Under Locke

by Zapata, Mariana

It was Dex’s turn to blink slowly. “There’s a difference between sayin’ it out loud and sayin’ it in your head?”

  Damn it. He had a point.

  But before we could go any further, someone in the front yelled Dex’s name loud enough that it was heard through the music playing. With a low grunt, he shifted so that his hip contact turned into the long length of his thigh pressing into my knee and shin. “I’ll try not to take my shit out on you again but if I do, say somethin’. I’m not gonna bite your head off for bein’ honest with me, all right?”

  I gave him a dubious look because seriously? Did he really expect me to think he’d take me calling him an ugly name well? Oh please. But okay, whatever made him sleep better at night.

  I was tired of being so angry. I could try to be a bigger person and wash my hands of this. It would be impossible to say that Dex wasn’t trying to fix this muck in his own brutal way. He deserved points for effort.

  Okay, not really but still. Move past it. Forget it.

  “Look, I’m gonna hope you forget what I said or forgive me sooner than later because I’m not a fan of this shit right now. I’m sorry and that’s the damn truth. But I want you to open that little mouth and say whatever’s botherin’ you from now on, all right?”

  I didn’t say anything in response because I didn’t think he needed an answer.

  He kept looking at me with those high intensity eyes until I realized he did want a confirmation. “Okay.”

  Dex ducked his head in to catch my eyes more fully.

  This guy. God. I raised my voice and repeated myself. “Fine, I’ll say something from now on.”

  With a single pat to my knee, he was gone a moment later.

  And I sat there wondering what the hell had just happened.

  Chapter Nine

  The days seemed to pass by in a blur of work, Sonny, his home, getting paid, and my new favorite place—the Austin Public Library branch right by the shop. I registered for my card before work one day, since I figured that with my starving bank account I wouldn’t be able to afford buying any books in the near future. And to be honest, once I got my card and settled into my routine, it was good—comfortable. I'd even applied for a couple of full-time jobs and that made me excited.

  Hell, everything was pretty nice. Including the tension at work.

  Dex had been in and out of the shop and when he was in, he was just kind of aloof unless he had to make deposits at the bank during the day.

  Even though I’d pretty much—but not completely—gotten over our initial meeting disaster, I still didn’t feel completely comfortable around him. The tension between us had gone from strained to…weird after the incident with the drunk guy. The same drunk guy who came in sober and holding a daisy the day afterward, apologizing for calling me a bitch. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the The Dick had been behind the visit. With the exception of Dex’s bad moment, I usually didn’t hold grudges because they weren’t worth the effort and I let Rick off the hook.

  Work was easy but it seemed even easier when Dex wasn’t within thirty feet. I managed to read my books in peace during my lunch break and got to know my coworkers when there was downtime. I couldn't really ask for much more.

  So it was completely unexpected on Friday afternoon to be sitting in the back during my break, reading the book I’d picked up the day before, and hear, “What are you readin’?” coming from the doorway.

  I looked up to see Dex standing there, hands shoved into his pockets, black hair going in a million different directions without his ball cap on. My eyes went from the text below me and back to him a couple of times before I answered vaguely. “A book from the library.” It was a historical romance novel, so I’d rather tell him that in detail in oh, a million years.

  Right then, in that moment, Dex The Dick grinned. Grinned. And sweet mother of God, it was devastating. So completely catastrophic I just stood there and absorbed the nuclear bomb going off in front of me, defenseless.

  His eyes glittered at the same time his eyebrows shot up. “The library?”

  I liked the way he drew out the pronunciation, so I nodded.

  “The public library?” he asked slowly.

  “Yes,” I drew out the consonant.

  His lips quirked on the corners. “They still have those?”

  “They still have those,” I confirmed, glancing back down at my book, shutting it carefully after memorizing the page number. I swallowed hard and reminded myself to let my old resentment finish trickling away. Dex was obviously trying, so I could too.

  “And you go to libraries?” he asked just as slow as he had a moment before.

  Was he antagonizing me? I didn't think so. The up-tilt of his lips made it seem like he was more entertained and curious than just simply being a cruel jerk.

  I held up the back cover of the novel I’d just been reading since there wasn’t a picture on it. “I like free stuff.”

  Dex grinned wide again.

  Holy crap. Those were rare.

  “Babe, I can’t even remember the last time I read a book that wasn’t for school, much less the last time I went into a library without my ma forcin' me,” he admitted.

  For some reason, the image of a Baby Dex with super blue eyes and crazy black hair pitching a fit as he was carried into the library by his mom, flashed through my head and it made me snort. That was probably the last time someone had forced him to do anything.

  “Maybe you should go to the library then,” I told him. “They have all kinds of stuff you can check out.” Something nudged at me right then. It was the indulgent smile he gave me when I first told him about where I'd gotten the novel. Smart ass. I smiled slowly, feeling that familiar verbal geyser of crap ready to sprout out of my mouth and unable to control it. “Like picture books if the ones with words don’t work for you.”

