by Nikki Wild
God, she tasted good. I woke up with her taste still on my tongue. She wasn’t up when I got up, which was more than understandable given her late night. I could see the the dent she made in that bottle of vodka, and she’d eaten the rest of the casserole. I had to assume she would be pressing the snooze button a few times.
I’m not ashamed to admit I imagined things went different. I could almost see her on that table, spread for me. This time, she was naked. This time, I had my hands on her perfect little tits, making her squirm. This time, I bit into her neck while I buried myself inside her and felt her tight little pussy take me in. I could almost feel it quake and clench as she came with my name on her lips and her nails in my back and that fucking taste in my mouth…
I knew I couldn’t sit around all day thinking about lost opportunities. For now, she was still Millions’ sweet and innocent little girl. His precious jewel, perpetually off limits.
Yup. That was me. Rev Daly, paragon of respectability.
Anyway, I had shit to do. We had shit to do. She wasn’t working, and I needed a ride. A couple of rides, actually. Today, I was looking for Clint. Red-haired and freckled with a milky eye; it made him a lot easier to hunt down than his supposedly nameless Irish boss. People don’t pay enough attention to detail these days, but nobody forgets a man with a fucked up eye.
When I left my bedroom the second time I found her sitting on the couch. Her eyes were red, her cheeks puffy. All that tension inside me came rushing right back. She glanced up and sighed before she even spoke.
“We’re not talking about last night.”
“No,” I agreed. “We’re not. But we are getting you something to eat. A woman like you can’t live on midnight casseroles and vodka alone.”
She managed a wan smile and picked up her keys. She wore a short white sundress decorated with daisies. It clung tight to her taut stomach, molded over the small hills of her chest. Following her, I let my eyes fall on the swell of her ass. Before she opened the door, she looked over her shoulder, and caught me in the act.
“I was drunk,” she said, as though I needed reminding.
“I know.”
“And…well…” she blushed now, and I guess she wasn’t actually going to ream me out for staring at her ass. “Thanks. For not. You know.”
I nodded, torn between regret for “you know” and happiness that it had been the right thing to do after all.
Fuck this woman and her effect on me.
Of course, fucking this woman was something I couldn’t get out of my head.
Midway through breakfast, a hearty plate of hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon at the local diner, Misty was nearly back to normal. Her eyes were bright and keen as ever. She nodded as I told her the itinerary. The Pied Piper, Gino’s, and wherever that might lead us. Then she’d be taking me to my first parole meeting to round it all out.
“And, you know, it’ll be better if you…you know. Stay in the car.”
That stopped her nodding, and earned me a glare.
“Why’s that?”
“You think anyone’s gonna be comfortable talking about you, in front of you?”
“Why wouldn’t they? If they want to help me…”
“They’ll feel more comfortable doing it indirectly. They trust me to keep a secret. Not to…”
“I can keep a secret.”
“Sure you can. But a lot of women can’t.”
“So this is about me being a woman? That’s fucked. It’s my life that’s at stake here. I want to be involved in my own damn rescue! I’m not gonna be the princess in the castle!”
“No,” I shot back. “You’re going to be the princess in the car. The one who’s smart enough to trust the man she hired to take care of this.”
Her eyes narrowed. She always seemed to have an issue with that word. Whenever I said it, trust, she got the same look on her face. For a woman who’d been throwing herself at me less than 24 hours ago, she sure was giving me shit on this.
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“I don’t expect you to. There’s not much to like about any of this. You’re a good woman, Misty. People like you - they really love you. They want to help, but…you’re too close and too distant at the same time. You don’t live this life anymore, so they don’t trust you to know how to act when shit hits the fan. You can take care of yourself…but you need to take care of everyone else, too. The people who want to help you, I mean. You have to make sure they don’t get swept up in the shit.”
She chewed slowly on a bite of bacon, considering all this.
“But they trust you,” she said.
