Stay Vertical by Layla Wolfe

hurry back. I wanted to be the first to see Lytton, to gauge his feelings. I knew that if things didn’t go well with Ford, I’d never see Lytton again. And suddenly seeing Lytton again was the most important thing in the world to me.
    He came in a couple of minutes after Slushy left. Such a rush of love swept through me at the sight of his loose, long-limbed beauty. Having rolled in a feverish sweat for three days in his bed, I felt that I knew him. I was imbued with his scent. I was so wrapped up with my need to attract him. I wanted to reinvent myself. I didn’t want to be the hippie dippy returned Peace Corps volunteer, but an alluring, sensual woman capable of handling his extreme dominance.
    He barely glanced at me, too wrapped up in his cell conversation. He paused near a display of fletchings and nocks. “Listen, I’d be an idiot not to bring it up. You don’t think it’s important? It’s probably the number one most important aspect of this whole entire deal.” He paused to angrily listen to someone I surmised was his partner Tobiah. Tobiah seemed to be trying to talk Lytton out of making a rash decision. “I will not keep this supposition to myself, you fuckwad—it’s far too important to sweep under the fucking rug. It’s not just some random douche saying it, either—Helium Head, Crybaby, and Bill Smith all confirmed the story. Apparently I was the last guy on the planet to know about it. Yeah? Well if we all sat around on our hands jacking off like you seem to prefer to do, nothing would ever get done.”
    With no further ado, he shoved the phone at me, maybe trying to distract me while he stormed into Slushy’s back office.
    I didn’t know what to do. “Tobiah?” I said tremulously.
    “June!” yelled Tobiah Weingarten, general manager of the Leaves of Grass ranch. “Will you tell him he’s making a giant fucking mistake? He pisses off those Bare Bones gangsters he might as well be bringing the wrath of the entire syndicate down around our heads. Do you know who they have in their back pocket? The Ochoas, the Presencións, the Marins, the fucking Joneses!” Tobiah’s voice became higher in register with each cartel family name he ticked off. He sounded like Mickey Mouse by the time he cried, “We don’t need to be fucking looking for trouble!”
    I just slipped the phone into my front shirt pocket—the shirt that still smelled of Lytton’s own scent. I was so eager to get back into Slushy’s office I shoved aside Slushy himself, smashing his jelly donut into his shirtfront.
    “Hey, hey!” Slushy was miffed. “Don’t mess the threads!”
    Inside the office, Lytton had already launched into his harangue. He was an upfront, direct sort of guy, I’d discovered. He didn’t mince words. I had to give him credit for giving voice to his feelings. I’d probably lose my religion too, if I had just heard what Lytton had heard.
    “I want a simple yes or no , Ford.” Lytton pointed at the ground with fury. “Did you kill my fucking father?”
    Ford was standing with both palms facing Lytton. “Whoa. Back off, buddy. In the first fucking place, it’s our father. Okay?”
    “Semantics!” shouted Lytton.
    “Digression!” yelled Slushy, holding his donut on high, trying to shove through between me and Lytton. “We are here to discuss your place in this family, Mr. Driving Hawk, not to toss about baseless accusations.”
    “Lytton,” I tried to say quietly around the back of Slushy’s head. “Maybe you could discuss that later? Ford is here to acknowledge your place as his bro—”
    “Just a simple yes or no ,” bellowed Lytton. “It’s that fucking simple. I have a right to know if my own brother took his fucking pistol and blew out my father’s brains.”
    True, newspaper accounts had said Cropper was found with a bullet to the brain, a dead Minion a few dozen yards away with a similar wound. There was ostensibly a second Minion who had been injured who had gotten away, so