by AJ Elmore
She says, “I work here. I just got cut.”
I widen my eyes, glance away. Even I am surprised at the shame I can fake. I say, “Wow, I'm so sorry. You look…I didn't recognize you.”
Her smile shortens. “That's what they all say.”
Shit, change of direction. I lost that round. Not too much too fast. Stupid, basic. “I'm Joshua.”
Her eyes flick back to me, warming a shade. I learned it from Maria to own my name. I could be Josh – any idiot douche bag on any university campus. But to be Joshua, well, that carries a little more weight. I figured it out the first time she didn't shorten it, because when she says my name it's like a command.
Meanwhile, Eva gives me a smirk, amusement at my seeming ineptness. So I give her a real smile, full-fledged, dimples and teeth, and say, “What can I get you?”
“Long Island.”
Shit. I've had a Long Island before, wasn't a fan. Why can't she just drink a damn beer like everyone else?
“Right. Uh,” I say as I scan the bottles close to me.
She's eyeballing me with that smirk, behind which I do believe there's suspicion. Am I for real? If I were that stupid boy, I never would have caught it, but Charlie trained me up because I'm good at reading people. It could be that she's on to me.
She breaks the tension when she says, “You have no idea what you're doing, do you?”
The laugh that answers her is a real one. I do like a girl who will call me on my bullshit. I flash the smile again.
“You caught me.”
She laughs, a genuine sound as well, and she shakes her head. She stands up on the foot railing and leans forward across the bar. Some wisps of hair fall into her eyes, which she lifts to meet mine. Her smile changes, so subtle, to something more seductive. She says, “I'll show you.”
The dip in the pitch of her voice along with the perfect downward view of her tits nearly makes me hard. She's good. Something about the way she's smiling at me makes me think she likes the game – the hunt.
I let my smile creep into close-lipped amusement. It's been a while since Charlie and I used to hit up the bars on Decatur, find one that was happening, and become the life of the party. The two of us, charmers to the max, were always the crowd pleasers. It was rare that we didn't have our picks of which girls would continue a more private party after hours. It's been a while since I laid it on.
Eva grabs a glass from the stack and hands it to me. She says, “Ice. Full.”
Her eyes follow my hands as I obey. I hold the smirk as I do. Might as well put on a good show.
“Grab those two bottles,” she says, pointing to the well. “Turn them up and count to two.”
I don't even look at what liquor is in my hands. I catch her eye and wink. She lifts an eyebrow but doesn't say anything. She just looks back to my work. I do as she said.
“Now get these other two bottles and do the same thing.”
As I do, I pretend not to notice her eyes slip from the liquor to my upper body. She does a quick survey of my shoulders, pronounced beneath my thin t-shirt. So I do a sweep of those sweet tits. I hold the pour a count too long, and as I snap the bottles upright, our eyes meet.
Gone are the flirty smiles and sly glances. We've caught each other in a moment of appraisal, and for the following moment, we just stare. It seems it's mutual, she likes what she sees and so do I. For a flash, I think of Maria, with a hot shame that white-washes my thoughts. But then I remember the way she looks at Frederick sometimes, and the heat becomes anger. There's another world between them that I'll never be a part of. At times, I think I could be friends with him, if it weren't for that.
“Now you need that bottle,” she says. She points, but she doesn't look away from me.
I let my gaze travel downward, over the geisha tattooed on her forearm and off the tip of her finger. I grab the bottle and I don't look at her as I resume my bartending duties.
“Four counts.”
Her words are molasses, sticky sweet and slight southern twang. My gut stirs. Her point.
I glance up at her, leaning over the bar with easy confidence, her eyes all over me. She's not making being stuck in this space any easier. I make the pour. When it's done, she smiles, a cocky thing that raises my eyebrows in answer.
“You're going to need your gun,” she says.
I have no idea what to say that won't make me sound like a dumb ass, so I continue to stare until she reaches across the bar. Her hand comes so close to the zipper of my jeans I nearly squirm away from her, but she grabs the juice gun from its holster.
