Here For You
For You: Book 4
J.P. Oliver
Contents
Hi there!
1. Beck
2. Jamie
3. Beck
4. Jamie
5. Beck
6. Jamie
7. Beck
8. Jamie
9. Beck
10. Jamie
11. Beck
12. Jamie
13. Beck
14. Jamie
15. Beck
16. Jamie
17. Beck
18. Jamie
19. Beck
Epilogue
Chapter 1 Preview – Wilde For You
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1
Beck
I like early afternoons the best.
Mornings are loud, folks lining up at the bar getting coffee and pastries or a slice of Jay’s quiche Lorraine before work, crowding the tables in our tiny little café section with their conversations and rustling newspapers and beeping phones. Things quiet down a little around a quarter to nine, but there’s still a steady stream of people coming and going, both at the café and browsing the bookshelves. And then, sometime between eleven and noon, we get crazy again—warm bodies filling the aisles and chattering voices ringing in my ears and the smell of fresh coffee brewing and panini on the grill. If I show my face any time during the lunch rush, I know someone’s going to talk to me. I don’t like that.
Gavin lets me organize the stockroom until about two, and then come out onto the floor.
Our customers—our patrons, Gavin calls them—are pretty nice. Pretty respectful. They don’t go out of their way to make messes. But sometime between our doors opening at 6:00 a.m. and the end of lunch, someone’s going to spill coffee or set something on the wrong shelf or jostle a display. Some kid is going to leave a book on one of the bright plastic chairs in the Kiddie Korner, and his mom is going to forget to put it back.
And we’re going to sell stuff. Harlan is a pretty small town, but Gavin knows his…his patrons. He makes them feel welcome and stocks what they like, the Sit and Sip turns over a good number of books.
That’s why I like early afternoons. By two o’clock, we’re quiet, and we stay quiet till about five. I can move around, usually without seeing anyone but Gavin and Jay, and survey the chaos left in the wake of the breakfast rush and the mid-morning hubbub and the lunchtime crunch, and I make everything neat again. Fill the shelves with neatly lined books; little mass-market paperbacks and medium trade paperbacks and bulky hardcovers, with brightly colored spines, standing at attention in alphabetical order, title-by-title, author-by-author, genre-by-genre.
I can breathe in the early afternoon. I can stop stacking sacks of coffee in the stockroom. Stop lining up cartons of half-and-half and soy milk and almond milk and coconut milk in the cooler. Stop organizing boxes of books that we can’t open till their official release date. I can come out into the warmth and light of the store without worrying about being noticed or talked to or questioned, and I can make messes neat again.
It feels good to make the messes neat again. It feels good to be useful.
And that’s what I was doing. Standing in the romance section, fronting and facing the books with their beautiful women and mysterious men on the cover, letting my eyes slide over the chests and arms and jawlines of the billionaires and buccaneers and bad-boy rock stars, trying to read their expressions, trying to figure out what sort of people they were by the looks in the eyes of the cover models.
I was curious to read them. Gavin let me borrow books, as long as I was careful with them. But I would have been too embarrassed to ask him if I could take one of these upstairs to my little apartment.
So I was shelving, and daydreaming, and reading the summaries on the backs of the books that looked most interesting, when I heard Jay laugh. I froze at the sudden noise—I don’t like sudden noises—but after a moment I could hear him talking to someone else, a man with a low voice. One I didn’t recognize.
I hadn’t heard the little bell ring on the front door, which meant I really must have been lost in my head. I always noticed when we got a patron during my quiet time.
I couldn’t hear what Jay and the stranger were saying, but they sounded friendly. Like, comfortable. That made me happy. Jay was nice. He always smiled at me, and said hi when we found ourselves alone together, but he didn’t ask too many questions and I appreciated that. I could tell by the way his eyes were that he appreciated unasked questions, too. But after a few seconds, Jay laughed again, and then the stranger laughed, lower and quieter. I smiled and went back to shelving, letting the hum of their conversation fade to white noise.
By the time I’d finished arranging what was on the shelves and making note of the gaps, I’d sort of forgotten that I wasn’t all alone in a sunlit room of books. Jay and his friend must still have been talking, but I didn’t notice. That never would have happened at my uncle’s house. It never would have happened even a few months ago. But I guess since coming to the Sit and Sip, I’d started feeling safe enough to relax sometimes. To get tangled up in my own thoughts and forget to jump at every little thing.
I went into the stockroom, found the dozen or so books I needed to plug the holes, and was just heading toward the swinging doors when they swung in toward me. The biggest man I’d ever seen stood there, eclipsing the little spill of light. I jumped, and I screamed, and the books went tumbling to the floor.
The man jumped, too, at my reaction, and I almost laughed hysterically at the thought that a mountain like that could react to me. But I was frozen.
I relaxed a little as Jay stepped up behind the mountain, though my heart still thundered. I took comfort in the sight of the slim man, the familiarity of his curly brown hair, the kindness behind his hooded green eyes. I focused on that face now, waiting for some cue as to how I should respond. Jay looked amused, but after taking me in for a second, his smile melted away. He stepped toward me, slowly, one hand reaching out tentatively.
