((A/N - Sorry about the delay! The good news is, I felt bad about the wait so I tried to make sure this chapter was longer. The bad news is... ah, I guess you'll see, but I'm sorry, in advance. Please R & R! Thanks so much for the reviews last chapter!))

An ounce of peace is all I want for you

Will you never call again?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

It was noon, right on the dot. All the normal customers were seated nearby, and I was at our usual booth, coffee in hand. Everything was normal, except for one thing.

Where the heck was Adren?

It was the day following our kiss. I hadn't seen her in the distribution line; but then, that wasn't unusual, so I didn't think much of it. With the number of kids that went through there, and since I didn't usually work the window, I missed her a lot. I thought for a moment that she might be sick, but quickly dismissed that. We kiss and suddenly she's out sick? This was New York – coincidences didn't happen here.

I sat there for at least ten minutes, scanning the restaurant. She was never late. Finally I was so confused that I set the coffee down, got up and walked out of the restaurant, only to turn around and re-enter it with the expectation that it would be normal when I came back in. Which, in my opinion, was only half as crazy a plan in theory as it was in actuality.

Nope. Still no Adren.

Now I was starting to get looks from some of the other patrons. Perfect. Tossing them a one-fingered salute, I turned around and headed out again, this time starting down the road. If that girl thought she was going to stand me up, well, she had another thing coming.

I started for her selling spot, getting angrier with each step. Who did she think she was, anyway? Not like I didn't have anything better to do with my lunches than spend them chitchatting with her.

I didn't, actually, but that was completely beside the point.

I didn't know whether to be furious or happy when my hunch turned out to be right, and she was indeed at her selling spot. So, I went for fury – it was my old throwback, anyway. Besides, after seeing that she wasn't alone but instead had that damn eye patch kid with her, it was a pretty easy feeling to muster up.

"Hate to break up the party," I said, stopping short in front of them and moving to glare at Adren. "We had an appointment. Or did you just figure it'd be more fun to make me waste my lunch hour?"

Adren at least had the decency to look surprised and stay silent. Eye patch kid wasn't so smart, apparently, as he stepped between us. "Why don't you move on, Delancey? You're interrupting."

"Did I do something to give you the impression that I won't kill you if you don't get away from me?" I turned to glare at him, causing him to take a step back. I'm sure I sounded like I meant it – given that I did, and all. I mean, what was this kid doing hanging around her selling spot? And what was I interrupting, huh? On my lunch time?

Adren cut in; probably wanted to help the guy save a little face by giving him an excuse to turn tail and run. "Blink, it's fine. I'll catch up with you later, okay?"

I waved at him. "Run along, now, Blink."

"I'll be just down the street," he said, giving me a wary look and walking away. Maybe he was a little smarter than I gave him credit for.

Not that I was going to let her know that. "Blink, huh? Because of the eye patch? Clever."

"Don't make fun of my friends," she said, in her normal casual tone. Like nothing was wrong. Like everything was just flowers and sunshine.

I didn't like it.

"Who's making fun? I was just asking. So… how many years did it take him to come up with it? I'm guessing… at least two, right? He seems like the type where thinking hard is a slow process," I offered.

"Oscar…" she warned.

"Oscar, what? What's with you, huh? Why'd you skip out on lunch?" Okay, so now I sounded like a little bit of a raving lunatic compared to her calm demeanor, but I didn't care.

"I'm sorry, selling just ran late and I got caught up talking to Blink," she said, sounding surprised that I was so upset.

"Don't give me that. Look, if this is about the…" I couldn't even finish. It seemed stupid to even say it.

"About the what? Are you okay?" she asked.

"The kiss! Look, it was no big deal, damnit. If I knew you were going to get all weird about it, I wouldn't have done it," I snapped. "It was no big deal."

"… You're kind of upset, for no big deal," she said, frowning.

I groaned. "Because you're obviously upset, skipping out on lunch and all! Like I said, no big deal. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. And you know what, I'm not apologizing for it again - you're a good-lookin' girl, and I like you. And you were driving me insane with the talking-"

"Well, you actually never did apologize for it. Just, so you know." She cut me off. "You like me?"

"- What?" Oh, great. It had just dawned on me what I'd said – and worse, that I'd meant it exactly like it sounded. Which of course, she'd caught on to and was now going to torture me with. "I mean, yeah, you're my friend. We've been over this."

"So you kiss all your friends?"

How did she manage to make every question she asked more annoying than the last one? "Give me a break, here. Yeah, I like you. So what?"

"I don't know, you're the one that seems to have a problem with it," she shrugged. "Were you planning on doing something about it? Is that why you're so worked up?"

Great, now I was the one with the questions. "Doing something? Doing what?"

