Tiny Glitches: A Magical Contemporary Romance (6 page)

In turn, I learned Hudson had grown up in Austin, Texas, moved to Santa Barbara for college, was headhunted for a cush electrical engineer position his senior year, and had been in LA ever since. He’d since found a new passion in designing custom high-end security systems for EliteGuard.

I envied how casually he mentioned relocating. Travel for any reason was out of the question for me. Cars couldn’t get me out of LA without breaking down. Trains lasted longer, but I’d never stayed on one more than a half hour, afraid of what would happen if something that large and carrying that many people malfunctioned. Even sailboats had too much electronic navigational equipment to get me to Catalina Island and back. Planes were out of the question.

An enormous boxy black vehicle pulled into the parking lot. There wasn’t a speck of dirt or a smudge of a fingerprint on the entire gleaming surface, and the black-wall tires glistened around silver rims. Hudson stood up, verifying the tank was our ride. I eyed the back end of the Suburban. It looked big enough to fit an elephant, at least a baby one.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me while I drop the guy off?” Hudson asked.

“I’m sure. I don’t want to leave Kyoko alone.”

“Okay. I’ll be back.”

I fervently hoped so. Until I watched him stride away, admiring the view, I hadn’t considered what I would do if he didn’t return.

The shiny black SUV disappeared around a corner, and I turned back to the trailer. Kyoko dozed on her feet, trunk relaxed against the floor of the trailer. I sat back down. The fumes of her excrement had aired out while we were on the freeway, or else I’d become immune.

The sun warmed my skin, and the city sounds soothed my anxiety. It was tempting to turn my brain off, but I forced myself to review my bizarre day. Taking Kyoko to Sofie’s was a temporary fix, and one I wasn’t happy with. I didn’t want to involve my aunt in anything illegal.
I
didn’t want to be involved in anything illegal. But it would give us time to find Jenny—or for Jenny to find me again—and for us to force her to take Kyoko back.

Us
was another topic to ponder. The superficial information Hudson and I had shared made great first-date material, but it didn’t provide much to go on when forming an opinion about a partner in crime. Other than the obvious white-knight broadsword, the apparitions I’d seen had been predictably useless. A sombrero, a pair of well-worn cowboy boots, and a few Monopoly pieces all told me nothing. Maybe Hudson liked Mexican cowboys. Maybe he’d played a lot of Monopoly as a child.

There had been nothing vague about his actions, though. He had a hero complex, he reacted quickly, and he hadn’t flinched or backed down when he had a chance to extricate himself from this bizarre situation. All in all, pretty good qualities. Qualities I would have preferred to admire in a nice social setting, one that didn’t involve crimes, cars, or crazy women.

Oh, yeah, or the pesky blackmail threat that could ruin my life.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I did some thinking on the drive back,” Hudson said, taking a seat next to me on the trailer step and opening a container of Pad Kee Mao I’d set aside for him. When no brilliant solutions to Jenny’s blackmail had surfaced, I’d decided to refuel at the Thai restaurant. My own box of Pad Thai sat empty by my feet. “This smells good. Thanks. How’s Kyoko?”

“Sleeping.”

“She didn’t try to break out and trample you? Chew off an arm?”

“Until you’ve been shackled in there barefoot, you don’t get to laugh.”

“You’ve got to admit it was a teensy bit funny.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “You were about to prove you’re more than just a pretty face,” I prompted.

Hudson grinned. “Okay, here’s a puzzle for you: How do we get Kyoko into the Suburban?”

I stared at the thigh-high back bumper of the Suburban, then down at the trailer, whose floor stood a foot and a half off the ground. A dog could make the jump easily, but not a stumpy-legged baby elephant.

“Well, crap.” I glanced around, looking for inspiration. No convenient loading dock, no steel-enforced plywood we could fashion into a ramp, no wheelchair lift.

“Exactly,” Hudson agreed around a mouthful of food.

We brainstormed while he ate and came up with nothing.

“Where’s a weightlifter when you need one,” I joked, walking back from the trashcan.

