“King Calvary.” Hands on his hips, he surveyed my living quarters.
“Come to kiss my rings?”
“I’m here to talk business.” He faced me. “I know you know—”
The bathroom door squeaked and we both turned our heads to find Rena dressed in her work clothes from yesterday, her wet hair pinned up. She collected her coat from a chair and then hooked her purse over her shoulder.
Cade’s eyes flicked up and down her body. I prepared to strike. If he came on to my girl, I’d tear his head off with my bare hands. It wouldn’t be until later that I’d recall thinking of Rena as “my girl” and realize it hadn’t alarmed me in the slightest.
“Hey.” She sent an unsure smile to me and then Cade. “I’m—I have to go. I called a cab.” She dropped her phone into her purse.
“I know you,” Cade said. Her eyes snapped to him. Mine followed.
“You know Tasha,” she corrected.
Tasha?
He grunted. “Yeah, I know Tasha.”
I didn’t like the familiar way they watched each other. I also didn’t know Tasha and I didn’t like that Cade knew Tasha.
Wait. I did know.
A memory crawled out of my brain’s filing cabinet, and I recalled a conversation in the kitchen of Oak & Sage during a rush. Tasha was Rena’s best friend, the friend she’d told about my coming to her apartment but left out the part where I’d shown up bleeding.
“I’ll see you later.” She walked up to me and I froze. Kissing her goodbye would be the normal thing to do, but I felt awkward showing affection in front of Cade. I didn’t want him to see how soft she made me when she was around. It was too weird. This whole thing was too weird.
I patted her shoulder. Which proved weirder. “See ya.”
Cade frowned.
“I’m Rena, by the way” she introduced, proving they didn’t really “know” each other but had probably met in passing. That made me feel marginally better.
“Cade,” he answered. “Devlin’s brother.”
Awkward, party of three.
Rena took the news in stride. “Ahh, well, this promises to be fun. Sorry to miss it.”
Cade’s expression melted into admiration and he smiled at her. Which I didn’t like at all. So I bent and kissed her long enough to make Cade uncomfortable, Rena moan, and my pants tight.
When I pulled my lips from hers, I muttered, “Take my scarf, baby.”
She blinked up at me, a little dazed and a whole lot beautiful.
“Your hair’s wet and it’s cold,” I explained. “Take my scarf.”
She walked to the hook where my leather coat and scarf hung, pulled the scarf from the rung, and wrapped it over her wet hair.
I walked to the door, opened it, and kissed her again when she met me there.
“Bye,” she breathed, looking damn cute in my scarf.
“Bye.” Regret washed over me. I could’ve been inside her by now, knocking pots and pans and various utensils from the counter to the floor. Another time, I guess.
The moment I shut the front door, Cade plopped onto my couch and put his feet on the coffee table.
“You were saying?” I asked.
He propped his arms across the back of the couch, and then I understood why my back still hurt from where he’d punched me. I had biceps, but his arms were tanks. Why in the hell was a prelaw college student in such good shape?
“I need the name and location of your bookie boss.”
“Forget it.” I folded my arms over my chest and, okay, flexed a little.
“Well it’s not like I can ask Dad for it.”
“It’s early for this shit.” I headed for the kitchen. He followed.
I tossed the empty single-serving coffee pod into the sink and put a fresh one in and pressed the button. This made me remember Rena’s coffee-flavored kisses and even though my pain-in-the-ass brother was in my kitchen, and the reason why she was no longer in my kitchen, I smiled.
“Can I have some?” he asked as I lifted my full mug to my lips.
I pointed to the carousel holding the coffee pods. Get it yourself.
He made himself a cup while I sat down on a stool and enjoyed the dark roast.
Cade turned, full mug in hand. “You have flavored creamer?”
“Are you shittin’ me?”
Properly embarrassed, he drank it black. And winced when he took his first sip.
I smiled.
“I want to pay Dad’s debt.”
“So pay it. I’m right here,” I told him.
