by Monroe, Evie
“Yeah? Are you really sure, Jojo?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s blow this joint.”
I reached over to hug him, ruffling his hair like I used to when he was little. He groaned and protested, but I could tell he was happy, too.
When I sat up and I saw the mess of my apartment, the shit became real. I had to make lists, make a plan. Figure out everything I’d need to do before we went into hiding. I’d have to give notice at work. Ask Barb if she could watch the animals. Sell all the furniture. Hell on wheels, actually, for the next couple months. But so easy, really, I thought, compared to the horror waiting for us if we didn’t go.
I felt like I could breathe easier now. Even Jojo, smiling for the first time in days, seemed as if a big weight had lifted off of him.
This would be great. It was the right decision. The only decision.
Hart would get over it. Me? I didn’t think I’d ever forget him. Already he’d etched a place inside me no other man ever had. But I’d have to move on. For Jojo.
As I started to get up, Jojo’s phone buzzed in his pocket. I checked the time on my phone. Who the hell was calling him after eleven thirty?
When he checked his screen and his face turned pale with dread, I knew. “Who is it?” I asked as he stared at the display. “That Scar character?”
He nodded.
“Don’t answer!” I warned him. “You don’t have to answer.”
“I do. If I don’t, they’ll come after us,” he said, swallowing so hard, his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He lifted the phone to his ear as I cringed. “Yeah?”
His voice sounded tough, but his other hand was shaking in his lap. I tried to grab it but he tensed and got up to pace as listened to a voice so loud, I could hear it roaring through the phone, though I couldn’t make out the individual words.
“Yeah,” he said after a minute. “I’ll be there.”
My stomach dropped down to my feet. Fuck.
He ended the call and threw his phone down on the coffee table as if it were crawling with bugs. “Fuck,” he muttered, staring at the phone with contempt. He echoed my thoughts.
“They want you to meet them?” I asked.
He threw up his hands, his version of a disgusted yes.
“But you were just with them.”
“They’re testing me. To see how high I’ll jump and how far.”
“And so you have to go,” I said. I didn’t see any way out of it. Until we left town, he needed to do exactly what they said.
He looked up at me with pleading eyes, every bit that little boy who used to beg to go with me whenever the system would separate us into different foster homes. I still had to be the strong one, so I held back the tears.
“You’ll be all right. Okay, Jojo?” This time he didn’t object to the nickname. “Just do what they say, and in another week, another couple of days, you won’t have to answer to them anymore. Trust me, Jojo. I promise you; it’ll be okay.”
I’d never lied to him before. When he’d go to another foster family who didn’t want siblings, I always told him I’d come back to get him. And I fulfilled that promise. I was determined to deliver on this one, too. He must have been thinking that, too, because in the next few seconds, he drew in a breath and his face transformed. He stuck out his chin. “Yeah. All right.”
He got up, pocketed his phone, and said, “I’ll see you in a while, Char.”
“Text me if you need me, okay?”
He gave me a brave thumbs up. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the night.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hart
I noticed Jojo’s bike parked outside the apartment complex as I left Charlie there. Good. The kid was home. All was well.
But for how long?
I pulled off at a gas station to fill up, and texted Cullen: Need to talk.
When I replaced the gas nozzle, I checked my phone, and he’d already responded. Come over. I’m home.
I jumped on my bike and headed toward the ocean, where Cullen lived in his multi-million dollar mansion. I pulled into his long driveway, climbed the stairs, and rang the doorbell. A moment later, Grace answered, giving me the stink-eye through a mess of blonde hair.
“Sorry. Were you sleeping?” I asked her.
“No, but Ella is.” She paused to listen for a moment. I heard the faint sound of a baby crying.
“Or was,” she said arching her neck. “Didn’t Cullen tell you not to ring the doorbell?”
I shook my head as she pushed the door open, let me inside, then rolled her eyes.
Before she jogged up the sweeping foyer staircase, she said, “Figures. Sorry I can’t be more hospitable, Hart, but I’m surviving on three hours of sleep a night. Ella might be an alien. I swear, she sleeps less than an hour a day.”
“That sucks. You should get Cullen to do some of the heavy lifting.”
“He does. But Ella drives us both insane.” She reached the top of the landing and motioned down the hall. “He’s in the theater.”
I thanked her and headed down the massive marbled foyer to a narrower hallway decorated with electric guitars that Cullen’s father, a famous rock guitarist, had played. Just this tiny section of the house was priceless. Cullen lived a bit of a charmed life in this rock-star home of his.
I saw the back of Cullen’s head in the middle of the theater when I came to the open double doors, his feet up on the seat back in front of him. I couldn’t place the movie on the screen that had his rapt attention. Some gangster flick, like one of the Godfathers.
“Hey,” I said, climbing down the stairs and slipping into the row next to him. He was chewing noisily on what smelled like chewing tobacco.
He grabbed a remote and shut the movie off. “What’s up?” he said, checking his phone. “It’s late, dude. Didn’t expect company. You want a . . .”
He looked around and threw up his hands.