“Sorry to startle you, Beck.” His voice was slow and soft as his hand came to rest on my upper arm. I felt just another milligram of tension leave my body. I noticed I was shaking now, not ramrod stiff.
“This is my friend, Officer Flores. He’s visiting from Denver.” Still soft. Talking me down. I was being handled, but I didn’t mind. I trusted Jay. As much as I trusted anyone, anyway. “He had a little vacation time, so swung by Harlan to see me.” He stopped talking and raised an eyebrow. I nodded, letting him know I was listening. For a moment, my eyes drifted back to the mountain, but I wasn’t ready to look him dead-on yet. I returned my gaze to Jay.
“I was in…a tough spot a while back, and Officer Flores helped me out.” He turned his head slightly, not quite looking at his friend, and the hint of a smile curled his lips. “Truth be told, he was a whole lot nicer to me than he could have been. Nicer than my own family was. I owe him a lot.” He swallowed, examining my face. “He’s a good man, Beck.” He paused again. “I trust him.”
It was excruciating to turn my gaze back toward the mountain looming behind Jay, but I did it. Jay was nice to me. Jay trusted him. I wanted to show Jay that I could do this for him, that his word meant something to me.
Flores, Officer Flores, was tall. And broad. Thick wit
h muscles that strained the faded red-and-white flannel shirt that covered his body. His face was somehow both squared-off and sharp, with a strong jaw and scythe-like cheekbones. His eyes were dark, brown like hot black coffee, and his brows were heavy and hooded. He had short black hair that he’d taken a little time with—it was brushed back from his forehead, stiff and a little shiny with some sort of product, although one little wisp of a curl had fallen loose, and touched the olive skin just above his left eye.
If he’d been on the cover of a romance novel, he’d have been a man with a past, with a dark secret. An international spy. A jewel smuggler. Maybe one of those shifters from the paranormal shelf. A beast inside a man’s skin.
But then he smiled. It warmed his whole face. I sighed. I relaxed just enough to talk.
“Hi.”
“Hello. Beck, right?” He held out his hand to me. I stared at it for about a year before I realized I should take it and shake it.
He swallowed me up, all warm muscle. His grip was firm, rather than hard, but I could tell how easily a man like this could break me into pieces. I felt my palm start to sweat against his skin, and pulled away.
Big. Scary. A cop. A man who could hurt me, hurt me bad, if he wanted to. And everyone would look away. They’d trust him.
I knew from experience that not every cop was Officer Friendly. And when they were bad, they were real bad. And they got away with it.
I felt my throat start to close again, my heart start to thud. I think I took a step backwards, but I’m not sure.
Through a haze, I saw the mountain—Officer Flores—drop to his knee and start gathering up the paperbacks scattered at my feet. He grinned at the heaving cleavage and glistening eight-packs on the covers, and I felt my face and chest burn, my back start to sweat. I wanted the floor beneath me to consume me.
After an eternal moment he looked up and handed me a double-stack of books, braced between his big hands.
“It’s okay, Beck.” Jay’s voice landed against my eardrums, but it took a moment before I could unravel what it meant.
I reached out. I think I said thank you. I took them.
Officer Flores rose to his feet, and I felt just how tall he really was as his massive…mass unfurled before me. I was eye-level with his collarbone. Every inch of me tensed.
“I was just going to show Flores around the stockroom,” Jay continued, as though everything were normal. “He wanted to see our little set-up, so I offered him a backstage pass.”
Flores’s eyes had never left me. I could feel them, even though I was now back to not being able to look him in the face. I shifted, sidling around Jay and his enormous friend, clutching the romance novels to my chest like a life preserver, clearing their path to dry storage.
“It was nice to meet you, Beck,” said Flores. His low, soft voice slithered around me, but there was a kindness to it. It was the sort of voice that I could learn to lean into, to wrap myself in, if I didn’t keep my guard up.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said, looking down at a worn patch on his faded jeans.
“Maybe I’ll see you around, yeah?” It was warmer now. It sounded like he was smiling.
I thought about seeing him around. In the stockroom, alone, without Jay to shield me. Looking out of my window, down at an otherwise empty, moonlit street. Coming around a corner as I scuttled around town, stepping in front of me, surprising me. I thought about him standing over me, somehow even larger than he already was, wrapping a continent-sized hand over my mouth to stifle me.
I fought the panic boiling inside of me, clenching my throat to keep from screaming. I felt pinned in place, like a butterfly stabbed to a card, but I let my shuddering, stuttering, thundering heartbeat tear my feet from the floor. I lowered my head and propelled myself forward, crashing through the stockroom doors with my shoulder, and I didn’t stop moving until I found myself back in the romance section, gulping for breath.
