Work Me Up

by Julie Kriss

  It’s complicated, Ryan had said that night in the laundry room. Understatement of the year. “It’s casual,” I insisted.

  “Are you dating anyone else?” Lauren asked. “Is he?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “I’m sorry, honey, but that isn’t casual. Not if you’re living in the same house.”

  “Definitely,” Emily agreed. “Get him to step up.”

  “I don’t want a relationship right now,” I said. “You all have jobs you love, careers. Emily and Lauren, you’ve built a business. Tara, you love what you do. I’m twenty-seven and I haven’t found what I want to do yet. I just started my first teaching course. I need to figure myself out before I go in on a relationship—with anyone.”

  “That’s fair,” Lauren said. “But you can be his nanny, or you can date him. You can’t do both.”

  “We’re not dating.”

  “You don’t date a Riggs boy, Lauren,” Emily said. “I know from experience. You’re all in or you’re all out. She has a point.”

  “But the sex,” Lauren said. “If they’re not going to have a relationship, then she has to give up the sex. Think about that.” She shook her head. “You’re right. This is hard.”

  Now I was getting annoyed. Why did everyone know more about what I was doing than I did? “Look, it isn’t hard. It’s very simple,” I said. “He’s extremely hot. We’re both single. We both like sex, so we have it together. It’s convenient.”

  “For him, or for you?” Tara asked.

  “Can we talk about something else?” I said, looking around the room. “Please?”

  They took pity on me, and we talked about other things. Lauren ordered pizza. Tara plugged her phone into the speakers and put music on. It was fun; I liked all of them. I hadn’t had a lot of girlfriends aside from Amanda, and they made me feel like I belonged. But I still had tension crawling up my shoulders from that word convenient. It seemed to linger in my brain like a bad smell. Along with the question: For him, or for you?

  Jesus, why was this so damn hard?

  “Listen,” Lauren said, sitting next to me on the sofa while Tara and Emily were talking about something else. “About the career thing.”

  “I know,” I said, draining my glass. “I’m late. My cousin calls me a late bloomer.”

  “That’s just the thing,” Lauren said. “I found what I wanted to do early, and I loved it for a while, but now I’m burned out. That’s why Emily has taken over the day-to-day. It’s the weirdest thing, because part of me still loves the salon and can’t let it go. But the thought of going in there and working all the hours I used to makes me freeze up. I can’t even think about it anymore.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not asking for sympathy. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter that you haven’t found your thing yet. Because those of us who found our thing early—even we don’t do that one thing for the rest of our lives. I ran a business for years, but I’m still almost in the same place you are right now. Starting late just… doesn’t matter. As long as you start.”

  That actually did make me feel better. I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

  Across the room, Emily stood up from her chair, her phone to her ear. “What?” she cried. “You’re where?”

  Tara grabbed her phone and paused the music.

  “Oh, my fucking God.” Emily put a hand to her forehead. “This is a disaster. Yes, it is, Luke. It totally is. I knew this would happen.” She sighed. “Fine. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up. “That’s just great,” she said. “Dex and Ryan got arrested.”

  Twenty-One

  Ryan

  * * *

  The Riggs brothers had never had a bachelor party before. We should have known it would all go to shit.

  The first problem was that Dex wouldn’t tell us where we were going. The second problem was that we all had to go there—wherever it was—in one car so that I could be the designated driver. Dex’s idea again. “You don’t drink anyway, Babe Ruth,” he said. “You’re too fucking square.”

  “I could drink,” I argued, “if I wasn’t the driver.” I mean, come on. Who wants to be sober at a bachelor party?

  “Not tonight,” Dex said, and that was final.

  I knew he was trying to piss me off, but I didn’t want to start an argument before we’d even left. I figured I’d do whatever I wanted when we got there, and if we needed to take cabs home, so be it.

  “Why am I dreading this?” Jace said when he got into the back seat behind me, so that Dex could navigate from the front passenger side.

