by Blair Grey
“No,” I said shortly, shaking my head.
Lina sighed. “You really meant it when you said that you were never going to see him again?” she asked.
I grimaced. “I thought I did,” I told her. I paused. I wasn’t sure that I should tell her about breakfast yesterday. Again, it had been framed in terms of friendship, but it had felt like it was maybe something more than that. I just didn’t know what Landon was thinking. Showing up at my house like that…
But there was no hiding anything from Lina.
“You saw him again, didn’t you?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Yeah,” I admitted, rubbing at my temples. “He showed up at my house yesterday morning, no warning or anything.” I made a face. “Not that he could give me warning. We still haven’t even exchanged numbers.”
Lina looked amused at my peevish tone. “So did you guys go somewhere?” she asked. “A nice day trip to the beach maybe?”
“Nah, nothing like that,” I said. “He just wanted to go to breakfast. It was kind of cute actually.”
Lina’s eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. “Wow,” she said. “And then afterward you guys went back to your place and had sex again?”
“No, we didn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s what was so weird about it. He just walked me back to my place, didn’t even kiss me, and left. What kind of a guy does that?”
Lina looked like she was trying not to laugh. “I don’t know, maybe the kind of guy who’s respectful of boundaries?” she asked. “Still sounds like a date to me, though.”
I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. “No, he said it was just that he hasn’t really made any friends here yet. Just me and his brother, I think he said.” I shrugged. Lina looked like she wanted to say something. “Oh spit it out.” I sighed. “Whatever you’re going to say, I’ve probably already thought about it. To be honest, I was having such a hard time sleeping last night because I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And not in a good, sexy way either.”
Lina still paused for another moment. “You know,” she said, clearly trying to be tactful, “I was just thinking that it sounds like maybe he’s also interested in more than just having sex with you.”
I snorted. “That’s not going to happen,” I said.
“Why not? Because you’re afraid he’s going to hurt you?” Lina challenged. “Not every guy is like your ex. Sorry, but sometimes I think you need to be reminded of that.”
“Can we just not talk about this?” I finally asked. “It’s way too early in the morning, I haven’t had enough coffee yet, and I slept like shit last night.”
“Okay, okay,” Lina said immediately. “But when you are ready to talk about this, you know I’m always here for you.”
I could tell she was a little hurt by how snappish I had been, and I smiled at her, hoping to smooth things over. “I know,” I told her. “You’ve always got my back, and I love you for that. You know I’m always here for you too.”
“I know,” Lina said. But things were slightly awkward for the rest of the time we were eating, and I was glad when it was time for me to head to work.
“I’ve got to go, or I’m going to be late,” I said. “We’ll figure out another gym date soon, okay?”
“Sounds good,” Lina said. To my surprise, she got up out of her seat to give me a hug in goodbye. “Be careful,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. She really was always there for me. If I ended up with my heart broken over this guy, I knew exactly who to call.
I just hoped it wasn’t going to come to that, not again. I had spent years building my walls back up, making sure that I was selective about who I let in. I wasn’t ready to let Landon unravel all of that work. Not just because the sex was good or because he wanted to do nice things like spontaneously take me out to breakfast.
I paused in the doorway of the pharmacy, staring at Donald. He was stocking a couple shelves, typical first thing in the morning tasks, but that wasn’t what gave me pause. No, what made me stare at him was the fact that he was whistling like some goddamned songbird. First thing in the morning.
He clearly had had a better night than I had.
He beamed at me when I walked in. “Good morning, Anne,” he said brightly.
I rolled my eyes, trying to convey with my body language that I didn’t exactly want to have this conversation with him. Not right now, not ever. Whatever had him in such a chipper mood, I was sure it wasn’t something that I wanted or needed to know.
But he trailed after me as I headed to the back room to clock in. “In case you were wondering, I had a date last night,” he announced, leaning against the doorframe and watching me, a huge grin still on his face.
I snorted. “And that’s unusual?” I asked. “How many phone numbers do you get every week? And those are just the ones I see here at the pharmacy. I’m sure there must be others.”
“Oh, there are,” Donald assured me quickly.
“Then why the hell are you so excited?” I asked him. I couldn’t keep the snippiness from spilling over into my voice. But at least Donald sort of deserved it. This wasn’t the kind of conversation that you should be having with a coworker. It wasn’t professional. He should be out stocking shelves while I took ten deep breaths and tried my best not to scream.
