by Sophia Gray
“What is it do you do for the Violent Spawn?”
“I’m an enforcer,” he said with the ease of someone who said they worked for a coffeehouse, “and when I’m not doing that, I work at the body shop.”
“And when you aren’t doing either of those lucrative things, you are making homemade everything?”
He shrugged, making his shoulders ripple. “I like cooking.”
“Doesn’t it take like…hours to make a red sauce?”
His eyes glittered. “Woman, do I tell you how to do your job?”
“All right. Fine.”
She had absolutely nothing to say to that. She headed down the hall to Oliver’s room and ignored the fact that a very attractive man was performing what she could only call culinary sorcery in her kitchen. Oliver answered the door on the first knock. He looked…tired. His eyes were red, and there were circles underneath them. She looked past him toward the bed, wondering if she had woken him from a nap.
“Hey, you okay?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
She didn’t answer out loud, but her gaze drifted back down the hall in Finn’s general direction. Oliver laughed and shook his head. The shadows under his eyes lightened a couple of hues, and she felt a little better for it.
“It’s cool,” he promised. His hands stuffed themselves into his hoodie. “Really. Finn is cool. He can cook.”
Cool was not the word Cora would use for Finn. What word she would use was steeped in a lot of conflicted feelings. She decided to sidestep that particular conversation. “Did he explain what he’s doing here tonight?”
Oliver’s eyes rolled. “You guys wanna low-jack my cell phone.”
“That’s…okay, that’s pretty accurate. I’m not a huge fan of the phrasing, but I can’t fault your view. It’s not like I’ll be reading your texts or anything. I just want to know where you are. Okay?”
He dipped his head. “If you did, could I maybe hang out at the shop sometimes? Or hang out at the pool hall?”
It wasn’t a bad compromise. She got to know where he was, and he got a little bit of freedom. Both parties were happy. It was a fair deal. Cora was all about good compromise. “That’s fair. I’d still want you home by nine.”
“Nine?” he asked with all the enthusiasm that he might have had if Cora had asked him for an organ donation.
“Nine if you don’t come straight here and finish your homework before you go out. If you come here, a time home will be discussed before you head back out.”
He thought it over. His jaw moved back and forth as he rolled it over in his head. She was proud of him for not instantly agreeing to anything. “Is this how you handle your work?”
“Pretty much.”
“You’re kind of a bitch.” But he was smiling when he said it.
Maybe she should have been annoyed by the word he used, but she couldn’t quite muster that. “You are not the first to say so.”
Unexpectedly, Oliver surged forward and wrapped his arms around her. Every bit of anger and frustration she had felt about not picking him up and the lingering anxiety of low-jacking his phone dispersed in that single action. He used to do the same thing when he was little. His hugs had always been these big warm displays. He was a lot taller now, and he was far too thin, but it felt good to be hugged by him again.
“Wow, what’s this for?” She wrapped her arms around his back. He was so skinny. Maybe a good heavy dinner would do him some good.
“Being you,” he answered. His voice was soft, almost shy.
Since he was taller than her, she had to go up on her toes to kiss his forehead. But it was definitely worth it. “You know I love you, little brother?”
He dropped his arms down to his sides in youthful embarrassment. “Yeah, yeah.”
She laughed and poked his belly. “Come on. Apparently, we are being treated to a real meal tonight.”
Oliver looked a little embarrassed. He shifted his weight back and forth and focused his eyes on the carpet. “I hope that’s cool.”
“This was your idea?” she asked, slinging an arm around his shoulders.
“I mean, listen, I can eat pizza as much as the next dude, but man.” He shook his head and made a sound of dramatic disgust.
She held up her hands. “I’m sorry. I seriously don’t cook.”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “Finn does.”
“So you’ve told me.” She offered her brother a sidelong glance. “You still trying to set us up?”
Oliver said nothing to that. He just looked at her with eyes ringed in heavy dark circles.
“Get your homework. We’ll do it together while the big dude cooks.”
Chapter 10
Cora
To say dinner was good would have been a serious misuse of the word. Cora was of the opinion that Finn was wasted as a criminal and a car mechanic. Oliver had not exaggerated—the man could cook. A good portion of the evening was spent sitting at the barstools, watching Finn move around the small space while she tried to focus her attentions on helping her brother with homework.
Finn was, she had to admit, efficient. He used every available space and managed to have three pots going without anything spilling over. Cora couldn’t manage that with ramen.
“What does the code of Hammurabi tell us about the class structure in Babylon?” Cora read from the handout that had been tucked between a few chapters of a very worn history book, “Make specific references to at least three of the laws back up your response.”
Oliver pillowed his forehead on the bar and crossed his arms like a wall of teen angst. “I don’t know. What does it matter?”
