Exclusive Content: "A Long Time Coming" (Patreon)

With Sierra still in the spotlight, we're gonna keep her exclusive content rolling, with this classic tale of what she had to say when Leo Crosswire finally wandered back into her life.

Enjoy!

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“Do you have any idea how long it’s been? Do you?”

“I honestly don’t.”

Sierra was doing all she could not to break into the mini fridge behind the front counter again. She’d already pulled one beer from her private stock and crushed it, but her paws were just itching to grab another one.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, I guess. Leave it up to someone like you who couldn’t even remember his wallet last time…”

“I figured you’d be more upset about the date that I flaked on.”

“You just love digging yourself a grave every time you open your mouth, don’t you?”

Leo Crosswire was standing on the other side of the counter with a sullen look on his face. He didn’t bear Sierra any ill will, and he couldn’t justify getting angry with her for the way her words stabbed at his ears.

He deserved every word that she said, and every barb that struck him.

“I wasn’t exactly expecting a warm reception,” he admitted, as he watched the little firecracker pull another bottle after all. She popped the top angrily and took a drink, as if she needed something in her mouth to keep from interrupting him. “But I know that I don’t deserve one, either. I didn’t come here for that.”

“You know,” she paused, gulping down another swig, “If you’d come back a couple of days later and told me that something went wrong, I would have believed you. I would have been okay with that, even if I wasn’t happy. I was more worried than anything…but you went months without even trying to reach out to me!”

“It was the middle o-

“It was not the middle of tax season! It was the end of summer!”

Lying to her had only caused problems in the past, and Leo was starting to wonder if it was the right time to come clean with her about everything he’d done wrong.

There never seemed to be a right time before then.

“And now it’s early spring, and it seems that someone else has been keeping you warm without my help.”

“A few people have, as a matter of fact,” Sierra admitted. “That’s none of your damn business, really.”

“Aren’t you going to ask how I’d know that?”

“Don’t really know, don’t really care. You’re probably a stalker or something…keeping an eye on everyone that I’ve bedded from a distance. It’s not like I look out the window every time a motorcycle passes by.”

“The fact that you said that leads me to believe that you do.”

“Well, I don’t,” she argued. “You were a good time and all, but it’s not like I’ve been hung up over you.”

Leo snickered. “If you were anymore transparent about how much you missed me, I’d think that you were denying it on purpose. It’s not like you to wear a mask over your emotions.”

“How the hell would you know anything about me?” she demanded of him. “How would you know anything more than what I’m like in bed? That’s all that you needed me for, it was all I needed you for, and we parted ways!”

“We weren’t supposed to part ways, Sierra.”

She slammed the beer down on the counter and narrowed her glare on the undaunted jackal. “Then why did we, Leo? Why did you promise me a nice dinner date and never show? Why did you make me think for even a minute that there might still be an honorable guy out there, much less one that wanted to spend time with me and make me feel special?”

“You…you did a kindness for me that I’ll never be able to fully repay,” Leo admitted. “You shared your personal life with me and bared your soul to me, even if it was just for one night, and…your story was inspiring.”

“Flowery words won’t get you out of this one, pal.”

“I’m not being flowery, Sierra. I’m finally trying to be honest.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and perked one ear to his voice; the other refused to lift from a frustrated dip. “And I’ve given you half a year to do that, so you’d damn well better make it quick, because I don’t have the patience for it anymore, Leo. I just don’t.”

“Sierra…I know it won’t be easy for you; I wouldn’t blame you if it was impossible, but, I need you to trust me when I say that I had a very good reason for going off the grid for a bit, and the further I let you into my personal life, the harder it’ll be for you to get out of it.”

“So you are some kind of stalker,” she taunted him. “Or at least some creep with an obsession.”

“No, I’m a liar.”

“Color me surprised.”

Though he knew he was at fault for not explaining himself sooner, Leo’s patience with Sierra’s constant attitude was wearing thin. “Do you really want the truth, or do you just want to keep taking shots at me while you’ve got an easy target?”

“I think I’m owed some answers at this point,” she argued. “And after what you put me through, it’s not my problem if you can’t handle a little criticism while you finally spill your guts…you act like being an accountant is such a stressful lifestyle that it’s a valid excuse to avoid people!”

“When you’re keeping the books for local mobsters, it is.”

Sierra’s arms shifted, but it was her eyes that rolled. “You rambled on this long just to build up to such a ridiculous lie?”

Leo reached into his back pocket and took out the very wallet that he supposedly forgot on their first meeting. Tossing it on the counter carelessly, Sierra’s eyes widened when she saw wads of hundred dollar bills stuffing the brim. “Why don’t you take out my license and tell me what it says?”

No person in their right mind would go around town carrying that kind of cash in the first place. She couldn’t tell exactly how many bills were there, but it was thick enough that the wallet wouldn’t close properly.

