Free A Is for Apple by Kate Johnson

inch to the right and Xander would have been dead.
    “You have one too.” He was touching my face, where a faint line gave away the car crash Ted and I’d been in a couple of months ago. Luke and Harvey had been with me, and I think the one to come off best was actually Ted.
    “Occupational hazard.”
    “People shoot at you a lot?”
    “Every now and then.”
    “You get used to it?”
    I’d liked to have said yes. “No.” I fetched my waterproof tape and cut little strips off it, then used them to hold the wound together, before covering it with a gauze dressing. “Now you look pretty stupid,” I told him.
    “Better than being covered with blood.” He was still touching the scar on my forehead, running his fingers back and discovering the little rip on my ear. “Same bullet?”
    “No. The cut was a car crash. The ear was a bullet.”
    “Close one.”
    “Yep.” I pulled away from him and washed my hands.
    “Got any more?”
    “More what?”
    “Scars.”
    I glanced back at him. He looked fascinated.
    “You think this is cool, don’t you?”
    He shrugged, then he nodded.
    “Xander, someone just shot at you and tried to kill you. There was a dead man in your apartment. You are in big trouble and you have to leave the city.”
    Come to think of it, that did sound pretty cool. But—
    “This isn’t a movie. Next time someone comes after you with a gun they might actually kill you. Or, well, you might kill yourself.”
    He scowled at me, and I realised this was like the conversations I have with Luke. Only reversed.
    Hey, I was the mentor here! Go me.
    “You really think I should leave the city?”
    “Yes.”
    “What, like now?”
    “Well, the sooner the better.”
    He nodded, looking suddenly exhausted.
    “Sophie, I’m really tired. I didn’t exactly sleep a lot last night. Can’t I just stay here—?”
    He did look pathetic. I sighed. “Okay. But tomorrow you have to go.”
    He jumped up and hugged me. “You’re the greatest.”
    “Hmm.”
    We spent the day watching appalling daytime TV, with frequent comments from me along the lines of, “My God, you have a lot of ad breaks,” and “Christ, I thought those parodies on the Simpsons were made up,” and on occasion, “No! No! Turn it off!” It was like a car crash, I was totally unable to look away, addicted to the Weather Channel with its Bart and Homer programmes like When Hurricanes Go Bad .
    BBC, I will never complain again.
    By teatime I was so bored I was nearly crying. I went downstairs for some food and ended up getting a big bag of junk from the shop next door. On my way back past the bar I saw my barman friend and he waved at me.
    “You better now?”
    “Yes,” I said, and hesitated. “Can you give me take-out drinks?”
    He said he wasn’t supposed to, but he would for me. He made up a pitcher of strawberry margarita and I wrapped it up in a carrier bag and took it back upstairs.
    “Look what I have,” I said to Xander, letting myself in. “No cream, but you can’t have everything.”
    Xander perked up a bit with the margarita and we worked our way through some more junk food, watched a couple of really bad made-for-TV movies, and watched the sky get darker.
    “Look,” Xander pointed through the window, “you can see the glow over Times Square.”
    I stayed away. “I’m not good with heights.”
    “But you’re so tall!”
    “I know. Stupid, huh?”
    Neither of us felt like sleeping. Xander had dozed a bit during the day while I read the books I’d brought from Fuerteventura, and I’d been asleep until midday anyway. We watched a couple more films and re-runs, and then Xander looked at me pleadingly and said, “We ran out of margarita…”
    “So go and get some more.”
    “But he won’t give me any. He likes you…”
    I didn’t really want to go down and get some more, but on the other hand, it was good margarita…
    I heaved myself off the bed and grabbed my purse. “Don’t go