Free Slide by Garrett Leigh

arms around him. I didn’t. Instead, I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    Pete exhaled softly and took a small step toward me. His hands twitched, like he wanted to do something drastic, before he put them lightly on my shoulders. “Good,” he said seriously. “I’m getting used to you hogging my sheets.”
    He held me firmly in place with his dark gaze. There was a beat of silence, and despite the lightness of his remark, the air between us suddenly felt heavy. I absorbed his touch and let myself be drawn closer to him by an invisible cord. Pete leaned forward. I mirrored the motion, but a sharp intake of air—his or mine, I wasn’t sure which—broke the spell. I blinked to dispel the haze, and before I could stop to think about it, I lunged at him and shoved him along the sidewalk.
    He stumbled slightly and laughed, long and loud. “Is that the best you can do?”
    I widened my stance and issued a challenge with my hands. I was inept at nearly every aspect of human interaction, but sparring I could do. Roughhousing was part of growing up in a group home, along with some other less amusing things. I tilted my head to one side, smirking. “What do you think?”
    Pete opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak his shoulder collided with a body coming the other way. It was a minor collision, the kind of thing that happened all the time in a busy city like Chicago, especially when you were drunk and walking backward. He raised his hands in apology and would have kept walking, but he found his path blocked by the dude he’d bumped into.
    The guy squared his shoulders and narrowed his eyes. “Look where you’re going, dumb fuck.”
    Pete raised an eyebrow. He looked amused—amused and slightly incredulous. I thought for a moment he might retaliate, but he took a step back and let the man pass. I glared at the guy’s back as he walked away, but Pete just laughed and said, “These swanky neighborhoods are full of assholes. Did you see his fucking Rolex? What a tool.”
    With some effort, I unclenched my fists. “I thought he was going to take a swing at you.”
    “Let him try.”
    His statement made me grin. Pete was a calming influence on my overactive brain, although it wasn’t hard to see he had a fiery temper simmering below his cool exterior. He was at his grouchiest when he was hungry, and I’d seen firsthand how pissed he could get when that was combined with a week of night shifts. Tired, hungry Pete wasn’t a man to be messed with. He never really snapped at me—mainly because I kept out of his way—but he was partial to kicking shit about the apartment and cursing anything that got in his way.
    Weirdly, I quite liked watching him do that; his dark eyes seemed to gleam and give off a heat that was strangely addictive. He was so alive , especially when I compared him to my own muted perspective on life.
    Pete nudged me, drawing my eyes up from the sidewalk. “Don’t think so hard, Ash. I get crazy people taking a swing at me every day. I’m usually not allowed to hit them back, but I can take care of myself.”
    I nodded absently. Fighting came easily to me; I’d had to do it my whole life to survive. Over the years, it had become second nature. “I like to box,” I said. “There was a punch bag where I lived before.”
    “Maybe you could put one in your room.”
    I didn’t answer, because we both knew that would involve removing the bed, and that wasn’t a conversation I was ready to have. I lit another cigarette, hiding from his astute gaze, and blew smoke into the loaded silence that settled over us.
    “Are you hungry?” he said suddenly. “I’m fucking starving.”
    “Sure. What are you thinking?”
    Pete winked and pointed toward a bench. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
    He was gone before I could protest, but he was back before I’d finished my smoke. He slid onto the bench beside me, held out a cheeseburger, and placed a giant bottle of