Free Unmanned by Lois Greiman

pulling my legs across his lap. My knee bumped his chest. My heart did a funny little flopping motion. His lips were mere inches from mine, but just then my front door opened and Lieutenant Jack Rivera stalked into view.

7
    Apparently it takes, like, forty-seven muscles to frown. Flippin’ the bird’s a hell of a lot easier.
    —Amanda May Newton, aka the Magnificent Mandy
    “D ON’T YOU EVER LOCK your damn—” Rivera’s words jerked to a halt.
    I’m not sure why I felt the need to snap my legs off Mr. Manderos’s lap. It wasn’t as if I was doing anything wrong. Nevertheless, I yanked away like a puppet on crack.
    “Rivera!” I said. My voice sounded kind of sandpapery. I cleared my throat, reprimanded myself for my childish demeanor, and tried again, setting my feet primly on the floor and smoothing my slacks around my thighs. Classy as hell. “Rivera,” I said, tone sophisticated, mind screaming bloody hell, “you remember Mr. Manderos.”
    The lieutenant remained silent. Something ticked in his jaw as he shifted his dynamite glare from Julio to me.
    I cleared my throat again, then cursed myself for the weak-assed gesture. Rivera had no claim on me, hadn’t even said he
wanted
a claim.
    Julio rose to his feet with a dancer’s grace and extended his hand, Spanish gaze earnest and level. “I have not had the pleasure of making your acquaintance,” he said, “but I would know the good senator’s son by reputation alone.”
    For a moment I thought Rivera might drop the flimsy veneer of propriety and pop him in the face just for spite, but he took a step forward and shook the other’s hand, almost as if he were civilized. “You own the strip club,” he said. There was a buttload of feeling in that statement, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to interpret it.
    “Sí,”
Julio said. “The Strip Please. And you are a lieutenant for the Los Angeles Police Department. Your father is very proud.”
    The corner of Rivera’s mouth jerked, then, “Impersonating the senator doesn’t mean you know him, I see,” he said.
    The two measured each other in silence. There was an odd history between them even though they’d never met. As I’ve said, Julio had, on occasion, spent time with Rivera’s ex-fiancée, who was, for a spell, Rivera’s father’s
current
fiancée.
    This is L.A. We couldn’t recognize normal if it bit us on the ass. But then, why would normal bite you on the ass? Unless…Shit, was I drunk?
    “You are correct,” Julio said. “I am being…pretentious. I do not know your father well.”
    Rivera was still scowling. No surprise there.
    “And yet I am certain he has great pride in you.” Julio nodded once, eyes narrowed. “Though he may not know how best to show it. It is the same with many great men.”
    Rivera puffed an almost silent snort. “You think my father’s great?”
    Julio was silent for a moment, studying him, then: “He has been that and more to me, Lieutenant. But in truth…” He canted his head, thinking. “…I was speaking of you.”
    A flicker of uncertainty raced across Rivera’s hard-ass features. I soaked it in. Rivera is rarely uncertain. He’s often wrong. But he’s usually emphatically wrong.
    “I didn’t see a car outside,” he said finally. “You take a cab here, Manderos?”
    I tensed, but Julio didn’t seem the least concerned.
    Maybe he spent every day giving women foot rubs and nobody had taken umbrage so far. Maybe he’d never met a man like Rivera, who took umbrage at sunshine.
    “No. I felt Christina should not drive, thus I took the liberty of escorting her home.”
    I could feel my pulse beating in my left eyeball. I could
see
Rivera’s in his.
    “From where?” he asked.
    “I stopped at her office. She seemed…distraught. Thus I thought it best that she have some time to relax rather than seeing to others’ problems.”
    There was a two-beat silence, during which I fortified my defenses before Rivera inevitably turned on me. “You