“You don’t understand,” Donald said. “This one was different.”
I sighed, sensing that he wasn’t going to leave me alone. Finally, I decided just to humor him. “How so, Donald?” I asked, boredom dripping from my tone.
“Because, I think this time I actually really hit it off with this girl. Elsa. She’s the best of both worlds, super sexy like a model, totally flexible in bed too. She does yoga. But she’s also really intelligent. She’s studying law, and she wants to go into politics.”
I rolled my eyes again, barely keeping from saying something rude about how she must not find Donald very interesting then. Whatever was going on between them, it was none of my business.
What was that cliché, though? Love is in the air. Suddenly, it seemed like everyone had caught the love bug. Like everyone around me wanted to talk about their feelings for members of the opposite sex. All I wanted to do was push my feelings for Landon into a big mental box and shove it away into the farthest corner of my mind where I would never have to think about him again.
“Oh, Anne,” Donald said, giving me a sympathetic look. “I knew you weren’t going to take the news well, but I hope you’re not too terribly upset that I’m not single anymore.”
I stared over at him for a long moment before barking out a laugh. That was the least of my worries. “Donald, I definitely don’t give a rat’s ass that you aren’t single anymore,” I said, shaking my head.
What worried me more was that I was starting to question whether I was quite so single anymore.
17
Landon
I had to admit, not only was staking out these businesses proving to be boring, but it was also proving to be frustrating. “We’re staking out a business that we only think the Mambas have gotten involved in, waiting for people we don’t know and who don’t know what we look like,” Braxton muttered on Tuesday, sounding peeved.
“That about sums it up.” I sighed. “But you know we don’t have a choice. When we ran this by Neil, he seemed to think that it was a good idea.”
“Yeah, but what the hell had Neil even done before we showed up?” Braxton asked, folding his arms across his chest. “I just don’t get it. Doesn’t seem like he’s trying very hard to take care of his guys. If anything, shouldn’t he be the one sitting here staring at a stupid building?”
“This is what we were brought in for,” I reminded Braxton. “Not just for the beaches and babes. And besides, you know that if Neil was here, the guys from the Mambas would recognize him. They wouldn’t be so bold as to do anything right under his nose, not if they thought he was watching. And they would start asking questions. They would think that someone had snitch
ed. The last thing we need is for them to start killing innocent people all to fuck with the owners of these shops. We don’t need a real mutiny on our hands.”
“Yeah, I guess not.” Braxton sighed. “But this is just boring.”
“I know,” I said, even though I wasn’t half as bored as he was. I had thought to bring some books on my phone, and I was currently reading them. When he wasn’t interrupting me with his stupid whining of course. I glanced up every now and then to confirm that three strangers still weren’t walking together down the street. Then, I dove right back into reading.
Not for the first time, I had to wonder how the two of us had ended up so different. Nearly the same DNA, similar looks, and came out of the womb at the same time. But Braxton continued to display the mental age of maybe a five-year-old, and I liked to think I was a bit beyond that by now.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I loved him. But he knew we were going to probably end up sitting here all week staring at this same building. You’d think he would have figured out something that he could do to occupy his time over the course of the week so that he wouldn’t just keep bugging me.
“What are you thinking?” Braxton asked.
“I’m reading,” I corrected automatically.
“Bullshit, you haven’t turned a page in minutes now,” Braxton said. “And I know you’re a faster reader than I am.”
I rolled my eyes, but he had caught me. “I was just thinking about how different we are, even though we’re twins,” I said. “You’re just so impatient.”
“And you’re maddeningly methodical,” Braxton said, shrugging. He grinned cheekily at me. “It’s just because I got all the cool genes and you got all the rest.”
I snorted. “All the cool genes? Really? Such as?”
“Well, like the cool gene,” Braxton said. “You’re just a nerd. I’m actually cool.”
I snorted and shook my head. “Go on.”
“And all the chicks love me. That’s pretty cool too.”
“All right, so you’re more of a people person than I am,” I said, inclining my head toward him. “I’ll give you that. Anything else?”
Braxton thought about it for a minute and then shrugged. “Not really, I guess,” he said. “You got all the smarts and stuff.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “And that’s all the traits in this world, is it?” I asked. “You’re either a people person or you’re smart?”
“Some people are both,” Braxton said. “But I guess since we’re twins, we had to share.”
We fell silent for a while, and I continued reading my book. “There are too many groups of threes,” Braxton suddenly complained.