“I’m not giving it to you. I want to talk to Sonny. Pay my dad’s debt in person.”
I shook my head and drank my coffee. I wasn’t sending him to Sonny alone. Not that I thought Sonny would hurt him. Although, if Cade mouthed off—a probability—and Sonny did hurt him, I’d have that on my conscience, too.
“Forget it,” I said.
“When did you become such a dick?”
I shrugged. “Birth?”
“You owe my family, Devlin.” He stabbed the counter with one finger. “My mom…” He paused, the weight of that word practically visible. “Joyce. Mom, whatever. She didn’t send your ass to jail even after you stole her jewelry. And Dad insisted on taking you in. You could have had a record.”
True. Paul and Joyce had saved me from jail. The unfamiliar pang of guilt twanged in my chest.
“You owe me, too,” Cade added, “for not killing you last night.”
I stood from the stool so fast that it fell over. Cade sprang back a few steps. I smiled. Still got it. “This isn’t going to end well for you if you keep challenging me. Check the ego.”
“Fine.” Cade leaned on the counter again and met my gaze unerringly. I respected him for it.
“Give me the cash. I’ll take it to Sonny. I have to see him today anyway.”
“Why? Delivering cash you took off some pathetic deadbeat like my dad?” he grumbled. Evidently, he and Paul hadn’t ironed things out yet.
“No.”
An idea had occurred to me this morning, while I nursed a headache. If I wasn’t with Sonny I could work at Oak & Sage full-time. I could be a manager. Just a manager. Rena could wait tables and never pick up an envelope of cash again. I could live my life without risking having my face pounded in.
I thought of those lost photos in my family’s album. The earlier days when Dad was cleaning pots and Mom was sweeping floors. A simpler life. An easier life. One I wouldn’t fuck up like my folks did.
Leaving Sonny would be a big move. Huge. But it felt like the right one.
“I’m getting out.” I hadn’t been sure until now. Now, I was sure.
“Getting out?” Cade’s brows pulled down over his nose. “Out out? What’s up, Dev, growing a heart all of a sudden? Thinking of someone other than yourself?” I hated the cocky set of his mouth. I hated more that he was right.
I pressed my lips together.
“Rena,” he guessed. Accurately.
“What are you talking about?” I drained my coffee and placed the empty mug in the sink, knowing exactly what he was talking about.
“Reformed. Just like that. When I saw her here, I thought you were making the good girl bad. Now I see it’s the other way around.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know her.” At my scowl, he continued. “Well, I know her friend Tasha.” He growled her name. “Rena’s nothing like Tasha.”
“Quit saying Rena’s name like you know her.” I was going to leave it at that, but accidentally tacked on, “What do you mean she’s nothing like Tasha?”
I expected him to smile having succeeded at snaring me into a gossip-fest, but instead he grimaced like he did when he’d first sipped his coffee. “She’s rich, hot, thinks she’s better than everyone else.”
I snorted. “You’re not exactly what I’d call destitute, bro.”
“She’s a stuck-up bitch, and I’m surprised someone nice like Rena hangs out with her.”
>
His assessment smacked of love lost.
“What happened, Cade? She turn you down when you asked her to prom?”
“What happened to you, Dev? Rena give you those big doe eyes and ask you to show her how to give head?”
I rushed him. He held up his hands as I reached for his shirt.
“That was over the line,” he said with a dimpled smile.
My fists were still balled, my teeth welded together.
“That was disrespectful,” he said. His grin was intact, though, telling me he’d gotten the information he needed from this little expedition.
My stare-down wasn’t affecting him anyway. I backed off.
“I have money,” he said after a few seconds had passed. “I respect Sonny. At least he never took Dad for all he was worth. I want to pay him in person, make sure he knows Dad can’t pay but I can.”
Sonny would respect the tactic. He’d knocked a percentage off my own father’s debt after I’d inherited the restaurant. He’d stepped in, and while it was self-serving, he’d also done a lot of things he didn’t have to do. This condo, for example. Sonny didn’t have to let me live here expense-free. He didn’t have to give me the SUV parked in the garage, either. But he had. Maybe if Cade went to Sonny, he’d cut Paul some slack.
