine Then he’d e dose of valium I’d slept like a baby

I was out for about fourteen hours, and when I woke up--for the first ti his death sleep next to s and the little sips of blood, there was nothing "vas wrong But while he wasn’t a dead ends claiot up, ate every last thing I could find in Ryu’s aparte juice, while avoiding thinking about how I’d been stabbed Then I crawled back in bed to sleep so to need a swim soon, but nap first

When I woke up the second ti and the bed wasto someone, and after athe groceries we’d ordered yesterday I could eat only so ood it was Knowing I should join the land of the living, I eventually got up, went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, and tried to ave up and went back again to lie in Ryu’s , and finally address the fact that I’d been stabbed

After he put away the groceries, Ryu joinedpants before sliding between the sheets I held out my arms and he pulled me close

"How are you feeling?" he asked

"Fine," I said after a few seconds

"You’re sure? You sound not so fine"

"I am fine, really It’s just weird to think about"

"Yeah," hefun of me" If I’d been in his shoes, I totally would have taken a h by now

"Baby, you tried to save ot yourself stabbed for no reason, but do you realize how it feels to know you did that for me?"

I blinked in the darkness It had all happened so fast; I can’t even re I loved Ryu and had to rescue him? Or was it just reflex? Would my father have hter?

Shut up, you, the libido butted in, silencing hts He still owes us nookie

As usual, my libido won and my only answer to Ryu’s unspoken questions was ently I didn’t want hi athletic was out of the question, but it was not what either of us wanted, anyway

Then we showered and he left to go investigate another of the two leads, besides poor Tally Bender, that we’d gotten from Silver The old doctor had knohere we could find Pat Haht in by the new sponsor for all of Conleth’s "testing" Haay as a bird in the other Which had saved his life, although his fa with his secret lover, his wife and young sons were burned in their beds by Conleth But Silver had told us where to go, and Ryu had coordinated a tea

Ryu kissed ood-bye, promised to be back in a few hours, made me promise not to open the door to anybody but him or his deputies, and leftstabbed had put the kibosh onI did was call home My dad was fine, but worried about et nurse’s name I told him I loved him and I’d be back soon, which was true, hopefully Then I called the bookstore They were about to close, and Tracy was being super cagey and had gotten off the phone pretty quickly I could have sworn I heard Miss Carol yelling at so for me at work?

I prayed that I still had a job and that Tracy wasn’t going to kill me, as I slipped on undies and one of Ryu’s dress shirts Then I went downstairs to prepare dinner, rooting happily through the refrigerator, then the cupboards, hu enius, I first poked at Ryu’s iPod, set in his state-of-the-art sound dock thingie, until I found the Killers and put them on shuffle I was officially obsessed with the Killers, not least because of the lead singer’s slightly-spastic-yet-strangely-sexy dance ruave one last shi to make puy lentils, Provençal style, with two beautiful filet reen salad, heavy on the spinach, with this super-garlicky dressing I’d gotten from a Barefoot Contessa cookbook Itwas a family favorite and ith the spinach Lots of iron was required when one was dating a va my sore hand, I slowly chopped onion, leeks, and carrot, and then did a fine dice on the celery After unwrapping Ryu’s Le Creuset pot, I gave it a quick wash and set it on the stove toto bubble, I added the vegetables and then turned down the heat to let thearni, tying the of sliced leek I then started finely dicing the garlic, a few cloves for the lentils and a few cloves for the dressing, which got an additionalwas untrue about vaarlic would have been a deal breaker If Ryu couldn’t live with garlic, there’s no way I could live with hiarlic, I set the knife down to stir the veggies I was just pulling the lentils and a package of chicken stock out of the cupboard when there was a loud knock at the door