“Fuck. I just finished the last beer. Sorry I don’t have anything to offer you.” He pulled out a packet of Nicotine gum. “You probably don’t want this shit. I promised Grace I’d quit smoking for Ella. But I swear this is a fate worse than death.”
I shook my head. I had more pressing things on my mind than filling my stomach. “I’m good.”
“Everything okay?”
“You know, I have no idea. I’ve been thinking about the kid.”
“The kid,” he repeated, his eyes narrowing. “You mean Joel? Don’t tell me he’s turning on us.”
“No. The opposite. He’s loyal to us.”
“That sounds good. So what’s the problem?”
“What do you think is the problem? The Fury. They’ll fuck him up if he turns on them.”
Cullen punched out another piece of gum and stuck it in his mouth, crunching on it. “You think he wants to be one of us?”
“Yeah. That’s what he said.”
“You really think he’s Cobras material?”
I wasn’t sure about that. I thought that maybe he could be, if he didn’t have Charlie helicoptering over him. But the thing was, having Charlie looking out for him wasn’t a bad thing. She cared. Which meant he had a lot more than most of us Cobras had. A lot of us got into the club because we had no one else to count on.
I sure as hell did.
I rubbed the back of my neck and said, “That, I don’t know. But I know he wants out of the Fury, and we’re going to need to protect him and his sister from them once he makes that move.”
“That’s for sure. That, we can do. But . . . what about this sister of his?”
“Charlie. She’s older. They’ve been on their own for a long time, so she’s been looking out for him since they were kids. She’s cool.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So cool that you’re fucking her?”
I shrugged. “I guess you could say we’ve been seeing each other.”
“All right, all right,” he said with a knowing laugh. “As long as your head’s in the game, it’s not a probl
em. I just don’t want this kid fucking us over because you’ve been blinded by pussy.”
“No. It’s not like that. I can tell the kid doesn’t want any part of the Fury. The closer he got, the more he wanted to get away. And when I asked him about it, he told me he wanted out, and wants in with us.”
“All right. All right.” He rubbed his jaw, thinking. “Probably can’t make that happen right away. It’s too dangerous.”
“Yeah. I propose we have the two of them lay low for now, and when the Fury move on, then he can join us. Kind of like what Zain did.”
Cullen nodded. “Well, if the Fury’s as much of a shit show as your boy seems to think, we shouldn’t have much trouble taking them out and making it safe for your two friends to show their faces again.”
“Sounds good.”
“Then we’ll have church tomorrow and put it to a vote what we want to do with him and see how soon we can make it happen. This girl of yours . . .”
“Charlie.”
“Yeah. Charlie. Is she good with going into hiding under our protection for a little while? She’s not going to put up a fight?”
“No. She knows what she’s up against.”
“Good. All right. I’ll text everyone about church tomorrow.”
He stood up, and I shook his hand. “Thanks, man.”
As I was heading out, Grace came down the stairs with a sleeping Ella on her shoulder. “Have a good night,” she whispered to me. I wished her one as well, and she closed the door behind me.
On my way back to my bike my phone started to buzz. “That’s strange,” I muttered. Why was Joel calling this late? From what I’d seen in the parking lot, he should have been at home with Charlie. “Hey,” I said when I answered. “Everything okay?”
“Not really. The Fury just called me in,” he said.
I realized I hadn’t been looking too closely at his messages lately. In fact, I hadn’t looked at his phone once all day. The result of his hot, fucking sister. If Cullen had known, he’d probably have reamed my ass, knowing I was supposed to be the one keeping tabs on him. I trusted Joel, but I’d been fucked by people I trusted before.
I’d have to do better.
What the fuck were the Fury motherfuckers doing to this kid? They’d just had him on a string, earlier in the day. They were definitely mind-fucking him, the assholes. It was a wonder anyone wanted to wear their patch.
“All right. Just go with the flow, man. Act natural, and nothing bad will happen, okay?”
It was more than I could do. I didn’t think I could have put myself in a room with those dickwads, knowing what total fuckheads they were, and not want to punch every last one of them in the throat.
“Yeah,” he said, but his voice sounded weak, like his resolve was crumbling. “I was wondering . . . my sister was freaking out when I left her. Could you go and . . .?”
“Sure,” I said. I’d decided to go over there, anyway, the moment he said the Fury had called him in again. “Don’t worry about her. Leave her to me.”
“Thanks. I’m just worried about her being home. Alone.”
“Tell you what, I’ll pick her up and bring her back to my place. No one will think to fuck with her there. All right?”
“Yeah. Okay. That’s good. Thanks, Hart.”
“No problem. Just text me when you can. And be careful.”
I ended the call and revved my bike, gunning it toward Charlie’s apartment. It was nearly midnight. I thought she might be asleep, but when I got there, I spotted a light in the window. When I climbed the stairs, someone’s shadow move behind the blinds.
I used my manners and knocked softly on the door so I wouldn’t disturb the neighbors.
The sound of barking erupted from inside.
She answered a split second later. “You ought to be careful who you open the door for,” I said jokingly. Or maybe not.
She fisted one hand on her hip and pointed at the peephole with the other. “Why are you here?”