“Tex doesn’t care if he destroys Dad.” Cade’s gaze flicked away and then focused on me again. “You know he doesn’t.”
“No,” I agreed. “He doesn’t.”
“Guess I have you to thank for stepping in to help him.”
“Futile.” I shook my head. “He bet it again, Cade. All of it.”
His mood turned grim. “I know.”
“Double or nothing,” I said to emphasize my point.
“I know. He lost the last game. Big.”
Damn. Despite my advice. I wasn’t right all the time. I knew the players’ histories, the team history, but I couldn’t predict the future.
“It’s not your fault,” Cade said.
I frowned. I wasn’t accustomed to being not guilty in anyone’s eyes. “What about Tex?”
He looked away from his cooling coffee. “I don’t know.”
Maybe in the middle of this insanity, I’d finally found where I belonged. In a pocket with Cade, of all people, the only family I had left. And Rena. Somehow I knew they’d both be here when I walked away from Sonny.
Walking away was something I had to do on my own. I couldn’t take Cade’s money to soften the blow for myself. Cade needed to soften the blow for his dad. That, I could give him.
“Eight-oh-four,” I started.
Cade’s brows rose.
“Sonny’s number.” When he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, I recited the rest of the phone number and then gave Cade the address to the pizza parlor.
Rena
Tasha’s roommate was snoring on the other side of the dorm room while Tash and I watched her, lattes in hand.
“Shelby sleeps through anything,” Tash said. “Anyway, go on.”
“Do you think it was right that I stayed? I just feel like he… needed me.” And this morning, I’d woken overcome with feelings—dangerous, dangerous feelings—that surpassed the horny ones.
Was I falling for Devlin?
She shook her honey-colored hair, pulled into a sloppy mess on top of her head. “You’re on shaky ground, my friend.”
I lifted one eyebrow. I loved her, but my bestie wasn’t exactly chock full of sage advice in the relationship department.
“You wanted Devlin because he was a bad boy.”
I opened my mouth to argue. The attraction was there despite how “bad” he was, but she kept talking.
“Now you’ve got him, and you’re trying to turn him into Joshua.”
My head jerked on my neck. There was no way, none, Devlin could ever be Joshua. Devlin was too much of a free thinker, and he was confident, and so sexy any woman within a ninety-mile radius noticed. And also: “I don’t want to turn him into Joshua.”
“Oh, you don’t?” she challenged. “You wouldn’t like it if Devlin called you every day? You wouldn’t like him to surprise you with a candlelit dinner? You wouldn’t want him to buy you expensive, sparkly jewelry?”
She was hard to take seriously in a bunny pajama set. She was also wrong.
“I don’t want that,” I answered honestly.
But since she’d brought it up, how would a “normal” relationship work with Devlin? I pictured him coming for dinner at my mom’s, or hanging out with Tasha and Tony at a frat party. He didn’t fit in either of those scenarios. Or what about us going grocery shopping together, or picking up ice cream on the way to the pool? I couldn’t picture him in the monotony of everyday life. He was easier to fit into the private, stolen moments at work—in the freezer, or in the cramped office. Or in my apartment, bleeding on my doorstep or commanding me from behind in the hallway. That was Devlin in his element: in charge, in full control, and wowing me with his badness. Would us becoming a couple tame him? I didn’t want him tamed. I didn’t want to be tamed.
“Plus, you don’t want to be, like, dating a guy who runs a restaurant.” Tash scrunched her cheeks. “The hours are horrible.”
Restaurant hours were the least of my worries. Devlin involved in criminal activity, however…
“Keep it light,” she recommended. “Have fun with him, but dump his ass before he has a chance to dump yours.”
She scrambled off her bed and stretched. My phone chimed, and I picked it up to find a text message from an unknown number.
“Is it loverboy?” She smirked.
“I don’t know.” But I did know.
