Other people, maybe, would have been a wee bit afraid of Evelyn. They'd be smart to be. A woman in her position, a woman in the family business, they demand more than a little respect. She sure as hell didn't get to be where she was, who she was, without a healthy dose of blood on her hands.
Then again, same could be said of me.
But see, me? I didn't have the same sense of self-preservation most others have. There was less respect and more genuine like in my smile, in the twinkle in my eye, as I wrapped my hands around her waist and spun her in a hug, landing her back on her feet with a kiss on the cheek and a little wave towards where I figured one of her boys was watching me with a gun trained on my pretty old head. At least, it's one of the three or four places I'd choose for a sniper.
"Like you need to spruce anything," I winked, chancing another kiss, this one not nearly so chaste and much closer to her lips, keeping my arm around her waist. Not so much to cop a feel - though I wouldn't say no! - but as a steadying thing. Wouldn't mention it if my life depended on it, but that didn't mean I couldn't act all gentlemanly.
"I, Evie, am nursing a broken heart." The deceleration came with the appropriate amount of heaviness, free hand over my chest to indicate where I'd been wounded. "Therefore, I need to console myself the best way I know how. Please tell me that you've gotten something new in." A beat and then I grinned, cheeky. "If you're complaining of the quiet, darlin', then I know three or four ways to liven things up."