  Silence.

  And then Dex tilted his head back and laughed so loud it made me smile even though I didn’t think he would appreciate it. To be honest, I was surprised that the tease came out of my mouth. Unintentional and all, but still, it was like tap dancing on ice with him. How thin was the ice? I’d never know. “All right, I probably deserved that, Ritz.”

  Score one for Team Iris. If I could high-fived myself without looking crazy, I would have .

  But luckily for both Dex and I, he started speaking again. “Come up front. We’re pullin' straws.”

  “For what?” I asked him carefully. The last thing I needed or wanted was to pull straws to see who had to clean a backed up toilet.

  He waved me forward, waiting until I was off my chair and at his side before explaining. “I didn't tell you about the conventions we go to?”

  Pssh. I could have pointed out that he didn't really tell me anything period but I kept the comment to myself. “Nope,” I replied.

  Dex shrugged like the absence of information wasn’t a big deal. “We hit up tattoo expos a couple times a year, and the next one is two weeks away in Houston.” He shot me a look as we walked down the hall toward the empty reception area. “We’re pullin’ straws to see who’s goin’ this time.”

  That didn’t exactly sound like a bad thing. “But I just work the front desk,” I told him like he didn’t already know that.

  Slim, who had wheeled his chair to sit in the middle of the shop like usual, was being nosey—also as usual—and listening in on our conversation. “Consider it a learning experience,” he claimed. “We always need help doing other stuff anyway.”

  I thought about it for a second, and then shrugged. It’s not like I had anything else to do and if it was technically a part of my job, a job that I might not have for too much longer, then it'd be fine. “All right then.”

  Dex took a handful of straws out of his pocket, covering them with his hand as he arranged, and then presented them to me. “Ladies first.”

  I couldn’t help but glance up at his dark blue eyes for a split second before I pulled a straw right in the middle of the four. Dex went ah
ead and held out the collection to Blue next before letting Blake and Slim grab the last pieces.

  “Wait a sec, you okay sharin’ a room?”

  “Sharing a room with you guys?” I repeated the question right back to him, to make sure I understood correctly.

  “Yeah, sharin’ a room. You okay with that?” he asked.

  I looked over at the three men I worked with slowly. “No one’s going to tattoo a peen on my forehead when I’m sleeping, right?”

  They all looked at me straight for a minute before starting to laugh, even Blue, who only laughed at me when I said something exceptionally stupid.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” I shot Slim a nasty look. “In that case, no, I don’t care.” Though I’d prefer it not be Dex, I wasn’t going to say that out loud. “As long as you don’t do gross stuff in the shower, I’m fine.”

  Slim snorted. “Blake, that’s all you man.”

  “I told you I didn’t do it,” he retorted, his face reddening as the words flew out of his mouth.

  “Right. You didn’t do it when you were the only one who took a shower that morning—“

  Dex cleared his throat, biting back a smile. “Okay, okay, let’s see who the hell is goin’ before we argue over who jacked off in Seattle.”

  That was my cue to laugh. By myself. Awkward!

  After comparing straws, it looked like Blue and I were the losers with the short ones. Based on the looks we shot each other—she wasn’t much of a talker and I liked to make facial expressions that she seemed to understand—neither one of us was too heartbroken.

  “Feel free to do whatever the heck you want to do in the shower since I’m not going,” I blurted out, already taking a step back to head into the kitchen. My book and lunch were calling my name.

  Blake’s eyes cut over to Slim’s accusingly. “I didn’t fucking do it, man!”

  Right.

  ~ * ~ *

  "Someone left a voicemail for you, kid," Sonny noted, his gaze locked on the epic gun battle going on in the television screen.

  I'd just come in from work, dropping my purse onto the couch that I'd rightfully claimed over the course of the last month and let myself get excited for a brief moment. "Who?"

  He made a humming noise in his throat. "Umm, someone named Gladys or something from a place with a stupid name. There were a bunch of Rugrats screaming in the background."

  It had to be one of the daycare centers I'd applied to.

  "Yes!"

  Two minutes later, I'd written down Gladys Ortega's phone number and high-fived Sonny for finally getting a callback.

  "I don't get why you're so excited. The idea of working with a bunch of kids sounds like hell," he murmured.

  The last time I'd worked at a daycare center, I'd been twenty and fresh out of radiation therapy. At that point, nothing could have brought me down. But now that I really thought about it...crap. I liked kids but did I like them that much? The better question was, did I dislike Dex enough to sacrifice one moody devil for a bunch of innocent demons?

  The answer didn’t come as easily as I would have expected.

  "I can just see what they have to offer."

  He shrugged and it made me narrow my eyes.

  I didn't understand what was going on with him, but every time I asked, he always answered the same way.

  He was fine. Always fine.

