The Job (Auctioned)

by Cara Dee

  Made sense. So whoever AJ was meeting up with, we knew it was a low-man. An errand boy.

  They were replaceable and, in my experience, not worth much, yet AJ had been talking to him for over twenty-five minutes now. Perhaps there were new instructions and orders given.

  AJ was all business. Judging by his posture and mannerisms, he was a little paranoid too, though he hid it well. He’d looked around himself a few times, and he had impatience rolling off him. Checking his watch, shifting his weight, then straightening and squaring his shoulders, as if reminding himself not to show signs of weakness.

  On the other hand, he couldn’t be too worried. He’d shown up in a nice suit, not in disguise, and he drove his own car, not a rental.

  Black hair combed back. Features drawn tight. He came off steely yet uncomfortable. He’d inherited more attributes from his American father than his Korean mother.

  Boone cleared his throat. “You mean you, uh…that you love me like a brother, right?”

  What? Oh. Oh, so that’s where his mind had gone.

  I kept my amusement to myself and noticed that AJ and his friend looked like they were wrapping things up. “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” I answered. “Get ready to follow the Ford. I think they’re about to leave.” Lowering my binoculars again, I side-eyed my brother and sensed he wasn’t satisfied with my response. At this point, I wasn’t afraid to admit the depth of my feelings, but I didn’t think he was there yet.

  As he stewed in silence and got ready to follow our target, I decided to give him a little something. After all, he’d been so forthcoming and genuine today, and I wanted to reassure him.

  I skipped to track sixteen on the stereo and let the sweet notes of Savage Garden’s “Truly Madly Deeply” pour out of the speakers.

  Don’t ever fucking tell me I wasn’t romantic.

  Boone didn’t say anything, but it looked like he was warming up and trying to hide a little smile.

  We followed the low-man to a cheap motel south of Winchester, coincidentally close to our third least favorite Denny’s in town. Man, they’d fucked up my food bad that one time we went there.

  The roadside motel catered mostly to long-term residents and had a partially broken-down sign that boasted of their continental buffet, and I didn’t even know what that meant. Continental breakfast was toast and coffee, wasn’t it? And a buffet was a buffet.

  “You think he’s in for the night?” Boone leaned forward and peered up toward the second and top floor of the motel.

  “Probably.” I eyed the cars around me again. One looked like it could be a rental. The rest were shitty rust buckets.

  “So what do you wanna do now?” he asked.

  “I’m gonna send the information to Willow.” I pulled out my laptop from the bag at my feet and set it on my lap. “Maybe she can get access to the guests’ files—fuck if I know. But I don’t think we’ll learn much by sticking around.” And one more thing. “André should be able to give us some information from the license plate too.” Always good to have a friend on the police force.

  “In other words, I can take us home again,” Boone finished.

  I nodded absently as I typed out my message to Willow.

  I was glad we weren’t turning this into an all-nighter of work, ’cause we had to get up at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow for Ace’s soccer game.

  Oh shit, good thing I thought of that now. “Remind me to unpack the new tees I ordered when we get home,” I said. “I want us to wear them tomorrow for Ace’s game.”

  “Yeah? What do they say?”

  He knew me well. Ace had inherited her love for personalizing clothing items from me.

  “Member of Ace O’Sullivan’s Fan Club,” I answered. “I got one for Mom too.”

  Boone chuckled. “Solid. I’m happy to finally be included.”

  I felt my forehead crease, and I side-eyed him in question. As far as I knew, he’d been a member of Ace’s fan club as long as I had.

  He shrugged. “I was dead to you when you started printing shit on clothes for you and Ace, and maybe I’ve been jealous.”

  “Just maybe?” I smirked, shaking my head. “Like you don’t have your own traditions with her. I can’t even take her to the movies without her making sure it’s not a franchise she’s following with you.”

  “We were talking about you, not me,” he responded coolly. “This isn’t some contest—or a joke. It’s about you and me establishing the fact that I’m nice and innocent and you’re a vicious man-eater.”

  I barked out a laugh, then snapped my teeth at him.

