Authors: Julia Swift
T
he next day at work
, I can’t fight the bounce that sneaks into my step. I feel like I’m floating around the diner on air. Even Rick, the grumpiest of our managers, can’t harsh my buzz when he asks what the fuck I keep smiling about. I just grin and tell him it’s my lucky week.
He rolls his eyes and mutters something about crazy girls as he stomps off to bark orders at the kitchen staff. Even that can’t burst my cloud.
I’m too busy reliving the night in lengthy detail, savoring the deep ache between my legs with every step that I take, like I can still feel the thick length of Gage’s cock buried to the hilt inside me as he fucked me against his studio wall, the mirror rocking on the wall beside us as I wrapped my legs around his waist and—
“What’s gotten into you?” Becca, the coffee counter girl, asks, startling me into awareness again. It takes me a few blinks staring at her before I realize she’s holding the round of lattes I asked her to prepare for a table full of hungover teenagers.
“Just had a good night,” I answer her, unable to wipe the stupid smile away.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Mr. Tall Blonde and Gropey from the other night, would it?”
I immediately turn bright red. Crap. I forgot she saw me that night—hell, half the diner staff saw me, and the ones who didn’t probably already heard it from the ones who did. Nothing stays secret in this diner for long. “Um . . . ”
“Shit, girl. It does.” She chews on her bottom lip. “Like a hookup, or . . . ?”
“Well, we did hook up.” My cheeks continue to blaze bright red. “But, y’know, he asked me out again already.”
Another memory flashes in my mind. Our long, long kiss goodbye this morning, after he dropped me off at the steps to my apartment. It took me three tries just to climb out of his truck, because our hands kept finding one another’s bodies again, his squeezing my hip or wandering along my chest, as our mouths locked into another slow exploration. And then, just before I finally tore myself away, because I knew if I didn’t I’d never be able to leave, the way he’d caught my eye and smiled. “Dinner again tomorrow?”
My heart had almost flown straight out of my chest. For some reason, until that moment, I’d been half holding my breath. I enjoyed myself with him, that’s for damn sure, but I still assumed he was treating it like a hookup. One night and done. I’d been trying to force myself not to picture anything more, not to hope for anything beyond that single night.
“I think it could maybe be something,” I admit, in that breathless voice that I’ve only ever heard other people use when they describe a new love interest. I’ve never heard myself talk like this before.
I’ve never dared to hope it might be possible before.
I’m not sure what reaction I expected from Becca, exactly. Not happiness for me, most likely, since none of my coworkers particularly give two shits about me unless they’re badgering me to cover one of their shifts. But maybe at least a wink and a suggestive joke, or for her to bug me for details that she could share with the other gossips who work here.
At any rate, I didn’t expect the worried, almost pitying stare she’s giving me now.
“What?” I ask, because the long silence that stretches between us is getting weird.
“Well, it’s just . . . ” Becca tugs at a stray curl that dangles across her eye, then shoves it behind her ear in a whip-fast motion. “It’s just, are you sure he’s, you know, serious about a second date?”
I blink at her a few times. “Sounded like he meant it. I mean, if he’d just wanted a one-night thing, he could’ve said so. He could’ve just not asked me out.”
“Right, sure. Yeah.” But Becca continues to chew on her lip, even as she turns away from me to start working on the next order she’s putting together. I stand there with my tray of drinks, aware that the lattes are cooling and the customers waiting for them will start to get impatient soon. I can’t quite make myself let this go, though.
“Becca, what?” I repeat.
Her shoulders tense. She speaks again, this time with her back to me. Probably so she doesn’t have to watch my face when she delivers this body-blow. “It’s just, he’s really good-looking. And suave and . . . I don’t know, he seems like maybe one of those types. The . . . not-serious types.”
I laugh a little. “What, he seems not-serious just ’cause he’s hot?”
“Well, have you wondered why he . . . why he asked you out?” She still has her back to me.
That’s good, because I don’t particularly want her to see my face right now either. Suddenly I’m fucking pissed. “Why, because no hot guy could possibly want to date a cow like me?” I reply, my voice low and sharp.
“No, Sloan, that’s not what I—”
“Oh I get what you’re trying to say, Becca. Don’t worry. Message received.” I snatch up my drink tray at last and storm across the diner, practically flinging the drinks at the customers, both of whom glare at me when I slam the mugs and creamers in front of them.
How dare she?
one part of my brain screams. Just because she starves herself bony and wears ten pounds of makeup to hide her acne-prone skin and make her lips seem halfway plump, she thinks she has the right to tell me no good-looking men could ever possibly show an interest in me?
And yet, at the same time, there’s another side to my internal brain-battle. There’s another voice in there whispering,
Maybe she’s right
. There’s a tiny part of me that’s been asking that same question all along:
What could he possibly see in me, this boring overweight waitress in a run-down diner in a dying city?