“For good reason. The district attorney would have let me walk out of that prison any damn time I pleased if I was willing to roll over and start talking. I kept my mouth shut.”
“That’s admirable.”
The way she said it could have been sarcastic. But it wasn’t. Millions’ daughter knew a thing or two about the value of someone who never talks. She understood that even a man like me can have ethics and principles.
“It’s why your father liked me,” I offered.
“Yeeeeah,” she said, drawing the word out as though it reminded her of something she didn’t want to remember. “He did like you, Rev. But I’m starting to think my father’s standards might have been a little off. I’ve spent a lot of time letting his opinions be the measure of my life.”
She paused, studying me.
“You’re alright,” she finally said. “But not because my father thought so.”
“Oh no?” I couldn’t help but grin. And it forced a grin out of her, too. One that I was damn happy to see. Stupidly happy to see. “Why, then?”
“Because you make a really good casserole,” she said. “And you’re a good…”
She stopped herself before she could say it, but it was too late for her to hide the blush in her cheeks and the widening of her eyes. I was a good something or other, and I had a decent idea of what that was. I chuckled, signaled for the check. When I looked back at her, she was holding her head in her hands, clearly wondering what the hell was wrong with her.
“Don’t worry, sweetness,” I said. “I won’t tell anybody that you swooned over one of my kisses.”
Now, she glared at me, which made me grin even wider.
“Not unlike his close relative, the baboon, the wild criminal tries to impress a female with a display of his bright, red, protruding ass. Unlike the baboon, his attempt is a miserable failure,” she intoned in a fake British accent. I was still laughing when the waitress brought our check.
Chapter 16
Misty
We’d start at the Piper. It was early enough that I didn’t have high hopes for the place. There was always a fair number of full-time boozehounds drifting in and out of the bar, the big boys rarely showed up before five.
Of course… maybe that’s exactly why Rev wanted to be here first thing.
Waiting out in the car was a bitch. It gave me lots of time to think about what had happened the night before. Sure, Rev was being cool about it, pretending like I hadn’t all but forced myself on him, but that didn’t make things any less tense between us. I knew what his lips tasted like. I had a hint of what kind of fireworks we could set off by bringing out bodies together…
It sure made watching him eat breakfast a little harder. Watching Rev just flat-out turned me on. Thinking about those teeth nibbling at my neck instead of a piece of toast. His lips sucking at my lips instead of his coffee. Even the way he stabbed his bacon into his egg yolks was a goddamn innuendo.
Looking for a distraction from my thoughts, I called Janie. She always welcomed a few minutes away from her secretarial job, and she sure as hell would have something to say when I told her about the night before. My hangover had abated, settling down to a low-level discomfort, so I didn’t even mind that much when she screeched into my ear.
“I KNEW it! I KNEW it!”
Alright, alright, she knew it.
“Noth
ing really happened,” I said. “We just kissed. And kind of…like…held each other.”
“Poor guy, back to dry humping like a teenager…”
“Actually, he was the one who stopped it,” I said, closing my eyes tight in anticipation of more screaming. There was a beat of silence before Janie fulfilled my expectations.
“WHAT? Why? WHY? What is he, a eunuch? I swear, you bring him over, I’ll show him a thing or two…how dare he! Oooh, girl, he better have a damn good reason to be rejecting my best friend…”
“I was drunk,” I said, cutting her off before she could get too worked up. “He said he didn’t want anything to happen while I was drunk.”
“Really?” Now, Janie’s voice was much lower, considering this new information. “Is he gay or is he just stupid?”
I laughed.
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said. “You should see the way he looks at me... I don’t think he would look at Ryan Gosling that way.”
“Well, maybe he’s more of a Zach Galifianakis guy,” Janie joked. “But seriously. You’ve never given yourself credit for how hot you are. Every guy looks at you that way.”
“Alright, alright, let’s not board this train right now,” I said, knowing that we were just a few compliments away from descending into a “you’re the hot one”, “no, you’re the hot one” debate. “You know that I love reminding you how great your tits are, but I have a real problem here!”