“You know . . .” Hudson jumped up onto the step and peered at Kyoko. He turned to look at me over his shoulder. “That’s not a bad idea. She can’t weigh that much, right?”

“More than I can lift.” She had to weigh at least twice as much as Hudson. “More than I can lift even half of, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No. Even if she played along and didn’t struggle, that would be too much for the two of us. But if we had help . . .”

“You have weightlifter friends in the area?”

“Not a single one. But I have cash.”

Hudson’s idea turned out to be two parts of horrible. First, he wanted to pay the gangster-looking guys loitering around the tattoo shop to assist us. Second, he wanted me to enlist their help.

“Men are much more likely to assist a woman than they are a man,” he explained.

“Or maybe that’s just you.”

“Trust me. You walk in there and ask them for help and they won’t even need a cash incentive.”

“And the fact that there will be a whole bunch of witnesses to us carting off an elephant?”

“That’s where the money will come in.”

“Just like that. I walk in and ask for some help.”

“Unless you’re afraid to.”

I shot Hudson a look over the top of my sunglasses. He could have played the you-got-us-into-this-mess-you-deal-with-it angle, but he hadn’t. He’d pricked my pride instead. I smiled and tossed my bag into the Suburban. I pulled my hair free of its ponytail and finger combed it while checking myself in the side mirror. A quick reapplication of lip gloss, and I was ready.

The front window of the tattoo parlor mirrored the sun’s glare, disguising the interior. Through the propped-open door, the bass of rap music pulsed beneath a mechanical whine I’d not heard outside a dentist’s office. I could see two Hispanic guys through the doorway, both dressed in baggy jeans and work boots. One had a tank top under an open plaid shirt, and his long hair was pulled back in a tight, low ponytail. Tattoos covered his chest, arms, and shins, and I didn’t guess about the areas in between. The other was younger, had a colorful sleeve that looked like a
Día de los Muertos
tribute, and wore a black ski mask apparition. Like the straitjacket I’d seen on Jenny, the ski mask didn’t need sophisticated interpretive skills.

I took a deep breath and put some sway in my hips. My hair floated around my shoulders in scarlet waves, my own personal neon sign to attract attention when I worked it right, and I was working it. I sauntered through the open door and settled my glasses atop my head. Conversation stopped.

Two other men lounged in the dilapidated waiting room. The one seated near the register was the leader. He had direct line of sight on the door—always a power position, as any good feng shui consultant will tell you. He was Asian, his hair short and spiky and dyed blue on the tips. Colorful tattoos swirled underneath his thin white T-shirt, peeking through the V-neck and flowing down both arms to his wrists. A bright blue apron appeared with the words
Kiss the Chef
embroidered in black. I hadn’t a clue what that meant, but it helped me relax enough to notice he was a few years younger than me and had a good jawline and sharp, tilted eyes. Definitely the most handsome man in the room. Or maybe it was his attire; I was a sucker for a man in jeans and a white T-shirt.

The final man was Samoan, big, and wearing a basketball jersey. His tattoos were black and tribal. Handsome in a giant sort of way, his arm muscles made the leader’s look like spaghetti. Perfect. His pink-feathered princess tiara was a bonus.

“Please tell me you came in to get sleeves,” the leader said. He strode over to me, hand extended. “I’m Mark Kim.” I reached to shake hands, but he lifted my hand out in front of me, turning it back and forth as he examined my arm. “Luminescent. Flawless. The art I could ink on you, girl. Are you Canadian? Icelandic?”

“LA born and raised. This is the power of sunscreen.” Vats and vats of it.

“A redhead without freckles. That’s rare.”

“It’s a family blessing,” I said. “But I’m not here for a tattoo.”

“Are you sure? What about a half sleeve? Maybe a little something on your shoulder blade?” His eyes scanned down my body to my bare legs. “A little ankle adornment?”

I shook my head, smiling, and freed myself. He let me go easily and stepped back.

“I’d know if you were here for a homeboy,” he said.

“You can be here for me, baby,” Ski Mask said, shifting his belt buckle suggestively.