  And he was completely full of shit.

  "What's wrong with you?"

  For the last two days, Sonny had been acting really erratic. One of the most laid-back people I'd ever met in my life, he wasn't the type to sit back and let things bother him. He was an advocate of either ignoring things or dealing with them head on. Preferably with his fists it seemed, when he came home two nights ago with a busted lip and refused to tell me what happened.

  I made sure he was okay, and then changed the subject. The problem was, he was still acting weird. Something was bothering him and it was nipping at him, over and over again. He still smiled but it was shadowed and guarded.

  I finally had it though. Only one of us could be a moody shit, and that would be me.

  "What's wrong?" I asked him again when he didn't answer.

  Those hazel-brown eyes slid over to me, a small smile lifting up one corner of his mouth but it didn't do anything. My beloved half-brother was missing. "I'm fine, kid."

  "Bull."

  He cracked a little smile. "My innocent little Ris."

  Innocent, maybe a little. But really, he knew as well as I did, that I just wasn't used to cussing. At least on his level, much less the rest of his friends’.

  "Just tell me what happened," I insisted.

  Sonny looked at me for a long moment, blowing air out of his mouth before letting his head drop back dramatically onto the couch. "Can we talk about it later?"

  I poked him in the thigh. "I'd rather not."

  He sighed again, still looking up at the ceiling.

  His silence was killing me. The longer he went with hesitating to tell me, the worse it made me feel.

  "Please?"

  Sonny grunted. "Our sperm donor came by."

  And... that was absolutely not what I was expecting to hear.

  "Are you joking?" Of course he was serious, but I was an idiot and what he'd said seemed so ridiculous he wouldn't be making it up.

  He kept his eyes trained on the ceiling. "Nope," was his brilliant, detailed response.

  "Why?"

  I don't know why I asked. What I was expecting. There couldn't be anything for me to expect. He'd known where yia-yia, Will, and I had lived for those years after Mom died. He'd always known where Sonny lived. And in almost ten years, neither one of us had seen him. Now all of a sudden—

  "Money, kid." I looked up to see him scrub a hand down his face. "He drove all the way over here to ask for fucking money."

  "Did you give it to him?" I asked the question slowly.

  "Kid."

  Maybe it was wrong of me to hope that Sonny hadn't because he was my dad after all, but I couldn't find it in me to be mature about it. "Son."

  He tilted his head down, his lips drooped into a scowl. "Fuck no," he confirmed. "I know he asked Luther after I shot him down though."

  "And he said yes?"

  Sonny shrugged. "I don't know."

  I narrowed my eyes at his face, taking in the cut that split this upper lip. "Oh.”

  "Kid, I don't support a man that can't support himself. It's embarrassing that he crawls back here to mooch off other people—," I winced because hello. Hadn't I just done the same thing? Come crawling to my half-brother? I felt like a schmuck. Sonny must have read it on my face because he rolled his eyes. "Your situation is completely fucking different. Don't give me that face. You're not mooching off me. You got a job you don't like. You're trying to get yourself together and I've already offered to give you money. You didn't take it, Ris. You're not like that piece of shit in any way, you hear me?"

  Crap, I loved this guy.

  "I don't want anything to do with him," he stated with so much conviction in his tone.

  I didn't either but apparently my brain wasn't working properly because I asked something I shouldn't have. "Did he ask about us?"

  Sonny gave me a look I hadn't seen since I was nineteen and been told I needed to have another biopsy. It was filled with a dreadful kind of remorse.

  And it projected the answer like a beacon in the sky.

  Chapter Ten

  “How long you been here now?”

  I looked up to see my redheaded buddy, Slim, plopping onto the couch across from me. It was Tuesday, almost a month since I started at Pins and Needles and to be honest, it’d gone by really quickly and mostly painlessly.

  I’d fallen into a comfortable routine. During the day, I'd hang out at Sonny's house, cleaning and cooking when I wasn't going to the rare job interview—the one and only one had taken place the week before but I hadn't heard back from them—and applying for places online. Occasionally, I'
d let myself think about Dad coming into town to ask Sonny for money but it was rare. The man didn't deserve my annoyance. At night, I’d go home and half of the time Sonny would be up and we’d talk or watch television until he went to bed.

  How he made it to work at nine in the morning was beyond me, but I didn’t ask.

  The other half of the time, he was gone and I’d go to bed before he showed up again. In the days after he told me about our sperm donor coming into town, his mood had gradually improved so I didn’t ask where he went unless he told me. More often than not, he didn’t. But when Sonny was around, I always had a smile on my face though he was still acting a little strange since his unexpected visit. He was just like Will, whom I hadn’t heard back from yet either, but I didn’t let myself focus on that. I’d sent him weekly emails consisting of a short updates that confirmed I was alive, still with Sonny, still working at the tattoo parlor, and that I had a library card. No surprise there.