“Of course not,” I giggled. “But I’d like you to sort of sweat him a little bit.”
“I don’t know,” Sal said. “Bulldog and I have worked pretty well together…”
“I can make it worth your while.” I cocked my head to the side and unzipped my jacket again. When I unzipped it, I reached in and drew out the six $100 bills that Bulldog had given to me earlier. I placed them in his hand and let my fingers linger a little longer than they needed to.
It took him a second to move his eyes from my exposed breast to the cash in his hand. “Just to make him sweat a little?” he asked. His eyes left the cash and went back to my breast.
“Yeah. Sweat him a little while and then tell him that he’s been cleared. No big deal, just sort of a practical joke.”
“That’s a lot of cash for a practical joke. But what if he doesn’t take the joke well?”
“Oh, he doesn’t ever have to know that it’s a joke.” I zipped my jacket up, pushed the kickstand up and straddled my bike. I started the motor and let it grumble for a few moments and then turned back toward him.
“When I notice that he’s sweating, I’ll pay you the rest.”
“The rest? How much is the rest?”
I laughed. “The rest will be something that your wife will never have to hear about.” I finished the last comment, winked and then turned the throttle and roared across the parking lot away from him.
Chapter Sixteen: TNT
I’d been enjoying the sweet memories of the night that Leila and I had just spent together. I’d seen that Bulldog had called several times, but I didn’t answer the calls, and I was not in any hurry to return them. I had a twinge of guilt about having just spent the night with his girlfriend. Yeah, maybe he screwed around on her, and maybe it was okay, and maybe he’d never find out, but I still had a conscience and it was harassing me. I wasn’t quite ready to talk to him.
Leila—I’d decided to call her by name instead of “Peach”—had turned me inside out. I’d been with a lot of hot women in my time, but there was something about her that had gone beyond all of my other experiences. She was gorgeous, there was no doubt about that. Her body was put together in perfect proportion, and every curve was as if it had been shaped there by a master sculptor. But that wasn’t what had gotten to me. There was something else about her that I was having a hard time putting my finger on.
After she left, I’d taken a shower, wrapped a towel around my waist and collapsed in the recliner with a cold beer, trying to figure out what it was that she’d done to my head; I knew what she’d done to my body. From the physical aspects of our night, I was drained, but inside I felt like I had more energy than I’d ever had. There were parts of me that had started to drift away, just like they do with everybody as their lives begin to become a routine; Leila had drawn those parts back to me.
My cell phone rang again. I got up from the recliner, went into the bedroom, scooped it up off of the dresser, saw that it was Bulldog, turned it off and tossed it back on the dresser. There wasn’t any point in dealing with that yet. I propped my head up with a couple of pillows, turned on the television and started to flip through channels. There wasn’t a lot on, but I finally settled on a cage fight that featured two guys that looked like they could really go at it.
Leila’s face hovering over me with that look in her eyes and that smile that made me weak came into my head instantly. I drifted off to sleep thinking about her and completely ignoring the two guys that were laying into each other in the cage. It was an infomercial at about three times the volume that was necessary for any program on television that awakened me several hours later. I thought of my phone and went to retrieve it.
I’d no sooner turned the phone on and made note of the 15 times that Bulldog had called me that morning than the phone rang again. Might as well find out what he wants, or he’ll call me all damned day.
His tone reminded me of my mother giving me shit about not taking out the trash, not cleaning my room, not cutting the grass and every other teenage sin that I’d ever committed. Worse yet, however, was when he started accusing me of ratting him out the cops in Salt Lake. Why the hell would I even do that? Anything I tried to pin on him would come right back on my ass, and vice versa. I tried to stay cool, but the combination of his attitude, his threats and my own little bit of guilt for what Leila and I had done drove me over the edge. When I hung up with him, I was ready to punch something. I went and took another shower. I had rounds to make and cash to collect, even if Bulldog was pitching a bitch fit.
I was rumbling down the street on my way to pick up a payment when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. It was probably just Bulldog again, but there was also the chance that it might be Leila. I pulled it out and looked at the number. It was Leila. I pulled to the side of the road and answered the call.
“Hey, beautiful,” I said as way of greeting.
“Hey, beautiful, yourself,” she countered. “I think I hear the rumble of a Road King.”
“You’re pretty smart for a girl,” I answered.
“A girl can’t do what I did to you last night,” she giggled.
“I’ll give you that,” I laughed. “I assume you made it home alright.”
“I think that ride gets longer every time I take it,” she moaned. “A shower never felt so good when I finally got here.”
“I know exactly what you’re saying. I feel the same way whenever I have to go to Salt Lake.”
“I don’t envy you that ride. Right around Salt Lake isn’t bad, but northern Nevada is the armpit of hell.”
“I’ve always called it the Dry Heaves of Nevada,” I answered.
“Sick imagery,” she laughed. “But it does capture the essence. Where you headed now?”
“I’m just going to do a couple of pickups locally. I don’t have enough energy to head out of town. Besides, it’s kind of late for that.”
“You whining about not getting enough sleep, Marine?” She had a pretty good grasp on the master sergeant impersonation, though the pitch of her voice was a little high.