2
Jamie
The boy tore past me, leaving the swinging doors clattering lazily behind him as he barreled into the brightly lit bookstore. It would have been funny, his stiff little sprint, books hugged to his slight chest, if it hadn’t been for the fear in his eyes before he took off. What made it worse was that I was pretty sure I’d caused that fear.
I turned to Jay, who was still looking at the doors, chewing his lip thoughtfully, worry clouding his eyes. Eventually, though, he noticed me staring and returned my gaze, a weak smile substituting for the genuine grin he’d worn while we were chatting at the bar.
“He all right?”
Jay nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. He looked like he was going to say more, but then just shrugged. “He’s…you know. Shy. Skittish.”
I nodded. Jay never had realized how easy he was to read. His body language might as well have been flashing neon.
I decided to press. “Skittish? He get that way around customers all the time?”
Jay laughed, but there was something brittle to it. Maybe defensive. Like he didn’t want to lie, but also didn’t want to dig too deep in another guy’s business. “No? Like, I don’t think so. I’ve never seen him quite that antsy. He keeps to himself, mostly. Gavin’s jiggered his schedule around so he doesn’t really have to deal with the public. But he’s cool, you know? Not a big chatter, but friendly enough one-on-one. Hard worker.”
I nodded again, deciding not to push Jay any more, but also deciding to see what I could see about this Beck kid. I’d met boys like him before, and they never got that way on their own. There was always something—or more accurately someone—that had broken them down like that. It made me furious, and it made me sad.
Beck was none of my business, maybe, and if Jay could be believed—which I thought he could—there was nothing the kid had to be scared of right this second. But I’d seen enough ugliness, enough bullying, enough terror in my life, that I couldn’t roll out of town tomorrow as I’d planned. Not without Beck’s big, terrified eyes haunting me. He’d been hurt. I could tell that. I’d just spend another day or two in Harlan, maybe get to know him a little, and make sure no one was still hurting him. I knew myself well enough to know I’d sleep better at night with that assurance.
I let Jay show me around the tiny stockroom, and, once I’d made my decision to check out this Beck kid, I was actually able to calm down enough to listen. Jay was doing well. Better than I’d expected, after what he’d been through. Maybe even better than I’d hoped. We spent another forty minutes or so just catching up, shooting the shit, and by the time I left him, I was in almost as good a mood as I’d been before I’d met the frightened boy in the stockroom.
Beck filled my thoughts, though, as I walked back to my hotel, a grand old house on the edge of downtown that had been renovated and chunked up into units. Mrs. Elloway, the lady who owned the place, sat crocheting and watching some daytime drama as I walked in the front door. I grinned. She looked exactly like my ma and Tia Amalia, watching their novelas.
“Hello, Mr. Flores,” she said, smiling with approval as I wiped my feet on the mat just inside the door. “Did you have a nice afternoon?”
“I did. Thank you. Saw an old friend. Meeting another for drinks this evening.”
She gave me a boys-will-be-boys grin, and shook her head. Mi tia couldn’t have done it better. I grinned back.
“Come in as late as you like, Mr. Flores, but be careful on the stairs. They creak, and I’m usually asleep by ten.”
“Of course, Mrs. Elloway,” I said, nodding deferentially in her direction. “But, since we’re talking about my comings and goings, I was wondering if I could extend my stay a little? Maybe through Sunday?”
“Of course,” she said, sounding pleased as she set down her yarn and rose to her feet, doing her best to hide the stiffness in her knees. “I’m glad you’re enjoying your time with us.” She crossed to a desk in the corner of the parlor and made a note on her calendar. “There,” she muttered. “All set till Sunday morning.”
...
“Thanks,” I said, as Eli returned from the bar, my Dos Equis in his left hand, his Heineken in his right. He passed me my bottle, and we clinked the necks together in a perfunctory salute. “So, Ty’s good?” I asked, picking up the thread of the conversation we’d let drop when Eli went to get our next round.
“He’s great,” Eli said with a wry smirk.
I grinned back, glad at everything that his satisfied expression implied. Eli was a good guy who deserved good things, and if anyone needed a break, it was his new boyfriend. Tyson Rowe had lived through some real hell not that long ago. “Good to hear,” I said, before putting my beer to my lips.
“It’s not always easy,” Eli continued. “You don’t say good-bye to a sack-of-shit like his ex and end up just fine and dandy. But he’s tougher than he looks. And we’re working stuff out together.”
Thinking about Ty, the haunted look that had lived in his eyes, the way he’d flinched at every shadow…well, Beck’s ashen face invaded my thoughts, not for the first time that evening. I’d made plans to meet up with Eli over a week ago, but ever since my almost literal run-in with Beck this afternoon, I’d known I was going to start my little off-the-books investigation right now.
“It takes a long time to get right after living through something like that.”
“If you ever do, 100 percent,” said Eli, before drinking.
I leaned in a little, making sure I couldn’t be overheard by anyone at a nearby high-top. “Speaking of…you ever spend any time at the Sit and Sip?”
Here For You: For You: Book 4 Page 1
