“I wanna do something for Jay,” Soph murmurs. She pulls back and drops into her chair. “He’s kindaitfor me, guys.”
“We know.”
Andi’s smile grows when she and I say it at the same time. “Everybody knows. We see you together. You sure as hell ain’titfor anyone else, and he seems to think you’re the cutest thing since sliced bread.”
Soph rolls her eyes. “Bread isn’t cute.”
“Whatever. You know what I’m saying. Pretty sure he’s willing to hijack Kane’s wedding and toss you to the front of the aisle first. Better get your tutu ready.”
“I’m not getting married in a fucking tutu,” she snaps. “I’m not getting married at all until he takes a hint and asks properly. And until then…” She stands again, and pushes her laptop closed. “I have shit to do. Send me the sketch when you’re finished. I’ll load it up and have the new leg printed.”
“Are you doing Checkmate work now, or dance stuff?”
Soph comes around the outside of her chair and shoves it in so the wooden armrest smacks my leg. “Dance stuff. I have a class at noon, and paperwork to file before that. I’m trying to work with this girl who’s had a rough time. She was part of the Inferno shit, so I…”
Red hair.
No ass.
Abusive boyfriend.
“Wait. Soph.” I grab the ballerina’s hand before she can collect her laptop and rush off.
Soph has had a kind of training like the rest of us. Ours was done during drills and bootcamps, and while they were hard, they were also supervised for soldier safety. Soph’s was just a part of her everyday life when the world forced her to get hard. I was trained by racing across fields, climbing walls, and shooting until my arms wanted to fall off, but Soph was trained in the streets of New York City, where her options were to be the best, or die.
Despite my more “official” training, she still snaps her wrist from my grasp and twists my hand back until pain slices through my arm and into my shoulder.
“They didn’t teach you in ranger school not to grab women without their permission?” Releasing me, she palms the top of my face and shoves me back. “Don’t grab me again, Serrano. Next time, I’ll rip it off.”
I massage my aching wrist and watch the naturally thin dancer pile her things together.
“Before you go, I just wanna…” I pause. “Well… There’s something I wanna talk to you about.”
“Is it… gossip?” Andi teasingly bounces her brows.
“No.” I shoot her a filthy glare, and wonder where my life went wrong. I’m surrounded by estrogen, and not a single man does anything to put them in their place. “There’s this chick I met recently, and I wonder if maybe she might need a friend.”
“I don’t have time for friends.” Soph lifts her laptop and turns back to face me. “I don’t even have time for Andi.”
“Hey!”
“No, not like that,” I tell her in a rush. “I mean like…” Freckles, magnetic eyes, and such a small waist, her belt wraps around her twice. “I think maybe this person needs an Ellie Solomon Dance Academy friend.”
Those words slow Soph’s movements. Ellie is Soph’s baby sister. Long ago murdered, and now Soph’s dance studio’s namesake. Soph wanted to help girls that found themselves in a situation where they felt they needed shelter.
“I don’t know for sure, but I met this chick yesterday, and she had a man with her. She swears it’s her brother, but I dunno. He’s dark, she’s light. He’s big, she’s practically malnourished. He was giving me weird vibes, and she just seemed so…” Innocent. Vulnerable. In danger. “Like maybe she’d be the type to say it’s her brother, rather than admit he beats her more often than not, and maybe that’s why she wears the things she does.”
Soph sets her belongings back on the table with slow movements. “What does she wear? What do you mean?”
“Like, clothes that are way too big for her. Jeans that are nothing like yours.” She frowns, and turns to check her own backside out. “She’s got no ass to fill them. She wears shirts that are buttoned right up to her chin. I guess I’m worried… I mean… I dunno.” I run a hand over my chin. “Maybe she wears that stuff to cover up bruises or whatever. Or maybe he makes her wear that stuff because he gets mad if she shows a little skin.”
“Well…” Soph slowly reopens her laptop. Her lock screen shows a photograph of two laughing ballerinas in their teens, and one of them is definitely Soph. “Did you ask her?”
“Askmight not be the right word.”
Soph’s eyes narrow. “So tell me how you would describe what happened.”
“I might have implied the dude abuses her, and that she’s a sucker for covering for him.”