Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(84)

Yuri slowly collapses back to his knees, struggles for a couple more seconds, and then goes completely limp. Lawson releases the hold and rolls Yuri’s hulking unconscious body onto its side. Yuri immediately begins snoring. Lawson jumps to his feet, dusts off his back, picks up his phone, and comes to me. “Are you okay?”

I swallow and nod, still stunned, too much adrenaline sluicing through my body to speak.

“Well, now you’ve done it, you brute. You killed Yuri!” Divine cries. “I’d grown fond of the oaf despite his coarseness.”

“He’s not dead, you idiot,” Lawson says.

“Oh, this is just a horrible thing for me to have to see. You dipping your hands in a man’s blood right in front of me.”

“Dude? I just choked him out. He’s snoring. If you’d shut up for a second, you’d hear it.”

“I knew you were trouble from how little you talked all night. Quiet people, you gotta keep your eye on them. If you’re not speaking, you’re scheming.”

Lawson points at Divine. “You shut up. You’ve talked enough tonight.” He bends down and rummages in Yuri’s pockets. He comes up with the keys to the Escalade.

“You better not steal our car, you hooligan!” Divine yells.

Lawson walks quickly toward Divine.

“Don’t you dare! One of my dearest friends is Steven Seagal. He’s promised to visit terrible suffering on anyone who tries to get my goat!” Despite his bravado, Divine shrivels from Lawson as he nears. “Stay back, you lout!”

Lawson holds the keys up to Divine’s face, then chucks them into the donation bin. He nods at Yuri, still slumped on the ground. “When he wakes up, he’ll be in a great mood. He can help you get unstuck, and maybe between the two of you, you can get the keys out. You might even still sell something.”

Divine nods nervously. “All right. Fine.”

Lawson walks away. As soon as he does, Divine starts in again. “I’m not scared of you! You got lucky!”

My voice returns. “Lawson, give Mr. Divine his honorarium.” I hope Lawson catches my drift.

Lawson gives me a knowing smile, spins around, and walks back to Divine, whose bravado abruptly evaporates again. “Okay, all right. Let’s be calm.”

Lawson lifts the tail of Divine’s jacket while blocking Divine’s impotent swats, grabs the waistband of his boxer shorts, and yanks upward with a loud rip. Divine howls. “Ow! That was an unnecessarily violent wedgie! You’ll be hearing from my attorneys in the coming days. I think you may have herniated a disc in my lower back when you did that! And if you’ve injured my anus, there’ll be hell to pay!”

I see my phone lying several yards away. I scurry over and pick it up. It seems to be working fine, but it has seven percent left on the battery. Lawson comes over to me and starts leading me away.

“Wait,” I say. “One more thing.” I run to the Escalade, open the door, and grab the lobster in its to-go box. I hold it aloft like a trophy. “I paid for this lobster. And Lawson and I are going to eat it.”

“What if I get peckish later?” Divine wails. “There’s nothing worse than being hungry in a hotel room. Oh, I don’t care to work with you anymore. I don’t. You don’t even mind if I get peckish. I’m going to tell everyone in television not to give you the time of day.”

“You do that,” I call back. “Start with Disme.”

Lawson and I speed-walk away. Divine’s indignant clamoring fades behind us. We steal one last look back at him, hanging there like a broken, outraged marionette. And in spite of ourselves—in spite of everything—we both laugh.

???

My phone was at seven percent battery, but the minute I start using it to figure out where we are, it drops to four percent.

Lawson pulls his phone from his back pocket. The screen is shattered. “Aw…damn. Must’ve broken it during the fight. It turns on, but I can’t use the screen.”

“I think I know which way we need to start heading. It’s actually kinda easy to get back to the hotel. But it’s about five miles.”

“Should we try to get a cab or an Uber or something?”

“I have no idea what that would cost, and I seriously can’t spend any more money. I’m legit broke.”

“I don’t mind walking. Plus, I guess I have to buy a new phone now, so yeah.”

“I’m so, so sorry about this. How embarrassing.”

Lawson smiles and puts his arm around me. “Hey, I got to spend time with you. I’ll never complain about that.”

I kiss his neck. “Okay, explain to me what I saw.”

Lawson glows, perfectly in his element. “Basically, the minute Yuri went into his stance, I could tell he was a striker, not a grappler. I was worried he might be a Sombo guy—”

“Sombo?”

“Russian martial art. Kinda like jujitsu.”

“Wild. Go ahead.”

“So I could see he was pretty much a street brawler from his stance. He didn’t move like he had fight training. Still, I wasn’t about to stand and bang with him. I figured if I could get the fight to the ground, I could get him in an armbar or a choke. No way does he have any submission defense. But I didn’t wanna try to take him down, because he was too big. So I faked a fall to lure him to the ground, and bam! Triangle choke. Prettiest one I ever did.”