“About three counts of Coke, and a splash of sour,” she says, pushing the gun toward my hand with a smirk.
My cheeks are hot. I answer her with a devilish grin and channel some Southern charm when I say, “Yes ma'am.”
I finish the drink and pass it to her. She stirs it around with her straw, then she looks up at me as her lips close around the straw. I don't quite hide that I'm watching her mouth, not her eyes. She takes a drink, considers it, then shrugs.
“It'll do,” she says.
“You're too kind,” I say in a low tone.
“Finally making some friends, eh, Josh?”
The voice puts me on the defensive, only because it's so close. It's Jack. How did I not notice him exit the kitchen and cut behind the bar?
“Going to school, more like it,” says Eva with a laugh.
Jack answers with his own and says, “Better pay attention. I'd have her back here if I didn't need her on the floor. She learned from the best.”
The subtle mention of Noah is enough to create a lull in the good spirits. Jack recovers quickly, ducking into the beer cooler for something. I've noticed that beer is a staple in his recipes.
“I made my very own Long Island,” I say, glossing over the heavy thoughts.
He smiles, an older brotherly smile, and grabs the drink off the bar. He takes a sip from the glass and his nose crinkles.
He says, “That one's on the house. It tastes like shit.” He smacks me on the shoulder with a laugh and turns back to the kitchen. I watch him until he disappears through the swinging door, then I look back to Eva. She's trying not to laugh.
I shrug with a sheepish smile, totally contrived. She takes another drink and now she's trying not to grimace. A laugh breaks from my center, a deep gut laugh the likes of which I thought I'd never know again. All the confusion and anger and grief from recent events rolls from me in that laugh. The last time I was at this bar, sitting where she is now, I couldn't feel anything.
Losing my best friend will never stop hurting, but this sassy, sexy server has reminded me that I'm still human and I can still act human. Never mind the pending brutality on the other side of this coin, for at this moment, I can pretend I'm a bartender, flirting with a hot girl.
“At least you don't make them weak,” she says with that red smile.
“That's not really my style,” I answer.
She gives me another slow, blatant once-over then says, “What are you doing after work?”
Chapter 24 Guns and Grit
Isaiah
I stab my fingers against my closed eyelids. This part of the job always gives me a headache. It's not that the math is hard, it's just draining – like the past week has been. To see our lives there in black and white, it doesn't leave much room for speculation on the way things gotta go. In a way, it's nice to see a cut path, but that road is as daunting as it is solid.
We're not hurting money-wise, but money and supply are all we have left. Our home is gone. Everything that constituted our world, everything that wouldn't fit in the Caddy – erased to a smudge of ash. Now Maria has us poised to take the city back in a blaze of glory.
If we don't die. We have nowhere to go but up. Our odds are good from my point of view, and that's what bothers me.
Gram's network is big, and spread through the city like mold in the cracks of a wall. Our network is solid,
too, but we don't have an army willing to back us. Not yet. We have to prove our claims. So it comes down to the four of us and, all differences aside, we each have a special kind of intelligence in respective areas. Gram doesn't quite stack up to us as a think-tank. The rest is guns and grit, and if we have anything left spiritually, it's that.
I hear Maria return and take her seat, but I don't look up just yet. We're back in the dining room, she at the head of the table and me diagonal from her in the first chair on her right. Several ledgers lay open in front of us. Nothing in them is exactly labeled, only rarely and in code. They hold the details of our previously-profiting, currently-stalled operation. The sound of bottles clinking brings my attention up.
She sets a Dos Equis in front of me, her brow furrowed in familiar concern. She's not worried about the numbers. Like I said, we're not hurting yet. She wants to pick my brain, but she knows I won't give her much. She clinks the neck of her bottle to mine, then takes a long drink. I stare at the numbers.