“You should know,” I answered. I was trying to decide the best way to discuss the phone call that I’d gotten from Bulldog. I thought I’d fire a few probing rounds in her direction. “How was Bulldog when you got in?”
“Jesus! I don’t know what his problem was, but he acted like he had a stick up his ass. Why?”
“He called me and started accusing me of shit.”
“Seriously?” her voice rose in pitch. “Me too. He acted like my mother after I’d been out drinking and come in late.”
“He talked the same way to me,” I responded. It was interesting that we both had the same feeling.
“I don’t know what his problem is,” she said. “Maybe he found out what we did last night.”
“Let’s hope not,” I laughed, catching her quick attempt at lightening the conversation again.
“What was he accusing you of?” she asked.
“He’s saying some bullshit about me turning him in to the cops in Salt Lake. Shit, why would I do that? Anything that was connected to him would come straight back to me. He must be high on some bad acid or something.”
“He didn’t say anything to me about it,” she replied. “I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it soon enough, though.”
“He coming over?” My heart sank as I realized that in a few hours she might be banging Bulldog again, and I felt a jealous wave surge up inside of me. Logic told me that she had to act normal, but that’s not where my heart went.
“Hell no! I’m not letting him anywhere near me until he gets on his knees and does some serious apologizing for the way he acted this afternoon.”
I felt a flood of relief come to me. I’d have to get a handle on the fact that Leila was with Bulldog and I’d just gotten a little taste of his treat. Pushing her out of my head wasn’t going to be easy, though.
“Well,” she said after a pause. “Dish and I are going to eat something an
d then I’m headed to bed. You?”
“I took a nap already,” I confessed. “I’m going to do those pickups and then head to the house myself.” I didn’t really feel like going to the casinos. The money could wait until tomorrow.
“Not to sound like your mother or anything,” she laughed, making a play on our earlier conversation, “but don’t stay out too late.”
“I won’t,” I laughed. “Take care. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Ciao for now,” she responded, ending the call.
Chapter Seventeen: Peach
It was obvious after I hung up with Trevor that my plan was already taking shape. Not only was Bulldog pissed about being set up and accusing Trevor, but Trevor was already responding the way that I thought he would. He had a thick shell and was a cool customer, so it would take a lot more to rattle him. I was pretty sure from the tone of our conversation that he was beginning to be rattled a bit. Maybe I hadn’t needed Sal after all. No, it was better to have that little extra push.
I avoided Bulldog for a little more than a week. That didn’t seem to be bothering him, but was starting to make me wonder. I would have preferred to have kept him close where I could get a measurement on how effectively our plan was working, but I wasn’t going to go crawling to him, not after the way he’d acted toward me. Still, it made me nervous, wondering what he was up to and if he suspected either Dish or me.
I talked to Trevor nearly every day, sometimes even twice. He had cooled off and was taking things in stride, just as I knew he would. He was overly concerned about Bulldog and me being back together, not out of concern for Bulldog and me, but—I had the suspicion—because he had a thing for me. Though that had been part of my plan too, there was a tiny little pinprick of guilt in the back of my mind. It would neither go away when I tried to dismiss it nor grow enough to consume me. It just seemed to linger there like a splinter.
My conversations with Trevor were typically light and playful. Both of us liked to tease and he was nearly as good at it as I was. He had charm that ran all through him and he had a cocky confidence about him too. I was not only attracted to him for all of those reasons, but we’d also discovered that we had a lot in common. I’d weakened in my resolve more than once when it came to dragging Trevor into my plan, but turning back was not an option; I pushed forward.
When the call from Bulldog came for me to go back to Reno, it was all business. At least it was a good sign that he wasn’t onto me. He’d never trust me to make a run for cash if he thought I was involved in his being set up.
“Can you make a run?” he asked, without even greeting me.
“I suppose that I can,” I responded casually.
“They’ll have one tomorrow,” he responded.
“Does this mean that we’re talking again?” I teased.
“Yeah, I guess,” he admitted.
His tone sounded remorseful, but I didn’t expect an apology. I waited several beats. “Is that it?”
“Well,” he said, “I suppose I should say that I’m sorry for jumping down your throat a couple of weeks ago. I was upset about a lot of shit, but I didn’t need to take it out on you.”
I nearly stopped breathing for good, and I’m pretty sure that my heart didn’t beat for at least five seconds. Had Bulldog just apologized to me? “Was that an apology?”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he grumbled.
I decided to cut my losses. “Okay. I’ll run to Reno this afternoon then.”
“Peach?” he added, just as I was about to hang up. “Be careful. Keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel. There’s some shit going on out there and I don’t need you getting caught up in it.”
“Dish said something about the cops,” I replied. I decided to do a little fishing to see of Sal had done what I’d paid him to do. “It’s probably just a rumor that will blow over.”
“I don’t know, Peach. I saw Sal last week and he said that there’d been some people asking questions with my name in them.”