The fact that some small part of me agrees with Becca makes me even angrier. It also stabs a pin straight into that bubble of happiness I’d been carrying around all day, buoying myself aloft with.
In the end, there’s no way to know yet what Gage wants, whether he’s actually going to show for our second date, whether he likes me for anything more than a quick fuck, or if he’s just using me for that, or for something else, who knows what.
The thought of never seeing him again, of not getting to explore this connection we’ve found, makes my intestines knot themselves around my stomach.
I want this to be real. But is that the problem? Do I want this so badly that I’m imagining a connection where one will never be possible?
A
fter I dropped
Sloan at her apartment this morning, I circled around the block to the nearest coffee shop, wasted an hour there downing black coffees (because to be honest, I hadn’t really gotten too much sleep last night—not that I’m complaining), and then swung by my place again to pick up the supplies I’d need.
I’m not proud of what I have to do next. I’m not happy about sitting in the driveway a few doors down from Sloan’s parking lot to watch in the rearview as she climbed into her car to leave for work.
Well, okay, I enjoy the watching her climb into the car part.
But it’s not like I want to then creep back over to her door, pick the lock, and tiptoe up the staircase past the neighbors to the entrance to Sloan’s apartment. The whole time, I try to imagine that I’m with her. That she’s leading me up these stairs by the hand, her delicious ass swaying just inches from my face, daring me to lean up and sneak a bite before we reach her doorway.
I imagine, when I pick the lock and the door swings inward, that instead she’s pushing it open eagerly, pulling me inside, where I don’t even wait for her to shut it before I grab her face in both hands and press my lips to hers, crushing her body against mine, her soft curves making my cock harden almost instantly.
I wish that instead of me softly shutting the door behind me and studying the ceiling for cracks, for fan fixtures, for easy hidden areas, I was lying her down on that long green sofa and fucking her until she screamed my name.
Instead, I drag that sofa to the center of the room and balance on it, unsteadily, as I fix one of the three small cameras I’ve brought with me into one of the blades.
I’ll need this surveillance footage after I leave her the clues I plan to drop about her brother. Hopefully she’ll either bring him over here for a serious heart-to-heart, or she’ll call him from here and I can hear at least half of the conversation.
Either way, I need more information about Frederick Casey and I need it fast. Otherwise Aaron will hang me out to dry.
When I move the couch back into place, my eyes wandering across the paintings she’s hung on her walls—simple, beautiful photographs of places I recognize, like the beach after the last hurricane that hit, and a photo of the interior of one of the casinos, shot in black-and-white film, while some sort of costume event was happening, in a way that makes the whole casino seem classy and beautiful, like a still-frame from a 1950s noir movie instead of a den of assholes like me—my chest clenches even tighter.
I ignore the rest of the room, feeling like if I have to watch this place, the least I can do is give Sloan’s personal possessions some privacy, and I make a beeline for the kitchen. Planting the camera there is easy—it blends in with the exhaust fan above her stove, which is clearly out-of-order and probably hasn’t been turned on in a decade.
In her bedroom, I have another flash, this time seeing the two of us sprawled across this queen-size bed, sliding across the white satin sheets she has spread on it, visible because the comforter is crumpled on the floor. She’s got what looks like half her wardrobe piled on a chair in the corner or scattered across the bed, and somehow the mess makes me like her better, because real women let their hair down and their apartments go messy sometimes.
I can picture my head between her legs as she straddles that office chair. I can see her lying spread-eagle on the bed, hands and ankles bound at the corners, bared for me to savor. I can see her kneeling beside the bed, sucking me into that perfect mouth of hers while I grip the headboard with white knuckles.
I ignore the raging hard-on I’ve got going on and knock a few clothes off the chair, dragging it over to the top of the closet where a small crack in the wall (water damage, thanks a lot landlord) gives me just enough space to wedge in the final camera.
My stomach churns. I have never felt this way during a job before.
I’ve hated myself, yes. Thought the worst of me. Known I’m doomed to a shitty future because of all the fucked up jobs I’ve pulled for Aaron in the past. I’ve always known that if I’m ever caught doing one of these jobs, if I’m ever arrested or shot or worse, I’ll deserve every ounce of pain and punishment I get.
But I’ve never felt bad about the people I’ve had to target before. They’ve always been people like Fred Casey. Gamblers, addicts, losers, con artists. Men like Aaron himself, or women like the hookers he hires to suck him off.
Never a woman like this. Never a person like Sloan.
Fucking hell. I creep out of the apartment again, depositing the final piece to this elaborate puzzle into her mailbox as I leave, making sure to lock the door behind me as I go.