"I don't know, that's why I was asking. I mean, I guess the normal thing would be for you to ask me on a date, wouldn't it?" Okay, now she was smiling; the she-devil was enjoying this.

I, on the other hand, was wishing someone would come up behind me and shank me, just to get me out of this moment. "I… what makes you think I want to date you?" At her look of disbelief, I groaned again. "You make me crazy, you know that?"

"I got that – kind of funny that you like that, apparently, huh? To each their own, I guess." She was still grinning. "Oscar, it's okay. I know you can't really to date me, and I'm not offended or anything. I like just being friends. So, stop being weird and let's just go to lunch."

"That's all I wanted to do any… wait, what do you mean, I can't? Who the hell says I can't?" I demanded.

Her expression turned more serious. "Come on. Me and your friends? If your brother's girlfriend is any indication, I don't think we're all going to get along very well. You don't need that kind of grief."

"My friends? They'd…" I cut myself off right there. No sense in even trying with that argument – even I knew she had me there. "What about your friends?"

"My friends would be just fine if you stopped threatening to kill them. That's really the thing they don't seem to like about you," she replied. "Really, it's okay."

"No, it's not. I date who I want, I don't need anybody's permission." She gave me a full on look of disbelief, which caused me to shake my head. "What, you don't believe me? Fine, come out with me tonight and I'll prove it. I've got a spot most of my boys are usually at – it's a little noisy, but it's not bad."

"Seriously?" she posed.

I rolled my eyes. "Either you want to, or not. You're killing me with the questions, here."

She was quiet for a long time, and I started to get nervous. What if she said no? For that matter, how'd I even get to this point, anyway? I just wanted my damn lunch, and now all of the sudden I- "… Yes. Sure."

"What was that?" I stared at her, not sure I'd heard right.

"Sure, I want to. I mean, why not? You're a good-lookin' guy and I like you. And you're driving me crazy with how defensive you are about your feelings so, either you must really like me, or you're really going to end up strangling me one of these days. Why wait? Let's just figure out which it is, now," she smiled.

"… Ah, okay. Okay. I'll come by to get you around eight," I said, too surprised to do anything but go along with this, now. She smiled before starting to laugh, and I raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

"You do realize you just asked me out on a date, right? A real date, with me? … Never mind. Come on, we're running out of time to eat."

Her grin as she started to walk off toward the diner made me so irritated that I sent back, "Of course I do! What am I, an idiot?"

She just waved and swept out of sight in time to miss me rolling my eyes again and pulling out a cigarette. I had it halfway to my mouth before I dropped it, cussing as I actually did realize what I'd done. A date with her, with my friends?

Oh, hell.

I was definitely an idiot.

.

.

.

.

"Are you sure I'm dressed okay for this place?" We were nearly to the bar, and she was smoothing out her skirt for the dozenth time. At my blank look, she flushed. "I know the girls around… well, here, dress a little different. They always look so… nice."

"You look nice," I returned, trying to stop looking at her like she'd grown a second head so that she'd stop blushing. Really, though, I couldn't think of a weirder thing for her to be worried about; I'd never seen her not look nice. "The girls around here look like a lot of things, but 'nice' ain't one of them. You're dressed fine. You'll class up the joint."

She smiled, and I felt like I'd won something I didn't know I'd been competing for. "So, will your brother be here?"

"Yeah, we got a couple hours before our second job starts so he's probably in the back with Megs… who'll be on her best behavior, don't worry," I added hastily, opting against finishing that her 'best' behavior was still pretty damn unpleasant. I couldn't in good conscience, however, not warn her, "Just… stay close to me in here, okay? Some of these guys are my friends, but a lot of them are just guys that I know. Sometimes they can be real idiots."

"You already saved my life once outside a bar – I wouldn't make you do it again." She lightened up and laughed, even though I didn't. "Are you really worried about someone trying to take advantage of me?"

Yeah, that was exactly what I was worried about, actually. And I didn't think it was funny at all.

I thought it was even less amusing when, as soon as we stepped through the door, we had every guy nearby's full attention. And, it might've just been the jealousy in me talking, but I was pretty sure they weren't thinking about how good I looked.

Adren didn't seem to notice. "Is that Morris over there?"

I nodded at where she was pointing as I pulled her in the other direction. "Yep, him and Megs."

"So… you're not going to talk to them?" she questioned, following me as I stopped at a booth safely outside the middle of the crowd.

"I don't know how your dates normally go, but me, I like to spend time with the person I'm with, not the rest of the world," I answered, sliding into the booth.

"This is my first date," she said, shrugging and smiling.