“Hmm. How much can you bench?”

“One fifty,” he answered with a swagger.

“Kind of a lightweight, aren’t you?”

“Oooh, snap,” the older man beside him said. Ski Mask glared at the laughing men.

“But still stronger than me,” I acknowledged. “And I’ve got a little problem that needs more muscle than I have.”

It took surprisingly little to convince the men to follow me back to the trailer. I introduced Hudson as Tim and myself as April, something Hudson and I had agreed upon as a precaution.

“We need your help lifting a little cargo from the trailer to the Suburban,” I said.

Mark shot me a sharp glance.

“Cargo?”

I gestured to the trailer. The men jumped onto the running board on either side of the wheels and peered inside. The trailer tilted alarmingly. Kyoko bugled.

“Holy shit! It’s an elephant!” was the general sentiment.

“It needs to be an elephant in a Suburban,” I said once they’d gotten over their shock and Kyoko had snuffled all their hands with her trunk.

“Dude, where did you get an elephant?” Plaid Shirt asked.

“Trade secret,” I said. Hudson shrugged.

“That’s not legal. I know that’s not legal,” the Samoan said.

“It flirts with the law a little,” I conceded.

The big guy grinned at me.

Hudson backed the Suburban up to the trailer and I swung the trailer’s door wide, tossing some carrots Hudson had purchased to the front of the trailer to distract Kyoko while we prepped. Mark popped the Suburban’s hatch open. Since the hatch didn’t clear the top of the trailer, we had to leave a three-foot gap between the trailer and the SUV. More than enough room for Kyoko to escape through. I pulled the trailer door flush with the Suburban to barricade my side, and the men did a pretty good job blocking the other side.

“What’s that smell?” the Samoan asked.

I pointed to the pile.

“This is a fine ride,” Mark said, running his fingers lightly over the Suburban’s glossy paint. He peered into the pristine carpeted back. Hudson had lowered the back set of seats, and even the exposed cracks were lint-free. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Positive.”

The men clustered around, rubbing chins and swinging their gazes from Kyoko to the Suburban and back.

“Whatever you do, don’t let her escape,” I said. I had a horrifying vision of Kyoko galloping off into traffic. Not only would that botch my agreement with Jenny and give her ample reason to follow through on her threat, but it would also endanger Kyoko. Blackmail or no blackmail, no animals were getting hurt on my watch.

I pulled a carrot from my pocket and stepped into the trailer. Kyoko finished the few I’d thrown in and eyed the open door. I skirted the offensive pile and looked up in time to see Kyoko trotting toward the opening. She barreled straight past my outspread arms and the offered carrot and tipped off the end of the trailer to the asphalt. It wasn’t graceful, and she had to catch herself with her trunk, but the moment she recovered, she swung toward the nearest man, Mark, and jabbed her trunk straight into his crotch. He squeaked and doubled over, falling back a step. The big Samoan beside him shimmied to the side.

“Whoa there, Kyoko,” Hudson said, stepping into the gap. “You okay, man?” he asked Mark over his shoulder.

The blue-haired man groaned through clenched teeth and nodded, clutching his crotch protectively.

“Okay, you step around her and get the other side,” Hudson instructed the Samoan.

“No way. You didn’t tell me it was a pervy elephant.”

“She’s not pervy,” I said. “That was an accident.”

“You afraid of a baby elephant?” Ski Mask taunted. He stepped to my side of the small opening. Of the four men, he was the one I wanted near me the least, but I held my ground. Kyoko prodded his calf, then ran her trunk up the inside of his leg. He jumped back just in time. “Shit, man. She
is
pervy!”

I sidestepped him and offered Kyoko a carrot, but she was more intrigued by the newcomers. Plaid Shirt scuttled backward when she reached for him. Kyoko followed. The Samoan, in his haste to avoid being felt up, hemmed Hudson against the trailer. Kyoko spied the open parking lot and freedom, and the men were forgotten. I lunged for Kyoko and grabbed her around the neck. The elephant dragged me two feet before she stopped, and then only because Hudson pushed in front of her.