  “You’re dreading it?” Luke said. “How the fuck do you think I feel?”

  “Listen, shitheads,” Dex said, slamming the passenger door of my SUV. “If you didn’t want to come to my party, you shouldn’t have made me best man.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Jace said as I pulled away. “Making Dex best man was the worst idea ever.”

  “You always were the smart one,” Dex said.

  “It was still worth it for the look on his face,” Luke said. I laughed, which made Dex glare at me.

  “I notice you got your car fixed,” he said.

  The four of us had nearly totaled my SUV on a joy ride to the quarry back in the summer. It was a long story, but we had our reasons. “I fixed it myself,” I said. “It took me three days and four hundred bucks in parts.”

  “Then my work is done,” Dex said. “Turn left here.”

  We were heading away from downtown Westlake, so wherever we were going wasn’t there. The car was quiet for a few minutes. I racked my brain trying to remember what might be in this direction, but it was still too vague. It could be anywhere.

  None of us had spent much time together growing up, and we’d gone our separate ways as soon as high school was over. Dex had gone to cop training, I had gone to Detroit for baseball, and Luke had gotten in his car and simply hit the road, not coming back for eight years. Jace had stayed in town, working for Riggs Auto while Dad owned it—and since Dad ran a stolen car ring out of the shop, Jace eventually started stealing cars. Eventually he got caught and did twenty months in prison. He never admitted it, but I always secretly wondered if Jace had informed to the cops on Dad in return for a lighter sentence. It wouldn’t surprise me. He hated Dad as much as the rest of us did.

  But after all those different roads, we were all back in Westlake. Dex had moved into the guest house behind the Riggs house—it seemed he was actually finished with Detroit and truly broke. This was the first time since high school that the four of us had lived in the same town. And now we were even in the same car, not killing each other. It made me briefly wonder if maybe things would start to be different, if maybe we’d all find some way to get along.

  I was about to find out what a stupid idea that was.

  “Take this exit,” Dex said.

  “South Road?” Jace said from the back seat as I turned off onto an empty industrial strip that was depressing as hell. “What’s—oh, no, Dex. No.”

  Dex patted his pockets, probably looking for a joint. “Surprise,” he said.

  “Ryan, turn around,” Luke said. “No fucking way.”

  “What’s on the South Road?” I asked. And then I saw it. A lit-up sign ahead. “What’s that?” I slowed the SUV.

  “Hey, hey,” Dex protested. “Keep driving, Little League.”

  “Fuck you, Dex. What is that place?”

  A guy honked his horn behind me—the only car for miles—and I sped up again. I pulled over in the gravel parking lot and we all stared at the sign. The Landing Strip, it said. XXXX Girls.

  “You actually brought us to the Landing Strip,” Luke said to Dex. “The worst strip club in Michigan.”

  I racked my brain. I wasn’t a connoisseur of Westlake’s shitty strip clubs. “Wasn’t this place out by the old airstrip? I thought it got closed down.”

  “It moved,” Jace said. “They reopened out here. And they added a mass
age parlor in the back.”

  I stared at Dex. “You’re taking Luke to get a hand job for his bachelor party? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “It’s only thirty bucks,” Dex said. “My budget is limited.”

  “I’m dead meat if I go in that place, asshole,” Luke said. “I’m probably dead meat already. You want to ruin my marriage before it even starts?”

  Dex found his joint and put it between his lips, though he didn’t light it. “I called ahead. I know the bartender. They’re setting aside a VIP room, and it isn’t even the one next to the men’s room. It’s further down the hall.”

  “A VIP room at the Landing Strip with my brothers,” Jace said. “Just thinking about it makes me want to be celibate for the rest of my life.”

  “I’m getting venereal disease just looking at that sign,” I agreed.

  “You losers could enjoy yourself for once,” Dex argued.

  Jace shook his head. “I think enjoyment is already out of the equation.”

  “Jesus.” Dex opened his door. “Everyone out. We’re going in, and Luke’s getting a handy. That’s final.”