Of course it was. Now feeling properly like an ass, I tried to recover. "You shouldn't be wasting it with me, then. But since you did, I guess, you want anything to drink?"

"Sure, I'll have what you're having," she nodded, leaning back.

I frowned. "What I'm having? Don't you want something… I don't know, frilly?"

I should've known better, by now. "What kind of drink is 'frilly'? I know doilies that are frilly, but no drinks. Can you describe 'frilly' for me?"

"Okay, now you're just getting whiskey," I snapped, doing my best to ignore her laughter as I headed to the bar.

I was only gone a few moments, but apparently that was enough for the wolves to close in. And why shouldn't then, when I was stupid enough to bring fresh meat right to them? I arrived at the table to find two new occupants – both of whom fell into the 'guys I knew' category. "Boys," I said curtly, taking a seat next to Adren.

"Delancey," the taller of the two, Johnny, smirked at me before returning his eyes to Adren, despite adding, "Where've you been keeping this one? You've been holding out."

Johnny and his counterpart, Sam, were some of my least favorite people in our usual group. They were good for the work we did – busting heads was more of a game, to them, then work – but they were just the kind you'd expect to see out of the corner of your eye right before a knife gets planted between your shoulders. Unfortunately, Johnny was a few years older and one of the higher-ups, in terms of who called the shots, so I just did my best to avoid them. Apparently, though, my best wasn't good enough, tonight.

"Something I can help you gentlemen with, or did you just want to spend some time with me? Because that's sweet, really, but I'm kinda on a date here," I said. My hands were still firmly wrapped around the drinks in order to keep from doing something unpleasant, like dragging them out of my booth by their necks.

Sam gave a smile, which provided a great view of some of his missing and broken teeth. Always a charmer. "We were just getting to know your lovely date, here. Not often we get such nice looking visitors, so we had to stop over and say hello. I mean, she is really just a – son of a whore!"

He jumped in his seat, which resulted in what sounded like a terribly painful cracking of his knee against the bottom of the table and a really colorful string of curses. Johnny and I looked between each other, completely confused, until Adren put a hand over her mouth.

"Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry. Was that your foot? I thought it was a rat trying to crawl up my leg." Wide-eyed and innocent as ever, she blinked a few times to really seal the deal. "I hope your toes are okay. I guess I don't know my own strength."

"I can show you strength," Sam spat through gritted teeth, completely red-faced.

I moved forward, but Adren reached out and slid her hand into mine, nudging it away from the glass. Glancing over at her, she gave me a wink and squeezed my fingers, which made me as warm as if I'd just downed a shot of vodka. Truth be told, no one held my hand – for some reason, people didn't seem to think I was the kind of guy it was wise to try that with. While most of them were right, coming from her, it was actually kind of nice.

As it turned out, the momentary distraction was good anyway, since Johnny took the opportunity to slap Sam upside the head for me. "The hell kind of farm were you raised on? Apologize to the girl."

"If your foot hurts too much for that, I can break your nose to distract you," I added.

"Sorry," Sam managed after a few moments of letting his face get back to its normal color. "Temper gets away from me – especially around this lot."

"Oh, sure. I hate when that happens," she nodded, completely matter-of-fact.

Sam looked unsure if she was joking or not, and both men looked decidedly less comfortable than they had before now that their pretense of 'friendliness' was sunk. I'd never been more thankful for the girl's ability to make people feel awkward.

"So, how long have you and our good friend Oscar, here, been spending time together?" Johnny tried.

"This is our first date. We've been friends for some time, now, though. I'm really stuck on him," she said, and this time, at least, her tone was crystal clear; they were intruding.

Apparently aware that the game was up, though a little too late in my opinion, Johnny nodded, clapping Sam on the back. "I think she's trying to tell us to get lost, huh? Guess we better do what the pretty lady says."

"Pretty Lady? Are you over here talking about me, Johnny?"

It was right about that moment in time when I started to wonder seriously if I was actually the unluckiest man alive. Megs trotted over, pulling Morris with her and stopping short in front of our booth. "Look at this, a party, and no one even bothered to wave us over. How incredibly rude. Aren't you going to offer me a seat, Oscar?"

"Of course," I said, looking shocked that she'd even have to ask before pointing to a back table that was usually reserved for whores on the prowl. "I think there's an empty one right over there. Have at it."

Morris growled at me and, deciding that maybe his and Megs' presence might help Johnny and Sam to move along, I rolled my eyes and got up. Of course, no sooner had I done so than Megs scooted in, cozying right up to Adren and wrapping her arms around her. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised – where there was attention to be had, there was Megs. "Annie, it is so nice to see you again!"

"You guys are friends?" Sam asked, probably to try and fill what had suddenly become a very suffocating silence.