They don't change as I follow suit and take a heavy swig. They won't change, not until we take care of this bullshit with Gram. That's what also bothers me. This shit with Gram. There's only one solution. Josh was right even if his input was asinine and poorly timed. Maria was also right, the how of the plan is the hard part.
That brings us 'round to Frederick, who's flirting with a very dangerous line. He's right, too, the Reaps have accumulated quite the roster of enemies. On the other hand, you can never be sure what scum might be under Gram's employ. You never know if the roaches on the wall are listening. Take Derrik, for instance. I don't so much want to give a shit, but I'm stressing over how long it would take to find out they killed Freddy. He'd be at the bottom of the gulf and we'd have our thumbs up our asses, wondering what the fuck just happened.
It's not good form to dwell on the bad thoughts, but I have to wonder if anyone else has even considered what happens if we fail. I want to have faith in Maria, but she keeps that damn poker face so well. She could be bluffing, just winging it. Or she could be playing chess. The truth remains, regardless: we're sorely outnumbered.
“You're drowning. Come back to me,” she says and my eyes focus on her.
I've been so careful with her, so on point with my defenses, yet she can still read me. That fact burns in my gut with the beer. What was I staring at, anyway? I take another drink.
“You look miserable, what's wrong with you?”
She has the slightest accent, and it's thickened in the past couple days here, where she speaks Spanish as much as English. It grabs me, hooks me just under the rib cage. My breath hitches. She's so goddamned sexy and it's fucking hot. Something's gotta give.
“It's hot,” I answer, gruffer than I mean to.
Her brown eyes flash, hold mine with the perfect mixture of surprise and curiosity. I swipe my smokes off the table and see to this evasive ritual. I guess it's my fault that she's forced to extremes when she wants to deal with me, but this pattern of her trapping me is getting so hard to beat.
She stares at me for what feels like eternity, the scales of her emotions tipping precariously back and forth. I think part of her attraction to me is the way I infuriate her. I'm not every guy she's ever known. I won't give her everything. No, I don't give her anything.
Her eyes narrow and she takes a drink, pointedly looking away like she's forgotten I'm here – the only other person in the house, with Abuela gone on business. Fine, she's just as aggravating as I am. It won't work, but she'll make me play it out.
We don't smoke when we're doing math, but I really wish we had a joint right now. The beers just make me sweat. We need a tension break, a middle ground. I feel like I've been watching a movie that is my life, dictated by the whims of one young and impetuous cartel descendent.
In a blur of movement, Maria flips the ledgers closed and sets them aside in a stack. She stands and leaves the room again. For a sweltering moment, I believe I've pissed her off with my tight response. But just as quickly, she returns with a joint. No way she just read my mind. Her gesture sets me off guard enough that I know I look like a startled deer.
She grins. It's not the sultry smile of a predator. Nope, it's a genuine yet canny thing straight from history. It reminds me of when Charlie first brought me on. She was eighteen, and already gorgeous enough to cause trouble, but she still held on to some childlike innocence. That look, it breaks my goddamned heart.
She takes a long drink and settles against the chair back with indolent grace. Her messy ponytail distorts against the wood as she slouches. She glances up at me, then back to the joint as she sparks it. The move is carefully calculated and I begin to wonder if it was I who made this a game? What would she do if I pinned her against that big chair?
My first instinct is to deflect, to find a distraction and drown in it – but something about her timing stirs a usually well-kept anger within me. It's occurred to me so many times that she doesn't actually know the demons she's dancing with. Again, that's my fault.
She coughs out her hit and extends the joint through the smoke with a lazy smile. I avoid her fingers when I accept. My cigarette burns idly and my thoughts slip to it for a second, to the fact that I waste as many of the damn things as I smoke. Still, I prefer the weed, so I take a few indulgent draws. I know this shit will soften me to her, but maybe it just might quell the alpha male that wants to crash through my calm and show her some things those other boys can't.
I wait for the high to dull the anger she's also stirred. Usually it's so easy to pretend that she's just a kid, that she doesn't know what she's doing. But she can't pull that shit now, not after yesterday's meeting and the plan she's trying to form. That she would still push the line with me is infuriating. She's never seen me get mad.