“No shit?” I responded with a shocked tone. So, Sal had done what I’d paid him to do. I was going to have to go ahead and give him the bonus that I’d promised him after all. I did a quiet fist-pump, but I couldn’t celebrate. I still needed to play my surprised role. “Are you sure I should be going to Reno, then?”
“Yeah. We need to keep doing what we do,” he said. “They probably won’t connect you anyway. Just be careful.”
When the call disconnected, I knew that I was on track with my plan. Bulldog was paranoid. I would need to do a little bit more work on Trevor, but, since I was headed back to Reno, that was going to be easy to do. For the first time in a very long time, I was excited to straddle my Fat Boy and head toward Nevada.
Finding Trevor wasn’t nearly the ordeal that it had been the time before. I’d called to let him know that I had arrived and he was already waiting for me in the casino. The evening was similar to the one that we’d had before, except I’d given in to allowing him to take me to a nice dinner instead of out for waffles, and we had turned in sooner in order to get an early start on quenching the fire that we’d already fanned into white hot coals.
Exhausted from going wild all over each other’s bodies, I was lying in his arms with my head on his chest and thinking about how much I could get used to being with him. I knew that I couldn’t allow myself to get in too deep if I hoped to carry out my takeover of the Hell Dogs, but it was getting harder for me to fight back that nagging splinter that grew to about ten times its size when Trevor and I had met up that evening. It wasn’t an easy fight, but I pushed it down and drove ahead.
“So, I have something I should tell you,” I started in softly.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“You’re not going to like it,” I said. I was stalling, not really wanting to carry out the next part of my plan, but knowing that I’d really come too far to turn back anyway.
“I won’t know until you tell me.”
In that very same moment that I decided to push forward with my plan, I knew that, though I might gain control of the Hell Dogs, I would probably lose something more precious. I did it anyway. “Bulldog has somebody keeping an eye on you.”
“He what?” Trevor said, sitting upright as if he had just been awakened by a nightmare. In the process of his reaction, my own comfort was quickly shoved aside and I sat up too.
“He’s got someone watching you,” I repeated. I heard myself going through with my plan almost as if it was someone watching themselves in an out-of-body experience.
“What the fuck is his problem?” Trevor raged. It was a side of him that I’d never seen before and it was, even for an ex-Marine, frightening. I honestly hadn’t expected his explosion. “I haven’t done anything to him and all of a sudden, the stupid bastard is coming unglued!”
I shrugged, not sure of what to say. I was also regretting that I was putting him through this. That was the first time that I began to have doubts about being able to keep my plan going. The problem, however, was that I’d pushed a boulder off a hill and it had bumped some other boulders, and they had all begun to tumble of their own accord.
Chapter Eighteen: Bulldog
“How was Reno?” I asked when Peach came in, tossed the envelope on my desk and slumped into her usual seat. It had been a couple of weeks since I’d seen her and, to tell you the truth, she was looking better than ever. I was regretting that I had pushed her away.
“It was Reno. Same as always,” she replied in a bored tone.
“How have you been?” I asked.
She chuckled. “You don’t talk to me for two weeks and you ask about Reno before you ask about me?”
“Hey, give me a break,” I tried to keep the tone my voice even. I didn’t need to get into things with her. I was under enough pressure without fighting with Peach too. “I got plenty of shit to deal with. I was just trying to start a pleasant conversation.”
Peach sat there quietly for several minutes before she st
arted off in a soft tone. That wasn’t something that she often did. “Sal still snooping around?”
“Not, Sal, really,” he said. “He’s just keeping me up to date on what he’s hearing. Thank god he’s on my side, at least.”
“You better hope he’s on your side,” she replied.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, wondering if she knew something that I didn’t.
“Nothing,” she replied. “Jesus, you’re paranoid. All I meant was that he just has a lot of shit on you. If he ever turned against you, he could nail your ass big time.”
I didn’t need that little reminder. I was already looking over my shoulder enough as it was. The thought of having Sal coming at me too didn’t make me feel any better. I took a deep breath, pushed down the rising tension that had been my constant companion for several weeks and focused on counting the money that I’d pulled from the envelope. Peach remained quiet, watching me.
While I was busy counting, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that she was studying me intensely. She typically ignored me while I was counting the money, but she seemed to be keeping a close eye on me. Was there something going on that she was afraid that I’d pick up on? Was there money missing and she was afraid that I’d figure it out? Was I just losing my fucking mind for thinking that Peach was doing anything other than casually looking on? The last was probably the correct answer.
Another thought came to me as I finished counting and passed the bills for her cut across the desk toward her. Had she found out about Dish and me?
“Pleasure doing business with you,” she said, gathering up the bills and slipping them inside her leather jacket just like she always did. She stood up and started toward the door.
Usually, whenever she left my office, she did some sort of routine to tease me. The time before, she had been pissed, but I was hoping that she would pick up where we’d left off. She opened the door and started to step through.
“Peach,” I called after her, “are we okay?”
AFRICAN AMERICAN URBAN FICTION: BWWM ROMANCE: Billionaire Baby Daddy (Billionaire Secret Baby Pregnancy Romance) (Multicultural & Interracial Romance Short Stories) Page 20