  He’d see the real joke tomorrow morning when I gave him his new XXXXXL fan club tee. He’d glare at me, I’d laugh my ass off, and then I’d give him the real one in XXXL before we were off.

  Twelve

  “Are you just not gonna talk to me?”

  Not at the moment. I pulled into the drive-through and decided not to ask him what he wanted. “Yeah, hi, can I get two medium black coffees and a dozen original glazed? Actually, make four of them raspberry jelly.”

  “Anything else, sir?”

  “No, I’m good. My brother already thinks I’m fat,” I replied.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Case exclaimed. “It was a joke!”

  Like I didn’t know. I was just fucking with him. He wasn’t the only one who could be a dick.

  “Mom’s over there.” I pointed toward the field.

  Boone grunted and picked up our cooler to carry it on his shoulder, and I grabbed our chairs and a bag and led the way. It was gonna be a hot-as-balls day, and part of me hoped Ace’s team got eliminated fast. Not that I’d ever admit that shit.

  There was no denying I preferred single games at her school over these hooplas, though. Ten teams were facing off today, and if Ace’s team played like she did, we’d be here all day. Ten teams, four soccer fields, countless family members, music, and 109 degrees.

  I didn’t know where the music was coming from, but I appreciated it.

  As we got closer to the field where Ace would play her first game, I spotted her warming up with her friends.

  My heart clenched at the sight of her. Mom must’ve braided her hair already.

  “Ma!” Boone hollered.

  Mom glanced over at us and rose from her chair. She’d dyed her hair again. Brown was better than ketchup red.

  She grinned at our fantastic T-shirts. Plain white tees with black text, because I didn’t wanna steal focus from the message.

  “Look at you boys,” she gushed. “I’m so glad you made up.”

  Boone and I exchanged a smirk.

  Then I dipped down and kissed her cheek and told her I had a tee for her too. “And snacks. We got you wine and cheese.”

  “Oooh, fancy. Thank you, sugar. I brought sandwiches and cookies for us.” She directed where I could place the chairs, and I did an internal fist-pump. Her sandwiches were the best. Boone and I had only brought beer, a couple bags of chips, the wine and cheese for Ma, leftover Chinese food, a bag of gummy worms, some Slim Jims, jerky, three slices of questionable pizza I’d found in the fridge, water, a box of Twinkies, and the coffee and dozen donuts we’d bought on the way.

  “Ma, did you make mine with meatballs?” Boone questioned. “The ones you make yourself?”

  “Of course, baby.” Mom took her seat again.

  My brother whispered a “Fuck yes” and plopped down next to her, the chair creaking at the impact.

  I kept my amusement to myself as I fanned out the XXXXXL T-shirt between our chairs. It could be Ace’s blanket when she was allowed to come over for a break.

  Boone shot me a scowl before seeking support from Mom. “Look what he did. He thought it’d be fun to make us these shirts, but not before bullying me viciously.”

  Mom leaned forward and eyed the tee on the grass. She sniggered. “And I’m sure you didn’t punch your brother in return.”

  “He totally did!” I exclaimed. “My shoulder still hu
rts.”

  “Oh, cry me a fucking river,” Boone huffed. “No one cares about me.”

  Who was crying a river, really?

  “That’s enough,” Mom told him. “You’re equally cruel toward each other sometimes. The only difference is, Casey says it to your face, and you say shit behind his back.”

  “Whoa!” I stared at him, incredulous, while he got defensive.

  “That was before!” he argued. “Way before, even—when I was pissed.” He turned his glare on Mom. “How about you don’t rehash old crap? He’s still a flight risk, and I don’t wanna get kicked out.”

  Hmpf. The fight left me, though I decided to put him on probation. But no, I wasn’t a fucking flight risk. He was being ridiculous. Maybe I wasn’t the drama queen between the two of us after all. He seemed plenty dramatic to me.

  “How about the two of you become nicer?” Mom retorted. “You still treat each other like you did when you were children. Casey throws insults, you throw punches. Just stop it. If you weren’t brothers, I’d say you were both running around in a sandbox yanking each other’s pigtails because you have a crush.”