When I pass the smoke back, she lets her fingers brush mine, as blatant as when I avoided hers. The result is a double helix of desire and temper that twists my insides and makes my body tense. Does she love us all in some way? Does she want us all under her finger? Or is she really just a whore?
My thoughts are as thunderous as her touch, and the overflow leaks into my expression – a hard-set brow and downturned lips. Rather than be reproached by that look, that bright curiosity burns in her gaze.
“What exactly are you doing, Maria?”
The words speak themselves, come with just a touch of venom. If anything, she's right. Even I have a boiling point, and if that's what she wants, she's so damn close to finding it. It occurs to me, on the wake of my question, that maybe that is what she wants.
She doesn't seem surprised that I've chosen a head-on approach, doesn't seem off-put at the flare of emotion that usually stays beneath the surface. She hits the joint with practiced disregard, holds my eyes, and makes a triumphant, smoky smile.
She blows the smoke at the ceiling, but her eyes don't leave mine. She is totally at ease, at full contrast to the fury that's gathering in my gut. She says, “I could be dead soon. Maybe I just wanted to see all of you, just once.”
My hands ball into fists. What a perfectly enticing answer. What a completely dirty move.
“So you can stack me up to your little boys?”
The words are more of a growl and my heart bangs away in my ears. My blood's rushing too fast and my cock is swelling. This isn't the tension break I wanted, not this crumbling of will and torrent of honesty.
Her eyes widen and there's a hitch in her smile. She's not quite offended, just surprised that I would finally call her out. No, she's not mad. She licks her lips.
She says, “If they're just little boys, then what are you afraid of?”
The pressure gauge teeters precariously in the red. I wanted her to defend herself, to bite onto the distraction of her sexual tendencies. Instead, she's goading me. I launch myself from my chair without thought, slam my hands against the chair on either side of her head, and draw so close that our lips are almost touching. For a painfully tense stretch, I stare at her.
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Her proximity is intoxicating, but not enough to assuage my harder emotions. She's frozen in her spot, staring back as the weed smoke drifts between us. Still, she's not startled. She's waiting to see what I do, basking in the reaction she has finally coaxed from me. And she wants me. It's so goddamned heavy, if my fingers weren't digging against the wooden chair back, they'd be twitching to touch her.
“Do you even care what you know you do to me?”
Again, my voice comes out a strained rumble. She's ready for me and I'm so hard against my shorts it hurts. What am I doing? I'm not sure I know, but I continue anyway.
“You don't know what you're fucking with, and you don't care. That's the real thing here, isn't it? You don't fucking care. Every one of us is following you around like dogs, and all you want is to tear us to shreds.”
I hadn't intended to drag the others into this, but the words are forged in some place beyond my command. These are my grievances, they want to be heard whether I consent or not.
I search her face for the hurt, but her expression is maddeningly steady. She doesn't move, doesn't flinch or cry. She's doing a damned good job of proving that she's not that girl anymore, the one I so desperately want her to be. As often as I've wondered what she wants from me, have I ever really considered what I want from her?
Her voice is silk when she says, “You know that's not true, Izzy. You're afraid of something, afraid of what you are. Scared to be human.”
One of my hands fists into her hair. I don't pull it, but it makes me feel a tiny bit better to know that I could. The action ghosts a smirk across her lips. It's gone just as fast.
I say, “Don't pretend to know who the fuck I am or why I am this way. One thing I'm not is a spot in your rotation.”
What do I want from her? It's sure as hell not forever, and I can't believe in undying love. I don't need comfort, or love, not even compassion. What else could it be but a teacher's chance to test his pupil in the game he has been teaching? What have I been for her but a man, in a way her brother could never be – a man who wouldn't let her win with her wiles, who wasn't an instant slave to her whims. I'm the one who makes her think before she moves, to force her to choose a strategy.
