Not including the three bedroom, duplex townhomes, each unit and each of the three apartments in the units were different and all the layouts unusual, built with an eye to quality and style. They were appointed with top-of-the line everything, appliances, carpeting, washers and dryers, bathroom fixtures. There was a full gym onsite with a clubhouse and an outdoor pool that had an expansive cooldeck and an abundance of lounge chairs. The landscaping was effusive and colorful. The complex was gated, they had twenty-four hour onsite security and each apartment had its own private entrance and alarm. Rents for a two bedroom unit were double the highest rents found elsewhere in the ‘burg. The Brendel was the hot home destination for trendy, high income twenty- and thirty-somethings and double-income-no-kids couples.

It was also where Harrison Rutledge lived. Harrison Rutledge who had a cop’s salary, an ex-wife, a kid and a child support payment that meant his wife had gotten herself a very good attorney when she dumped his ass. Therefore, his apartment alone tagged him as a dirty cop on the take which was a stupid mistake, something, Layne had found, Rutledge was not averse to making. And it was that something that made Layne go in too fast, too hard and get ambushed doing it. He’d thought Rutledge was a fool, he’d gotten cocky and he’d paid for that mistake by getting drilled with three bullets.

He stopped at the gate and punched in the code, his mind moving to wondering how Rocky circumvented the waiting list. It was likely she greased some palms. Viewing an apartment at The Brendel after being on the waiting list for two months or less was a minor miracle.

With the help of well-situated and attractive signage, Layne found unit E and saw a sporty BMW parked in the three undercover parking spots allocated to apartment three which was up a flight of steps around the corner from the ground floor entrance to apartment two.

He parked, got out, slammed the door, beeped his locks, walked to the unit and up the steps.

He barely knocked before the door was thrown open and a woman with sleek blonde hair and more perfectly applied makeup even than Rocky’s, wearing a stylish and obviously expensive business dress stood in the door. Her head jerked when she saw Layne then she did a head-to-toe and her face changed.

“Hi, you must be Mrs. Astley’s friend,” she greeted, putting a slight emphasis on the word “Mrs.” as she leaned in giving a much stronger emphasis on the fact, with that one move and after having taken one look at him and having no clue who he was, she was coming onto him.

“Yep,” Layne replied, moving into her before she moved out of his way, effectively forcing her out of his way. Then he walked into the apartment without saying another word and making it clear he was there for Rocky.

He did this because she was too young for him and Layne had passed the point where he wasted time training the women he took to bed. He also did this because she appeared to have less body fat than he did and he liked the women he took to bed to be women with women’s bodies. He didn’t fuck bags of bones. Hard and pointy didn’t feel good, soft and round was a fuckuva lot better. He knew men who liked that, he just wasn’t one of them. He also did this because he didn’t like aggressive women. There were ways for a woman to tell you she was interested without her making the first move. To Layne, a woman who made the first move was struck off instantly, even if he was attracted to her. He made the moves. And lastly, he did this because her slight emphasis on the word “Mrs.” was offensive. Her knowing Rocky for all of five minutes and him for all of one second, she didn’t get to remind him of Rocky’s marital status.

He stopped and looked around thinking instantly that the apartment was the shit. White walls, two story ceilings and floor to ceiling, full-wall windows in the compact but inviting living room that also had a classy gas fireplace. He could see his development from the windows and there was a balcony running the length of the living room that you could get to through double doors with highly-designed, shiny silver handles, doors that were set seamlessly into the windows. A staircase with a closed railing in stucco white. A deep, long state-of-the art kitchen tucked under the top floor, stainless steel appliances, shining black granite countertops and cool as shit lighting. A breakfast nook around the corner by the kitchen set in a semi-circle of windows extending out from the apartment like an enclosed balcony over which was a complicated, modern, multi-light chandelier.

“You like?” the blonde asked from close beside him but he caught movement at the top of the stairs, he looked up and saw Rocky walking down.

He didn’t respond to the blonde but grinned at Rocky. “Hey sweetcheeks.”