“It’s pretty important,” Finn spoke up, with a wooden spoon tucked in his golden hand. “I mean, the laws were the basis of Babylonian infrastructure.”
Cora raised her brow and tilted her head to the side out of curiosity. She reached for a glass of wine and took a slow sip before asking, “You know about ancient Mesopotamian law?”
Finn gave a wicked grin. It made her heart do an unexpected bounce inside of her chest. “My profession requires that I be very well-versed in laws.”
Cora rolled her eyes but found herself amused anyway. This whole evening would be a lot simpler if he wasn’t cute. Not just cute, she realized, but smart. There was something devastating about being a little of both. Add in a dash of dangerous, and he was the kind of cocktail that was bound to leave her a little heady. It was best not to dwell.
“Come on, Oliver, you know this.” Finn pushed a glass of cold root beer in Oliver’s direction.
“It tells us they were really screwed up,” Oliver said with his face still buried against his arms.
Cora cupped her chin with her hand, planting her elbow on the island. “I don’t think that answer is academically acceptable.”
“But it’s true.” He looked up, a mechanical pencil in one hand.
“Oh?” she baited him.
“I mean,” Oliver started as he fiddled with the pencil, his thumb clicking the top again and again until a long length of graphite was sticking out of the tip, and then slowly pushing it back in. “The code really covers how the really wealthy guys were pretty big about being treated with respect and stuff, right?”
“What do you mean?” Cora asked, watching Oliver mess with the pencil for the third time. She let him do it. The clicking might not have been her favorite sound, but if it helped him think, more power to him. “I don’t understand.”
“Okay, like there is this one part, it talks about how much it cost a person if their slave got hurt. Like it breaks it all down, but in another part it talks about how if a son hits his dad, he gets his hand cut off. I mean, that’s not exactly fair, is it?”
“No, it’s not. But what does that tell us about the Babylonians?”
“Well, it tells us they had slaves and they were seen as lesser. I mean, there’s that whole eye for an eye thing where it pretty much says that if one dude hurts another dude’s eye, th
en the guy who got hurt can hurt a person just like he did. So like, if I stabbed Finn in the eye, he could stab me back and it would be fair, but if Finn were my slave…”
Finn glanced up from where he was hand-mashing potatoes. “I’m not? Are you paying me?”
“No,” Oliver said unapologetically, “but it’s not like I’m beating you for leaving lumps in my potatoes either.”
“How nice of you,” Cora drawled.
“But like, if he were my slave and Cora stabbed him in the eye, she’d have to pay me half of what I paid for him. It’s nuts.”
Cora pushed the print out toward Oliver, who dutifully began using his pencil for something other than fiddling with it.
By the time history, math, and English homework was finished, dinner was very nearly ready. It smelled incredible. Finn ladled sauce over the fried pierogis and added a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese over the top.
“I’m going to have to spend an extra twenty minutes on the stationary bike just for smelling this,” Cora said as she pulled a plate toward her.
Oliver, who had already stuffed an entire potato-stuffed dumpling into his mouth, made a grateful sound. “Totally worth it.”
It was. The man had a gift. Cora allowed herself to enjoy an extra helping as they sat around playing an impromptu game of Chase the Ace.
“So,” Finn said partway through their third game, “you gonna tell us about this girl you’ve been seeing?”
Oliver’s cheeks flared a dark rose red. He looked down at his hoodie as if the overly worn pocket was vastly interesting. Cora didn’t know if now was quite the time to bring any of this up, but it was too late to go back now.
“The blonde?” she asked, passing out a single card to each of them. “I think I saw you with her at the pool hall.”
“I…yeah,” he finally said. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. She’s…she’s cool.”
“Yeah?” Cora prompted, lifting her card to see a nine staring back at her. She plopped it to the left and waited.
“What do you want to know?”
Finn held on to his card while Cora and Oliver passed. Oliver sighed as he saw the nine Cora had given over to him. “Her name is Britt. She just moved here.”
“What’s she like?”
Oliver shrugged. “She’s nice.”
Finn and Cora exchanged a look. Nice is what you told someone when you didn’t want to talk about it. Nice was the same word Cora had used to describe several of her high school boyfriends. It wasn’t going to do to push, and she knew it. He’d just pull away.
“All right,” Oliver said after the third round of cards. “I’m going to bed.”
“Night, Hawk,” Finn called as her little brother disappeared into his room.
Cora watched him go. There was a niggling feeling in that spot at the base of her neck, where one bad feeling was warring with another in such a way that she didn’t know exactly what was going on. Teenagers were secretive—that was some sort of social law. Sometimes they got into trouble, too. But Oliver had always been a good kid when they were younger. Was it a girl who was pulling him down a bad path?
