"What you got there, Tony?"
Tony's hand clenches on the paper straws. They're ruined now, damp from his sweat and the rain on his hands,
crumpled from being in the inner pocket of his jacket all day and night as they searched the rooftops.
At least there's no blood on them.
"Pixie Stix," he says. The sugar grinds under his fingers, and the green dye has started to bleed through the
paper. He'll take green on his skin any day over red. "For Paula. We were supposed to get together tonight."
"Aww, that's so sweet," Kate says. She's perched on the locker room bench, ankles crossed primly below her short,
short skirt. "I didn't know you were such a romantic, Tony."
"Yeah," Tony says, laughing a little. "I'm a real old-fashioned kind of guy." Old-fashioned enough to know that
every woman likes a romantic gesture. He's always been partial to Honey Dust, but Paula...
She'd been so wound tight after the mess in Gitmo, all Tony had wanted to do was show her a good time. Make her
smile and laugh again. He was afraid she'd think the arcade was beneath her, too juvenile, but it'd worked just
the way he'd planned.
And Paula really had a thing for Pixie Stix. The lime ones, especially. She sprinkled the sugar all over his
chest, down his belly, over his cock, laughing as she licked him clean, then giggling again when she demanded he
return the favor. Not that it was a hardship. There was something special about Paula, and he could almost taste
it on her skin. Like all her sass and smarts bubbled up to the surface, perfectly complemented by tart-sweet
lime. The citrus faded away when he went down on her at last, tonguing her clit over and over until she came with
a throaty moan that he can still hear to this day.
The sense memory of her has stuck with him, ambushing him at the craziest times. He'd woken up to it once in
Bethesda, lime and honey in the back of his throat, her deep moan in his ears, and he thought he really had died
and gone to heaven.
He wishes he could taste Paula now, but he's had iron and salty-sweetness in his mouth for hours, and he can't
get it out.
"Are you still going to see her?" Kate asks, like she might ask any other day, prying into his love life just
like he pries into hers.
Tony shakes his head. "No," he says, swallowing hard. "Think she'll be pissed?"
But Kate's not there anymore, gone before she can give him any absolution. He drops the Pixie Stix in the trash,
washes his hands, and changes into dry clothes.
Ari is still out there, after all.