The text read, COME OVER.
“Your smile says yes,” my best friend sang.
I typed in, who is this?
The response, again in shouty caps, made my insides tingle. YOU’D BETTER BE KIDDING.
“Well?”
I smiled at Tasha. “He wants me to come over. Should I?”
“Yes!” She plunked back onto the bed and took my phone, typing before I could grab it. When she handed it back, I saw she’d answered, HELL YES!
“Tasha! He’s going to know that wasn’t me!” Her roommate stirred, and I covered my mouth.
“Lower your expectations, sweetie. You’re allowed to have good, hard, against-the-wall sex with your boy toy, as long as you don’t let yourself get in too deep.”
I slid off her bed. “Look who’s talking, Mrs. Tony Fry.”
She shook her head, but it lacked conviction. “I’m—we’re keeping it casual.”
“Tash…”
“I know! Okay? I know.” She pulled a pillow onto her lap. “But at least I know it’s not going to work out. He’ll be bored of me in a few weeks.”
I hated seeing her like this.
“Why are you doing this to yourself? You’re gorgeous, you’re intelligent, and you’re going to be the most epic physical therapist Ridgeway has ever seen. You could have a guy, like a real guy. Not a Tony.”
“Yeah? So could you.”
I saw her point. Devlin was the guy I wanted. No one could talk me out of it.
“Hey, come out with me tonight.” She set the pillow aside.
I looked at my phone screen, but Dev hadn’t texted me again. “Parade?”
“Not Parade. A group of girls from my sorority are going to a street race on Alley.”
“A street race? Since when are you into cars?”
“I wouldn’t go, normally, but Casey’s boyfriend, Roger, is racing.”
My phone chimed again. I grinned.
“Sorry, Tash, I’m meeting Devlin after work.” I stood to leave.
She heaved a melodramatic sigh and threw herself onto the bed. “Standing up your best friend for your bad-boy boyfriend. How could you?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I waved goodbye and dodged an incoming pillow.
In a tiny, private corner of my mind, I sort of kind of wished he was.
Chapter Fifteen
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Devlin
Donna delivered a slice of Triple Threat and a Pepsi to a booth by the window. Sonny had excused himself when he saw me and had just now returned. With my new cell phone.
He plunked a shitty flip phone onto the table. “Don’t lose this one.”
I took another bite, trying to think of the best way to say what I had to say. Then again, maybe there wasn’t a best way. He sat across from me and folded his hands.
I pushed the phone away. “I’ll buy my own.”
He inclined his head.
Now or never. Time to see if I had the balls to say what I’d been silently wishing for years, and had pronounced to my half brother hours ago.
“I’m out, Son,” I told him, forcing myself to meet his eyes. I wasn’t timid about much, but the idea of disappointing him rolled my stomach. “I probably still owe you money. I’ll pay it. We agreed that as long as I work for you, you discount what I owe, so if you want to retract that agreement, I understand.”
His glare nearly burned a hole through my head. It took almost the remainder of my courage to hold his gaze.
“You probably still owe me money?” he repeated flatly. “If I want to retract our agreement?” he said, hitting the letter T’s extra hard.
“I will pay it.” I tried not to fidget but failed. I balled a napkin in my left hand. “If I have to I can—”
“The kid with the photographic memory.” He sipped his coffee. “You probably still owe me money.” He grunted a halfhearted chuckle. “How much do you owe me, smarty?”
I frowned. “I don’t know.”
“You know. Bet you have the exact amount down to the change logged in that big brain of yours.”
I swallowed. I did know. I just didn’t want to think about it. “If I pay you the amount I originally—”
“Devlin.”
His craggy face softened and I choked on my argument. I took a breath, and told him the truth. “We’re square,” I muttered. “Have been for a few years now.”
A slight smile tweaked his mouth. “A few years?”
“Twenty months.” I crunched the napkin tighter and repeated, “We’re square.”
“Yeah, kid. We’re square. So why you hangin’ on?”
Daring Devlin Page 15