I stepped back, in part from the shot of her cold greeting and in part to take her in. Since our crazy hot minute in the park, she had changed into boxers and a camisole so sheer I could see her nipples through the fabric. A big, shapeless cardigan and big socks. She’d piled her hair on her head casual like so strands fell around her neck, and she rocked ridiculous horn-rimmed glasses I’d never seen before, kind of like Harry Potter. She looked like a nerd. A fucking hot wet dream of a nerd.
“You’re coming with me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Why?”
“Because Joel called me and told me where he was headed and asked me to take care of you.”
She smirked. “You think I need you to take care of me?”
I smirked back. “I think you’d rather I take care of you, than you do it alone.”
She motioned me inside. “Come in before the animals get out.”
She closed the door behind me. The animals started to get riled, attacking my ankles for a chance to get petted. I leaned down and let them smell my hands, then offered a few strokes.
“I knew you didn’t hate animals,” she said with a note of triumph in her voice.
I straightened, ignoring the fluffy little thing leaning into me, wanting more of my attention. “Hate’s a strong word. But I don’t like them, either.”
She closed the door and crossed her arms over her chest. “Where are we going?”
“My place.”
“On your death trap?”
I nodded. “You can have my helmet. It’s only a short drive.”
The sly, teasing smirk disappeared and a wrinkle appeared on her forehead. “But what about Jojo? What if he comes back?”
“I told him to text me and let me know what’s up.”
She looked around. “Let me change and get some things first.”
I took her hand. “You’re fine like that. I like the getup.”
She looked down at herself, and her glasses slipped from the bridge of her nose. Going to push them back up, she realized she was wearing them and quickly yanked them off.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
“Reading glasses,” she said, motioning to the massive open book tented on the coffee table. The Stand by Stephen King. “I couldn’t sleep. I never can when Jojo’s out.”
I lifted the book. “You ever read this before?”
She shook her head.
“It’s one of his best,” I told her, setting it down.
“I didn’t realize you were a reader.”
I shrugged. “I’m more into non-fiction.”
She took the book from my hands and said, “One minute. Let me just pack some things for tomorrow, okay?”
She put the book back on the table and I waved her goodbye. As she headed for her bedroom, I walked around the living room with a parade of animals at my feet, really getting a chance to take in my surroundings, the shabby furniture, mostly second-hand thrift store shit. Like the coffee table made out of a slab of wood, standing on two milk crates.
But out of everything in the cramped living room, the photographs grabbed my attention more than anything else. She had dozens of them on the walls, all from different times of her life, but the one similarity? They all contained just her and Joel. Never anyone else. Even the pictures of her as a young girl, probably no more than twelve or thirteen years old. Like she was making a statement: the two of them against the world.
She’d said as much. She hadn’t given me details about herself, but she’d said that Joel hadn’t had the easiest life, and she’d been watching over him since she was young.
A second later, as I was looking at a picture of the two of them in front of the roller coaster in Santa Cruz, I saw her face reflected in the glass, behind me. “That was a long time ago,” she said softly.
“You look happy.”
She gnawed on her lip. “I was. The only problem is that happiness doesn’t last.”
“It’s not something that just happens,” I said
, surprising myself at the words of wisdom coming out of my mouth. “It’s something you make. Something you choose.”
She let me know her opinion with the scoffing sound that flew out of her mouth. “Yeah. Right. Tell it to that girl right there. Last real smile I remember. Fifteen years old and about to be raped by her foster father every night for a month.”
I just stared at her. Well, now the mystery surrounding my sweet, hot Charlie had been blown wide open. “Jesus,” I breathed.
As if she hadn’t said anything, she leaned down and picked up one of her mutts, stroking it on its fuzzy black head. “Bye Bert. Bye Ernie. Opie. Mags.”
She blew them all kisses, slung a backpack over her shoulder, and strode to the door.
I hadn’t moved.
She looked back expectantly at me; her face was devoid of any emotion. “Don’t tell Jojo. He doesn’t know.”
So she was keeping things from her brother, while trying to raise him right. “What else doesn’t he know?”
She didn’t answer. She just stared at me, like, Can we go now?
I followed her out to my bike, slipped the helmet on her, and adjusted it so it didn’t fall over her eyes. The strap was loose, but it’d do for the ride. I didn’t live more than a mile away. “Climb on,” I said, still not sure what to say about her revelation. “And just hold onto me tight.”
She did, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist as I gunned the motor and we took off toward my place. I felt her thighs squeezing me, her tits pressed up against my back, her face buried in my shoulder blades. “You okay?” I asked over my shoulder as we pulled up to a red light.
“Yes,” came the soft reply.
“You can relax a little, baby. Any tighter and I won’t be able to breathe.”
“Oh. Sorry.” She loosened her grip on me and we made it the rest of the way without any more of her death grips.
“Here we are,” I said when I pulled into a parking space.
She looked up. I think she may have had her eyes closed. “Oh, thank God. That was . . . frightening beyond all belief.”
I couldn’t help laughing. I got the feeling she’d been through some very heavy shit, if that story about her foster family and the way she protected her brother had been any indication. For her to be scared on a bike? She was one funny girl.