  Welp.

  Funny how quickly that shut us up.

  It was something we had to discuss sooner rather than later. I couldn’t foresee any major issues from our mother; not only was she open-minded, but she was used to us giving her gray hairs for one reason or another. And I didn’t think us being a couple would top the two separate occasions we’d been to jail. Once for theft, where we’d served nine months together. Then I’d been arrested for assault one time, where the case had been dropped, and Boone had served three months for possession.

  He’d brag about being released on good behavior, but we knew the reality was more an issue of overcrowded jails.

  Either way, if Mom could handle all that, she could handle us being together.

  The issue was Ace. Mom had legally adopted me, meaning we had to look into the state laws on incest and shit like that, because we wouldn’t risk losing custody of our daughter. Even if there was a no-relation clause that made us exempt, which was likely the case, all it took was a badass prosecutor against a shitty defense, and we’d lose everything. I had zero faith in the legal system, and cops didn’t like me for some weird reason.

  I didn’t know what brightened my day the most, watching my girl score twice before halftime of the first game or Mom’s pastrami sandwich.

  It was a toss-up.

  “This was so fucking good, Ma.” I crammed the last of it into my mouth and picked up my beer. Obviously, I had my pink koozie that solemnly swore it was just soda.

  “I’m glad you liked it,” she replied with a smile. “What about you, Boone?”

  “Not enough mayo,” he said with his mouth full. “But it was all right.”

  I frowned and reached over our cooler to smack his arm. “The fuck is wrong wit’chu? She worked hard on that. The last thing she needs is ungratefulness from your misogynistic ass.” I knew the times we lived in. It was important to support our women. “Apologize and tell her to make you two sandwiches next time.”

  Boone winced and offered Ma an apologetic look. “I’m sorry—I did like it. Especially the roasted onion.”

  Ma took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a beat, and rubbed her temples.

  It gave me an idea. I knew how to make it better. I opened the cooler and brought out the wine and cheese. “Here, Ma. This is for you.” I got out of my chair to bring it to her. We’d emptied half a bottle of red into a Coke bottle, and the pack of string cheese was a nice brand and everything.

  “It’s from me too,” Boone was quick to say.

  I withheld my eye roll.

  Mom accepted the gift and stared at it. “This is…so nice of you. Thank you, boys.”

  I smiled, satisfied, and returned to my chair and flipped open the box of donuts.

  That evening, we invited Mom over for a barbecue. Since Ace was gonna spend the night with her again, I wanted our little soccer champion to spend some time with us at home before they were off again.

  It’d been a great day. Ace was wearing a silver medal around her neck, and Boone and I were sporting impressive sunburns.

  “This really turned out great, Casey.” Mom was checking out my new porch from where she was sitting at the table.

  “It did, didn’t it?” I agreed with her. It wasn’t very big, but I had enough room for a grill in the corner, a table for four, and a plastic chest at the other end for Ace’s pool toys and the seat cushions. We didn’t need more than that. But it was nice to get off the ground. We did get some snakes around here, and Ace was terrified of them.

  Boone came out with an armful of condiments and more beers, Ace close behind with soda and paper plates.

  I flipped the burgers on the grill and took a swig of my beer.

  Boone sat down next to Ma, and he was watching Ace with a proud grin. “Lemme see that thing again, baby G.” She was all too happy to join him. He turned the medal in his hand and shook his head. “You don’t know how proud Daddy and I are. We should put up a shelf in your room for all your trophies.”

  That was a good idea. She’d earned a few by now.

  Ace beamed. “I hope I get one more in November.”

  “For the spelling bee?” I asked.

  She nodded and climbed up on Boone’s lap. “The competition ain’t lookin’ too hot, son. S’all I’m sayin’.”

  I laughed.

  Mom leaned back with a wry little smile. “Maybe this time, Boone can attend.”