I keep worrying that she’ll find out what I’m doing. That she’ll learn how I’ve betrayed her, how I’ve been betraying her since before we even met. I worry about how I’ll never be able to make it work if she discovers this secret, if she learns the kind of work I’ve done for Aaron in the past, the things I’m still doing for him now, and to her, of all people.
But maybe that’s the problem. I don’t deserve a happily ever after.
I don’t deserve her forgiveness.
R
ain-check on movie night
?
I text Freddie as I leave the diner. Tonight’s my early shift, over by ten. We have time to catch a midnight showing of something if we hurry, though it won’t be at the Tuesday prices, so maybe he won’t be interested.
Or we could just watch a rerun at my place or something,
I add, in case money’s the reason he was angsting the other day.
Guilt settles into my veins. Something was bugging Freddie days ago, and I’ve barely spoken to him at all since then, except to answer his
How’d the date go?
text with a smiley face, which prompted a
Gross, I’m your brother, TMI
reply.
I’ve been so caught up in Gage—in the emotions he brings out of me, and in my newfound fear that I’ll never experience those again, that he won’t want to see me again—that I didn’t even think about my sibling.
I spend the whole drive home from the diner forcing thoughts of Gage out and ideas to cheer up Freddie in. Maybe we can order pizza from his favorite spot tonight and watch that shitty zombie remake movie he’s been bugging me to watch since last year, which I refused to see on principle because the original version was so good.
I’m feeling optimistic by the time I wrestle the fistful of mail from my box and climb the steps home. That is, until I shove open my door, dump the mail onto the table, and notice the letter on top of the pile.
It’s addressed to Freddie, which in and of itself isn’t all that unusual. He’s used my address before, when he’s been between apartments, or the one time when he decided he wanted to try living in this weird co-op building that required its residents to share literally everything, from personal income to diets. Thankfully he moved out of that place pretty quick, but he still thought it prudent to put my address as his so if anything too private turned up, his ten roommates wouldn’t all feel free to read it.
Aside from the one time his Playboy accidentally showed up here and I told him he needed to cancel that shit or at least not admit to his sister that he subscribed to that crap, there’s never been anything really embarrassing or weird that’s come through.
This, however . . . I stare at the envelope, which is torn in one corner, the weather-beaten letter inside already half-exposed to the world anyway. But mostly I stare at the return address. At the big bold logo of the Bayonne Casino, the newest establishment in town.
The only establishment, due to that newness, where my brother wouldn’t already have his photograph hung in a prominent place with a “Do Not Admit” sign beside it, after he racked up both debts and a reputation for drunken bar-fights alike at all the rest of the regular spots.
It can’t be about him
, I tell myself.
It has to be some kind of general ad. One of those spam letter things that new business mail to everyone in a twenty-mile radius when they open up.
That’s all.
But the letter peeks out from the torn corner, tantalizing, and I can’t help seeing the first few words of it.
Dear Mr. Casey,
In reference to your debts accrued . . .
Bayonne has only been open for six months. As far as I know, Freddie hasn’t been anywhere near a casino in four years. If he’s got debts at this place, that means he’s off the wagon.
Worse, it means that maybe the only reason he ever got himself to stay on the wagon has been because none of the casinos in this city will accept his business. It’s easy not to drink when the bars refuse to serve you.
The envelope quivers in my fingers. I take a deep breath, grimace, and then tear the envelope the rest of the way open.
I have to know. I have to say something, if this is what it looks like.
The letter inside reads like something straight out of my worst nightmare. $200,000 in back debts, with an interest rate that makes his previous fuck-ups look like a kindergartener run amok at the craps table.
I drop the envelope on the counter and stumble sideways onto the couch, too tired to keep looking at it, too beaten by the weight of this realization to stand up anymore. All I can think about is how hard this all was five years ago. The drinking, the money loss, the struggle, the debt we’ve only just now barely clawed ourselves to the top of, or if not the top, at least a place where I can see an end to this tunnel.
And now we’re back at the bottom of the hole again, indebted to yet another multi-billion-dollar corporation that gives not one single fuck about anyone like my brother. Or anyone like me, yoked to someone who can’t help fucking up at every given opportunity.
I bury my face in my hands. I don’t cry. I learned a long time ago that crying won’t do jack shit, even if it does feel good for a moment.
Finally, after a long, long pause of counting my breaths, in and out, slow as can be, I pick up my phone.
Freddie still hasn’t replied to my last text about movie night. All thoughts of worrying about what was bothering him the other day have fled my mind now, because the answer to that is obvious. It’s sitting right there on my kitchen counter, in an envelope that makes me want to scream with rage.
Come over. Now,
I text him.
It’s an emergency.
Because it is. Because this time, I’m not bailing him out again.
This time my twin has finally gone too far.