“A problem? Why? Just try again tonight. If he really just wanted to screw you sober, he’ll be on you in a flash. If something else is getting in the way…”
“Janie, I don’t want to sleep with him! I wasn’t thinking straight!”
“Yeah, right,” Janie snorted. “That’s your father talking.”
Well, shit. If that wasn’t a shot aimed straight at my heart, I don’t know what was. She knew me too damn well.
Why had I called her again?
Luckily, before Janie could re-enforce my burgeoning sense of total identity displacement, Rev appeared in the Pied Piper’s door and trotted towards the car. I told Janie I’d talk to her later and waited for him to slide in beside me.
“Any luck?” I tried not to notice how his muscles seemed to constantly flex, even when he was doing something as innocent as closing the door. I did notice that he didn’t wear a seatbelt. Oooh, what a rebel, I thought, hoping that silently judging him over his poor car-safety decisions might save me from silently lusting over him.
It wasn’t really working.
“Not so much,” Rev shrugged. “Luis saw the kid once. He’s nineteen. Luis served him anyway, but kicked him out pretty quick. I guess he’s a lightweight. And you know how Luis is…”
“Right,” I said. “But he was alone? The one time?”
“No,” Rev sighed. “But his companion wasn’t anything to remember. Played some pool and left with a girl. Nothing helpful.”
“Damn,” I hissed. “Alright. Gino’s.”
“Hi-ho Silver,” Rev grumbled as I started out of the parking lot. I knew he was more than a little bitter about being robbed of the chance to drive. It was his career, his passion, after all. I could sympathize with him, but that didn’t mean I was handing over Dad’s Bel Aire. Not unless it was the direst of situations.
“I’m going in with you,” I said when we pulled up to the barber shop.
“We already discussed this,” Rev groaned.
“That was for the Piper. This is Gino. He doesn’t care who’s asking the questions. He just cares how much the answers are worth.”
This was true, and Rev knew it. Gino ran a barbershop, and was as good a source of news as the town crier. If you had a rumor you wanted spread, you took it to Gino. If you had a secret you wanted to keep, you avoided him like the fucking plague. People were either louder or quieter when they stepped into Gino’s shop. The loud ones had something to say. The quiet ones had something to learn.
There was a strange dynamic at Gino’s. If you wanted to know something, you put yourself at risk. There was a price to be paid for information - and that was more information. If anyone came in asking about you, you’d know about it. But they’d get an answer, too. Gino didn’t take sides. He just answered questions. And the more you were willing to tip, the more detailed that answer would be.
If you thought someone was tailing you and had twenty bucks to spend, you’d find out whether someone was asking about you at Gino’s. For fifty, you’d find out his hair color and height. A hundred might get you a scar or a tattoo. And depending on the situation, five hundred could get you a name. Sometimes, it would take a grand to get the information you needed - but everything had a price. Everything was for sale.
That’s why the haircuts were so damn cheap.
“Don’t fight me on this,” I said, turning the car off. “Gino loves me, and you know it.”
Everyone loved me. I was Millions’ daughter. His little princess. Everyone’s little fucking princess, to be coddled and cared for and kept from harm.
Rev narrowed his eyes at me, then turned to look into the front window, which was frosted so you could barely see inside. Then he turned back to me.
“Only if no one else is in there,” he said. “I’m going in first. If I wave for you to come in, come in. If I don’t, don’t.”
Fine. I could compromise. Who said I couldn’t compromise? I nodded, then waited. It occurred to me that Rev might not feel obliged to wave to me even if Gino was the only person in the shop. I had exactly zero reason to believe that Rev wouldn’t lie to me if he felt like it was in our best interest for him to do so. In fact, the longer I sat there, the more convinced I became that Rev would lie to me even if it wasn’t in our best interest.
But then he appeared in the doorway. And waved.