"Best friends," Megs smiled Adren, who in turn just looked bewildered. "A bit of a rough start, but, we're over it. I mean, when you're dating brothers, it sort of makes you like sisters, too. Isn't that right, Annie?"

"Well, I'm not really sure about that. I mean, for a start, my name's Adren, so… maybe you have me confused with someone else? It's kind of strange to forget your best friend's name, I think. Probably not a very good best friend," she offered, as Megs let her go and turned pink.

"Silly goose – she's such a kidder," Megs said, doing her best to recover despite looking furious for a moment when the others – including Morris – laughed. "Don't tease so much, Adren, Dear. Men don't find it attractive."

For once, I was slightly with her, at least in the fact that there wasn't anything amusing about all of this. "Listen, great to see you all, but we're on a date here, so…"

"So, what, Oscar?" Megs said. None of them looked too thrilled at the idea that I was kicking them out, and I was starting to wonder whether things had turned so ugly that I just needed to grab Adren and go.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Adren was braver than I was. "So, it was really terrific to meet you all, but would you mind giving us some privacy, now, please?"

They looked between each other and finally, Johnny nodded. "Of course, Doll. We'll come back and bother you and this lunkhead some other time."

They started to get up, and Morris motioned to Megs, and I let out a breath of relief. Of course, right at that moment, Megs picked up one of the whiskeys on the table and dumped it on Adren. "Sorry, I'm so clumsy. Anyway, have all the privacy you want."

She got up and, between the others' smirks and my look of disbelief, she just sneered and shrugged. Having the good sense to immediately get out of my arms' reach and behind Morris, she offered, looking Adren up and down, "Oh, don't be upset, Oscar. We're just joking around, right? It's such an ugly… shirt, anyway."

At that point, I did just grab Adren and head for the door, not saying a word until we were on the street. "I'm sorry," I began, letting her go.

She frowned down at her shirt, sighing. "It's ruined, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I nodded. After a second, she seemed to realize I wasn't talking about her blouse and frowned at me, but I cut her off. "This can't happen again. You don't belong here."

"It wasn't that bad-" she began.

I shook my head. "You got felt up and had a drink poured on you when I was right there. I know this was your first date, and since you apparently fell out of the damned sky you don't know any better, but this was the definition of a bad date. And it only took a few minutes to get here, with me there! What do you think it's going to be like when I turn my back? When they have more time?"

"Oscar, I don't care. I don't need you to protect me," she said, but conceded after a moment, "Places where it's just you and me do seem to turn out better."

"You shouldn't have to hide," I returned, before nodding as my mind wrapped itself around the conclusion I knew I should've come to a lot earlier. It had to be done. "This, us, is over. No more talking, no more lunch, nothing. We're strangers, do you get me?"

"I don't understand." She gave me a hurt look, but I just locked my jaw in return. "I don't want to be strangers."

Great. Now I got to do the worst thing I'd done in awhile – and for a guy who shakes people down for a job, that had to be pretty bad. "I don't care what you want. Just go home – and I'm not following you, so I'd avoid any alley shortcuts if I were you."

"You're not going to walk me home?" All of that, and she only really looked offended at the idea that I was going to make her leave and walk home alone.

I couldn't believe how naïve this girl was. Reaching out, I grabbed her arm and shook her slightly. "Do I need to jump you myself to get it through your thick head? I'm a bad guy! Those people in there are bad people! Get the hell out of here and stay away before one of us decides not to let you leave!"

"Stop it!" Jerking her arm away, she held a hand over it, staring at me like I was, truly, a stranger. She was silent for a few moments, seeming to mull something over that I couldn't quite read, before finally shaking her head and walking away.

I stood there until she was out of sight. I don't really know why; I knew she wouldn't turn around. I guess I was just expecting her to say something, or… something. I hadn't ever won, with her – apparently, I finally did.

As it turned out, winning sucked.

Getting a hold of myself, I turned and walked back into the bar. Quite a few eyes were on me, now, but for a decidedly different reason as Sam walked up to me and patted my shoulder, smiling. "Did she leave you? Give her a night or two, she'll calm down. We were just having fun. Who wants a girl who can't take a little joking, anyway?"

I slipped my hand in my pocket, sliding on my brass knuckles, and all at once swung around and punched the man right in the jaw. He went down, hard, and suddenly I had the rapt attention of all the nearby patrons. Looking straight at Megs, who had the gall to still be sitting at my booth, I said simply, "Next person in here to joke around with me or mine loses their damned tongue."

As I moved to step over Sam and sit down at the bar to order a drink, for the first time since I'd met Adren, I felt like myself again.

I'd forgotten how awful it felt.