  “Forget it,” I said, staying put. “I’m turning around and we’re going back.”

  Dex got out, but he left the door open and put his foot on the running board. “C’mon Riggs, where are your balls?” he said to me. “You’re not even the one getting married.”

  The image of Kate flashed into my mind. Fuck, I did not want her to hear that I’d gone to a hand job parlor. “Fuck you, Dex.”

  “Oh, I get it.” His dark eyes were fixed on me, laughing at me. “You’ve got it going on with that redhead nanny, right?”

  “Shut it, Dex,” Jace said from the back seat. “Back off.”

  But Dex’s gaze didn’t flicker. “Is she as hot as she looks, Riggs?” he said. “I don’t blame you. She has a sweet, sweet ass. You been in there yet? I bet she’d like it if you bent her over and—”

  I was out of the driver’s seat, around the hood, and I slammed him hard against the SUV. “Do not fucking talk about her,” I said. “Do not say another word.”

  “All right, all right,” Dex said. “If you’re not going there, then I’ll give her a call. I wouldn’t mind a shot at—”

  I slammed him against the car again. Dex laughed, but I knew my brother. We’d had plenty of fistfights growing up. The one thing about Dex in a fight was that he always fought dirty.

  So when he kneed me in the balls, I flinched away. He still grazed me, sending a shot of pain straight up into my stomach. And it was on.

  He threw me to the gravel. I landed a kick to his kidneys, and he fell. He grabbed me, pushing my face into the gravel, and then we flipped and I did the same to him.

  Behind us, I heard the doors slamming as Jace and Luke got out of the SUV. I paid no attention, because Dex had managed a punch to the side of my face, which broke my hold on him. He tried to get up, but I kicked him in the knee and he fell again.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Luke said, appearing behind Dex and yanking him away. I felt Jace’s big hands on my arms, pulling me back. He was strong, even stronger than me.

  I didn’t care. I was seeing red. I wanted to punch Dex. I wanted to punch my fucking brother until he couldn’t move for saying those things, for thinking them. I wanted to punch him for a lifetime of his attitude and his bullshit.

  And what was worse, I wanted him to punch me. Because he was the only one who could, the only one who would. Dex was the only person in the world who would give me a proper fucking beating.

  And like he was psychic, like he was reading my fucking thoughts, Dex laughed. “See, little brother?” he said to me. “You’re just as angry as I am.”

  There was a flash of red and blue, the blip of a siren as a cop cruiser pulled into the lot. The doors opened and two cops from the Fell PD got out. I didn’t recognize either of them.

  “What’s going on here?” the bigger one said.

  Luke glared at them, still holding on to Dex. “You have got to be kidding. Where the hell did these guys come from?”

  The second cop looked at the four of us—Luke holding Dex, Jace holding me—looked at the blood on me and Dex, then looked up at the Landing Strip sign. “You guys weren’t planning on doing any soliciting tonight, were you?” he said.

  And that was how I got arrested on the worst night of my life.

  They took us to the Fell PD station. They let Luke and Jace go almost immediately, but they kept Dex and me. They wanted to know if we were drunk, if we’d had anything to drink at all, if we were doing any drugs. They wanted to know why we were at the Landing Strip. They wanted to know why we were fighting. They kept asking questions and disappearing again, leaving us alone in a windowless interrogation room.

  “They’re trying to find something,” Dex said after the third round of questions.

  We were sitting in two folding chairs, side by side, staring at a wall. They hadn’t said we could go yet. “What do you mean, they’re trying to find something?” I asked.

  Dex glanced at me. He had specks of blood all over the side of his face from the gravel, just like I did. I also had a bruise near my temple where he’d clocked me—I could feel it throbbing—and my stomach was still turning from the knee in the balls. Technically Dex had won that fight, just like he won every other fight.