“Mitch…Mitch Vernon?” she held the flimsy plastic up and noticed that the picture was similar, but not exactly the look of the jackal across from her. “Is that your real name, then?”

“My real name is Leo Crosswire. To some people, though, I’m Mitch Vernon. To even more people than that, it really depends on who you ask.”

“You know, with this kind of cash in your pocket, you could have taken me somewhere a lot nicer than the place you mentioned…”

“Glad to see you’ve still got your wits about you. Most people hear that I’m with the mob and leave a trail of dust in the opposite direction.”

“You’re in my shop,” she reminded him. “Not like I’ve got anywhere to go, and no one’s got this place bugged. If you’ve got some other things to get off your chest, this would be the time and place to do it.”

It had been ages since Leo felt safe being honest with someone, and the things he did were sometimes unspeakable…to have this garage as a safe place was like being able to go to confession, but he worried how far Sierra’s moral compass would bend for him before the cops were called.

“Would it suffice for me to say that I’ve done a lot of horrible things in the past few months, and the reason I broke off contact was to keep you safe?”

“It wouldn’t,” she immediately countered. “I’m not letting you anywhere near me again until you tell me who you really are, what you really do, and why you’d decide to come back to me now, instead of sooner…and there had better be a damn good reason for keeping me at a distance all this time.”

“Non-specifically, I didn’t want to see you get killed because you knew me.”

She cocked a brow. “And specifically?”

“That’s…a bit of a story.”

“Shop’s closed for the night,” she told him. “Lock the door behind you, grab a beer, and start talking.”

Leo couldn’t believe that she was giving him a shot at redemption, but he’d come this far, and he didn’t want to blow it; he was quick to lock the front door of the small auto shop, and when he turned back, there was a beer waiting for him, instead of his wallet.

Were the situation a little different, he would have thought it spiked, but that wasn’t the kind of person Sierra seemed to be.

“The night you and I were supposed to have our follow up date, I…I was given something of an ultimatum,” Leo began to explain. “I really was an accountant working a firm in Tucson, but I only got that job because of my connections with the local mobsters. I was struggling to make ends meet and find work, and they noticed I had a penchant for running numbers, so that’s what they made me do; the job at the accounting firm was more of a cover than anything.”

“Well, I can relate to financial hardship, at least. A shame you sacrificed your integrity to make ends meet, though.”

“When I said it was an ultimatum, I wasn’t joking. The mob got me a legitimate job, and I thought that would be the end of it. I didn’t think they’d come knocking the night of our date and put a gun to my head, and I damn sure didn’t think they’d ask me to put that same gun to someone else’s.”

“Leo…”

“It was meant to look like a murder-suicide; I found that out later from the boss. I shoot the guy, they put one in my mouth, and it looks like I killed myself over the guilt of the murder. Instead, the boss makes a last second change of plans, and decides that I’ve got too much skill to just be put in a hole in the ground, so…he lets me live, as his personal accountant and bodyguard. I manage his finances for him when he’s out on the town, and if anyone steps out of line, I put them back on the other side of it. If they don’t go back peacefully, I put them in a dumpster.”

Though she’d only known him for a couple days, Sierra didn’t see Leo as the dishonest type that he painted himself to be.

That fact chilled her to the bone, when she realized that he wasn’t being facetious: he’d actually killed someone before.

“If everything you’re saying is true…if any of this is true, then you couldn’t go to the date because you were busy killing someone.”

“I know it wasn’t fair for me to make that decision. I know I can never undo what I did, but…if I didn’t kill them, I’d never get to see you again. Turns out I was too good at killing people, and as a result, I haven’t gotten to see you since. I couldn’t find the courage to come back to you and tell you what I’d done, and I didn’t want to risk you getting killed because you were seen with me. You…you would have deserved to know the truth before you committed to someone like me.”

“Wait…you were thinking of me when you killed that guy?”

Leo chuckled. “I’m sure that’s creepy for you, but…I wasn’t really worried about my own life, in of itself. I was worried about it ending because…w-well, because it seemed like you really liked me, and I hated to think that you’d be sitting down at the restaurant, all dolled up and waiting patiently me for to arrive, only to be greeted by the cops with a picture of my dead ass, asking you to identify the body…”

“It is creepy…but…I guess your heart was in the right place,” she admitted. “That you were thinking of me in what could have been your last moments is sweet, but it makes me wonder if you loved me, or if you were just obsessed with me.”

“We’d only just met and slept with each other. That’s not enough time to know that we’re in love, Sierra.”

“But you finally came back for me, Leo…”

“And clearly, you’ve been thinking about me the whole time. Perhaps you’re the one with the obsession?”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Like I’m gonna sit here and be lectured by a killer…”

“I still can’t believe you’re able to say that so lightly.”