The little bell over the door jingled as I walked in, and Gino spread his arms wide to embrace me. Gino always smelled like a sweet sort of talcum powder, a scent that rushed me back to being a little girl and coming into his shop with my father. His wrinkles pressed against my cheek. He was so much older than when I was a little girl, and even back then he seemed to be a hundred and ten. He’d come from Italy to live with his daughter and set up this shop, quickly ingratiating himself with the town – particularly our side of the town.
“Beautiful people, beautiful people,” Gino said after releasing me, clapping his hands as he glanced from Rev to me and back again. He was beaming. His odd accent, a unique mix of Italian and Southern, was as much a distinguishing feature as his grey Mario-style mustache. “I love it! Alright. Come. A shave for my stupid jailbird boy.”
He patted one of the chairs and Rev took a seat. Gino pointed to the door.
“Topalina, flip the sign, no disturb, no one disturb.”
I did as he asked, flipping the sign from open to closed.
“You agree, Misty,” Gino said, preparing Rev for his shave. I took a seat behind them, where I could see them both in the mirror, and they could see me. An instinct as deeply bred as breathing: never put yourself in a situation where you can’t see the people around you. And if you want to show you can be trusted, make sure they can see you, too. The deep and silent rules of dealing with people who deal in distrust.
“Agree with what?”
“He’s a stupid,” Gino scoffed. “My boy. Going to prison. Stupid! And worse…cut off his hair!”
I grinned at the scowl Rev wore. I don’t think Rev was used to getting scolded. Certainly, none of his regular associates would berate him for getting thrown in jail. If anything, his time inside gave him cred.
“He did have nice hair,” I admitted, remembering it with a hitch in my heart. I didn’t mind the way it was now, though. It gave his face a bit more definition, made him look more like a man and less like a model. And it felt nice under my fingers…
Dammit.
“Well, you straighten him out, right? Good girl like you, very good for no good jailbird boy.”
“Uh…” Gino certainly had the wron
g idea.
“It’s not like that,” Rev said, saving me from having to explain it. “I’m just her bodyguard.”
To our mutual surprise, Gino just laughed.
“Sure! Ha, sure. Well, alright. That’s how you fall in love. A favor here, a favor there, and then…”
He smacked his lips together and put a hand over his heart, fluttering his eyelids in a pantomime of infatuation. I groaned and buried my face in my hands. This was the very last thing I needed.
“Gino…” Rev sounded exactly like I felt.
“Okay, okay,” Gino said, still laughing. He was lathing Rev’s chin now, shaking his head with a grin on his face. “So that look in your eyes is just something you ate. Alright, alright.”
Don’t bait him, Rev, don’t you dare…
“What look?” Rev asked.
“William, please. How long I know you?” Gino chuckled. “I’m an old man. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it plenty…”
“Gino, I’m sorry,” I piped up. “But we’re not in love, there’s nothing in our eyes.”
“Okay, okay,” Gino said again. But every time he acted like he was backing off, he just had something else to say, so I kept my hopes in check. “Always, they don’t see it, always…”
“What are…”
“Rev,” I groaned, not wanting to let this go on anymore. It was making my hangover worse. “Don’t you think we should start asking the questions we came here to ask?”
“Right,” Rev said. Gino brandished his straight razor and started to scrape at Rev’s stubble. “Listen, Gino, I’m sure you know Misty is in a little trouble.”
“Yes,” Gino said, frowning deeply and shaking his head. “Che palle.”
“What’ll it take to know more?”
With Gino, it was best not to be coy.
“Deeper pockets than yours,” Gino sighed. He shrugged. “Sorry.”
I couldn’t really hate him. Sure, he could just tell us what he knew. But there were rules. He couldn’t give anything away for less than it was worth. If he did, and whoever it was found out, he stood to lose more than a little money. Seems weird, doesn’t it? Laws among the lawless? But that’s how it was. It was the only thing that kept all hell from breaking loose.