  That made me snort. I wasn’t banking on it. Last year, he’d stood up in the auditorium and yelled “Boo, you S-U-C-K!” to the boy who lost to Ace. Even I had supported my brother’s ban on that one.

  “I didn’t know spelling bees had so much suspense,” Boone replied defensively. “Excuse me for getting excited. No one woulda batted an eyelash if it’d been football.”

  I mean…

  “They’re young children, Boone,” Mom grated.

  I shook my head in amusement, then plated the burgers and joined them at the table.

  “Daddy, can I put on some music?” Ace asked me.

  “Sure thing.” I dug out my car keys and tossed them to her. “Remember not to turn the ignition this time.”

  She giggled and ran down the steps.

  “Don’t you have a ridiculously expensive stereo inside?” Mom asked.

  “I ain’t keeping the door open when the AC’s runnin’,” I replied. That was nuts.

  She accepted that.

  Conversation lulled while we prepared our burgers, and I got Ace’s ready while listening for her in the carport. Knowing her, she was flipping through my CD case to find the perfect mix.

  “I love the girl, but she wouldn’t know a good burger if it smacked her in the face,” Boone said.

  I grinned and added another slice of cheddar. He had a point. I was on board with the plain buns without sesame seeds—I preferred those too—but the rest was just gross. Four slices of cheese, relish, and barbecue sauce. Or a Paisley Special, as we called it.

  “We’re alone, by the way,” Ma filled in with. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something when she wasn’t here.”

  Oh right. Now was as good a time as any, and it wouldn’t take long.

  “What’s your schedule like these days?” I asked. “Your hours still flexible?”

  She furrowed her brow. “Well, sure. Do you need me to watch Ace more?”

  “Not just Ace,” Boone replied. “Darius is coming to town soon, and he’s bringing his sons.”

  I let him do the talking, partly because I was still mind-blown. Our recluse of a cousin, this badass former PMC who hated humanity and had always rejected the notion of kids, had switched teams and shacked up with a dude, and they had adopted two boys together.

  I listened on one ear as Boone gave Mom the need-to-know level of details about Darius coming to town, and by the time I had made two burgers for myself, I won
dered what was taking Ace so long.

  “Get a move on, Paisley!” I hollered. “Your food’s gonna get cold.”

  “I’m trying to decide!” she yelled back. “Would you say we have a ‘Semi-Charmed Life’?”

  I chuckled, biting into my burger.

  Seconds later, music poured out from my car, followed by the door slamming shut and the alarm being activated. Around the same time, Ma was telling us that, of course, she’d be happy to watch Darius’s kids, and the crease between her eyebrows told me she had questions. Many of them.

  She was generally good at butting out—mainly ’cause she didn’t wanna know—but she had limits, and this involved family. So I had to nip something in the bud.

  “You can’t call Aunt Mary about this,” I said.

  Her stare grew tight. “Why not? You’re up to something big, aren’t you?”

  What a travesty that we couldn’t respond, because Ace hopped up the porch steps and rejoined us.

  This was a bad night to catch a sudden bout of insomnia.

  I rolled onto my back and slipped my hands underneath my head, and I tried to match my breathing with Boone’s. It usually soothed me. Never had I heard the fucker snore. He slept peacefully on his stomach, his back rising and falling with long, deep breaths.

  I blinked drowsily and aimed my stare at the ceiling instead. Maybe I should buy curtains. Whenever someone moved outside, a carport or porch lit up.

  The AC hummed steadily. In the bathroom, the faucet dripped every ten or eleven seconds. The fridge and freezer buzzed. Crickets competed to see who could piss me off first. Every now and then, a car drove past outside.

  For as rambunctious as Boone and I had always been, we’d grown up chasing moments of silence, too. It’d started as soon as we got our driver’s licenses. We’d drive straight out into the desert sometimes and just listen to nothing.

  Some of my favorite memories were from when Boone had bought and repaired his first truck. Mom would pack us sandwiches and sodas, and we’d head out to sleep under the stars. Just the two of us in the bed of the truck. We’d lie there in our sleeping bags, passing a joint between us, and, for the most part, be absolutely quiet.