  “We’re Riggs boys,” he said. “Mike Riggs’ sons. We were fighting in the parking lot of a skeevy strip joint with an illegal massage parlor in the back. They’re so close to locking us up like they want to, but they can’t quite figure out how. So they make us sit here while they talk about it.”

  I stared at him. He was probably right, since he’d spent years as a cop. “They want us that bad?”

  “Sure,” Dex said. He didn’t even seem mad anymore, at me or at anyone. “They’re drooling to put the rest of us in prison with Dad. They’ve sweated Luke twice. They’ve raided Riggs Auto looking for drugs. They’ve set Jace up, trying to put him away.” He shook his head. “Right now they’re on the other side of that door, trying to figure out their play. They’re pissed that they could only keep you and me, not the others.”

  I couldn’t get my head around it. “How did they know where we were?”

  “Seriously, Riggs, get a brain,” Dex said. “Emily’s mother is one of Fell PD’s most prominent cops. For sure she knew that tonight was the night of the bachelor party.”

  “So they were keeping an eye on us? Are you kidding me?”

  Dex shrugged.

  “And you figured that, and you still brought us to the Landing Strip,” I said. “Why?”

  “Because,” Dex said, “there is nothing I like more in life than driving cops nuts. Especially Fell cops. Did you see the looks on their faces when they left just now? They looked like someone farted. I live for that shit.”

  “Dex, I have a kid,” I said. “I know you like to stir the shit, but if I get arrested, I’m fucked.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Relax, Babe Ruth. You were never in trouble. You’re the good one, remember? The Little League champion.”

  “Minor league, not little league. Minor league.”

  “Whatever. If it came down to it, I would have just said I attacked you first. They’d believe me. The Fell PD would love nothing more than to book me for assault.”

  “You are a very, very fucked-up man. Do you know that?”

  “I’m aware,” Dex said.

  My brain ticked over. “That shit you said about Kate. You didn’t even mean that, did you? You’re not even interested in her. So why did you say that shit? Just to make me mad?”

  “Listen,” Dex said. He scrubbed a hand through his messy hair. “How long has she worked for you?”

  I thought back. “Since June.”

  “So, like three months? Longer? And you don’t want her? Come on, Ryan. Are you fucking dense?”

  I thought of the last three weeks, of how Kate and I were together. I didn’t know what to do abo
ut it. “It’s complicated,” I said.

  “Not that complicated,” Dex said. “Wake the fuck up. You have two people who give a shit about you. You always were the lucky one. You know how many people give a shit about me? Zero. Think about that for a second. Then think about whether you want to be an idiot about your redheaded nanny, or whether you want to be smart for once.”

  The door opened and one of the cops walked in. He looked defeated. “Okay, you two can go. One of our guys will take you back to your car.”

  “Never mind,” Dex said, getting out of his chair. “I know my way home. Later, assholes.” He walked out the door and was gone.

  Twenty-Two

  Kate

  * * *

  I lay in bed in my little apartment, staring at the ceiling as I heard Ryan come through the door upstairs. It was two o’clock in the morning. The girls had all had too much wine at our bachelorette party to drive, so none of us had been able to pick any of the Riggs boys up from the police station. The party broke up with a whimper instead of a bang as we all went home.

  I wondered if I should go upstairs and talk to him, ask him if he was okay. But if I did, he’d know that I was lying awake, waiting for him and worrying. And I didn’t know if that was something we were doing—waiting and worrying about each other in the middle of the night. What if he was tired and he brushed me off? Or what if I went upstairs and he offered sex? Should I say no to him? Would I even be able to?

  Is it convenient for him, or for you?

  Did I even want convenient? I didn’t know anymore.

  I pulled the covers over me and rolled over. I wouldn’t go upstairs. I’d go to sleep. He probably wanted to go to sleep, anyway.

  I heard his footsteps move softly above my head. He was trying to be quiet, considerate. The steps came to the basement door and stopped there for a long minute.

  I held my breath.

  Then the footsteps moved away and disappeared upstairs. I closed my eyes in the dark and tried to sleep.