When his door closed, Cora shook her head. She’d be here. She’d help and hope he came around.
“You okay?” Finn’s voice broke through her thoughts.
She looked up and saw the biker bad boy sitting across from her. Maybe her brother going down this path had nothing to do with a girl, and everything to do with his obvious hero worship of the tattooed man currently roosting across from her. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”
He swung himself out of the seat in an easy way. She realized she was very much alone with Finn. He stood there, looking like he stepped off the cover of a biker magazine. His thumbs were hooked in his belt loops. “I’m going to do the dishes, and then I’ll head out.”
“Let me help,” she offered, feeling suddenly awkward. The easy feeling that had grown between them seemed to have walked out with her brother. “It’s the least I can do after that dinner.”
“It’s not a problem. Didn’t you want to get some time in at the little gym thing they’ve got here?”
“Well…yeah.” She was surprised he had remembered. He was always managing to surprise her somehow, whether it be his random knowledge about the ancient law, his obvious kindness, or his skills at cooking. She wanted him to just be the bad guy, the criminal on a bike who liked to beat people up for some other bad-guy criminal on a bike. It wasn’t so easy anymore.
He waved a tattooed hand at her. “Go on, you’ll have a nice clean kitchen when you get back.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, already taking a step toward her bedroom to change into some workout clothes.
“Well, you do want a man who cooks and cleans, right? Isn’t that what all you hard working women want?” He gave her a wink and set the water running in the sink with a careless flick of his hand. Another move and suds were beginning to bubble up on the water’s surface.
She rolled her eyes and walked to the bedroom, resolutely ignoring how good he would look with soapy arms.
# # #
The time at the gym did her good. Cora liked to work out. It had never been about having thinner thighs or a firm flat belly. Genetics said that without serious time, dieting, and effort (not to mention a very persistent personal trainer), Cora would always have thighs that rubbed together when she walked. She was okay with that. They filled out her skirts better. She worked out so she could think.
There was something about the sensation of blood pounding through her veins as she hit the second mile on the bike that helped her focus. She could pick apart her day and the problems currently irking her and piece them together. Cora invited it now.
Her first problem was Oliver. It seemed to be two steps forward, one step back with him. The hug he had given her made her feel like she was getting somewhere, but his resistance to talk about the girl he obviously liked made her worry. She knew full well how much teenage love could mess with life.
Then there was Finn…and that was a completely different issue. She had to admit she liked him. Yes, he was a criminal and a bit of a womanizer, but clearly that’s not all he was. He knew ancient history and was smart enough to crack jokes about it. He could cook, and he wasn’t completely intimidated by her money. It also helped that he looked like a good girl’s bad-boy wet dream.
Around the fifth mile she felt her mind hit that point of clarity.
Oliver was going to keep secrets. That was perfectly normal. So long as he kept going to school and showed up at his hearing, there was no reason he couldn’t have a private life. Building problems where there didn’t need to be any was borrowing trouble. Her historical issues were not necessarily her brother’s current ones. She filed that problem away as momentarily solved.
What made Finn truly intense was the fact that she was thinking of him as a forbidden thing. The mind (and body) always wanted what it couldn’t have. The fact of the matter was she could have it. He had offered himself to her several times. He was ready and willing. All right, fine. She’d take him up on the offer. She was an unattached adult with a healthy desire for companionship. She’d enjoy him and he would enjoy her and then they’d both move on. There, easily handled.
Now, how to approach it? She pondered it out as she went through a few cool down stretches to keep her body from cramping up. She couldn’t just walk into her apartment and grab him by the crotch. Okay, she very well could. He may even enjoy it, but Cora enjoyed a little easy foreplay before getting to the more hands-on enjoyment.
Slowly, a plan formed in her mind.
When she got back, the kitchen was already clean. Finn had pulled the headband off his forehead and laid it neatly on the now scrubbed countertop. His hair was down. The length of it was nearly triple her own, falling like a wave of night and brushing the waistband of his jeans. She wondered if it was as silken as it looked. He was drying his hands on a cloth.
“Dinner was good,” she said, scrubbing a tow
el down her face.
“You said that already,” he answered, standing in the middle of the kitchen. “Twice.”
“It deserved it a third time.” She tugged her hair out of the short ponytail she had tossed it into. She knew he watched the short tumble of her hair in much the same way that she had just been watching him. It felt good to be watched. It felt good to be liked. When she could ignore the fact that he was a criminal, Cora liked Finn just fine.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” she told him.
“Should I go?” He shoved an outstretched thumb in the general direction of the front door.
He was giving her an out, and they both knew it. He could walk away right now and nothing would happen. She wasn’t an idiot. Cora knew damn well that if she let him stay, they were going to end up naked. Hell, that was half of her plan.