She looked down at her feet, a small smile on her face, and shook her head while replying, “Hey Layne.”

“Upstairs pass inspection?” he asked, moving to the foot of the stairs where he stopped and so did she.

She tilted her head back, her eyes slid over his shoulder to tag the blonde’s location then back to him where she leaned in and whispered low, “I like it.”

He leaned in too and whispered back, “So get it.”

Her eyes slid back to his shoulder but not to place the blonde in the room. She was thinking.

“I don’t know,” she said.

How could she not know? The place was the shit.

Then again, it wasn’t a six-bedroom mansion skirting a manmade lake.

He turned to the blonde. “Can you give us a minute?”

“Of course,” she smiled and started to move toward the kitchen where she could easily still hear. The place was the shit but it wasn’t exactly huge.

“No.” He stopped her with one word and her head snapped to look at him. He jerked his head to the door. “A minute.”

She looked at the door then at him then her face set in a way that made her less attractive than she very obviously thought she was but she nodded and headed to the door.

Layne waited until she was out of it to turn back to Rocky.

“What’s on your mind?”

She looked up at him and bit her lip. She was thinking still, he could see it behind her eyes, but she was thinking about something else.

“Roc –”

She interrupted him. “Layne, do you know what the rent is on these places?”

“Yeah, I looked into them before moving here. Why?”

She shook her head and then sat down on a stair saying, “I don’t know if I can swing it.”

He stared at her. She was wearing high-heeled boots, jeans and another, warmer-looking, but no less expensive, fancy-ass sweater, this time with a matching woolly scarf wrapped around her neck. She drove a Mercedes. The huge, suede purse she was plopping down on the stair beside her probably cost more than his refrigerator.

“Rocky –”

“I’m a teacher, Layne,” she informed him of something he already knew.

“Yeah, a teacher whose soon-to-be ex is a surgeon who makes six figures.”

“Jarrod makes six figures, I do not make six figures.”

Layne crouched in front of her. “Rocky, he fucked around on you. He’s living with another woman right now. You think this divorce isn’t going to go well for you?”

At his words, she reared back and stared at him, eyes wide.

Then she breathed, “I’m not going to take his money.”

He felt his brows shoot up. “Come again?”

“I’m not taking his money.”

“Rocky –”

She shook her head. “No, no way.”

“Roc –”

She leaned in abruptly, her expression turning sharp. “Fuck that.”

He caught her hand and held it firm before shaking it. “Baby, are you insane?”

“No,” she snapped, tugging her hand in his but he held on tighter.

“Sweetcheeks, a guy like that does what he did to a woman like you, I’m not a member of the club but I’m pretty sure it’s a chick requirement to take him to the cleaners.”

“Layne –”

“You don’t do it, other chicks might vote to throw you out of the club.”

Her face cracked and she smiled, her dimple coming out and, seeing it, Layne wished he’d kept his mouth shut at the same time he felt like he’d scored a touchdown to win the game in the last seconds of the Super Bowl.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to get thrown out of the…” she lifted the only hand she had available to her and made air quotation marks, “chick club.”

“Atta girl,” he whispered as he smiled but her face got serious again and her hand dropped.

“I see what you’re saying, Layne but, seriously, you don’t know… it hasn’t been…” She looked over his shoulder then back at him. “I don’t want anything from him.”

He did not like what her words said, he did not like how they made him feel but he liked it even less that she had reason to same them.

He ignored this, decided on a different strategy and advised, “Rocky, you greased some palms to get moved up the waiting list for this place, you shouldn’t waste that investment.”

Her hand clenched his spasmodically and her eyes narrowed in confusion.

“I didn’t grease any palms to get moved up.”

He stared at her then told her, “Not sure that’s against the law, sweetcheeks, but even if it was, I wouldn’t turn you in.”

“I guess it isn’t but I still didn’t do it.”

“Roc, when I was lookin’ into this place, the waiting list was minimum seven months.”

She nodded. “It still is. I’ve been on it for nine.”

He let her hand go and stood, watching her head tilt back to look up at him as he went.

Then he asked, “What?”