“What do you mean?” I asked, already scanning the crowd. It had gotten busy somehow, while I’d been absorbed in my book.
“There are three women walking together over there. And three dogs over there.”
I stared at the three women, wondering if they might be the ones we were waiting for. But I felt certain that Ray would have mentioned something if the Mambas were made up solely of women. That was the kind of thing that was hard to hide. He would have known about it, and he would have known that we wouldn’t expect it.
Not that there weren’t women in Red Eyes, but they were few and far between. It was more of a guy’s club than anything else.
Suddenly, I saw a group that looked more promising. “What about those three?” I asked, trying to point with my eyes so that I wouldn’t be too obvious. “Right now, walking into the store.”
“Those don’t look like salesmen,” Braxton said, already starting to stand up.
I put a hand on his arm, though, pulling him back down. “Wait,” I said.
Braxton gave me an incredulous look. “What, you’re doubting yourself?” he asked. “I’m sure that must be them.”
“I’m pretty sure too,” I said. “The size, the tattoos, the mustaches. They looked like bikers. And they weren’t any of the Red Eyes guys that Neil introduced us to. And they were traveling in a group of three.”
“So let’s go get those fuckers,” Braxton said impatiently. “Isn’t that what this stakeout thing was all about?”
“It’s about getting information,” I reminded him. “And we don’t know for sure. Besides, as Ray warned us, we don’t even know what kind of information they might be able to tell us. For all we know, they don’t know who any of the other members of the Mambas are. I want to be sure we know who they are before we just start swinging fists. Again, the sheriff isn’t exactly on board with the MC to begin with.”
Braxton sighed, but he settled in to wait next to me. “So what are we going to do then?” he asked.
“Follow them,” I said. “Just until we’re sure that they’re Mambas members. Until they lead us to information that we can really use.” I led him over to the car we had borrowed for just this purpose. It was a rental, nondescript. The kind of car that we wouldn’t have to worry about them ever recognizing.
We waited for nearly twenty minutes for them to come out of the business, and then we watched as they walked down the block and got into their car. I turned the key in my own ignition. We waited until the car was in front of us, and then I drove carefully after them.
Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that they knew they were being followed. They took a number of sharp turns and then blew through a red light just in the nick of time to get away from us.
“Damn it,” Braxton said as we waited at the light, watching traffic rush in both directions in front of us. He slammed his fist down on the dashboard. “I knew it,” he said. “I knew that we should have just gone into the store to confront them.”
“We were looking for information, though,” I reminded him. “Not just to pummel their faces in. Where there’s three of them, there’s bound to be more.”
“Yeah, but now we have zero of them, and we didn’t even get a good look at them,” Braxton pointed out. “So much for gathering information.” His voice was dripping with disgust.
“I’m not thrilled about it either,” I said grimly. “But we did learn one valuable piece of information.” I grabbed the notebook out of the center console and jotted down the license plate along with the color and make of the car. “We know what kind of car they drive.”
“And they know what you drive, too, now,” Braxton reminded me.
I shook my head. “So we’ll ditch the rental car and get a new one,” I said. “No big deal. Theirs wasn’t a rental, though.” That was the whole reason we were in a rental car to begin with. But Braxton probably hadn’t been listening when I had explained that. He probably thought we were just looking for some sort of alternative to the bikes.
Those definitely would have given us away, if the three Mambas had had their eyes open, looking for some sort of counterattack.
And they had to be expecting something by now. They had to know they couldn’t just march in and take over the whole of Sarasota without anyone trying to stop them. The Red Eyes here were bound to wise up to all of it sooner or later.
If they weren’t expecting something before, they definitely will be after this, I thought grimly. I hoped that they would write it off as either their imaginations or else some sort of federal sting. But an imagined federal crackdown on them might make them even more wary and circumspect in their actions. That could be the opposite of what we wanted. It might be better for them just to know that Red Eyes had cottoned on and that we weren’t going to let them get away with this shit anymore.
“I still don’t see how that information is going to help us,” Braxton said sullenly. “What are we going to do, drive all around Sarasota until we see a car with the license plate number that matches?”
“Of course not,” I said. “You’re still thinking with your fists.” I grinned at him. “I bet we can look up the plates, though, and figure out who owns the car. That’ll give us at least one name, and from there, maybe we can figure out more.”
“I still think my plan was better,�
�� Braxton said petulantly. “We could have had all three of their names by now.”
“And they could have had both of ours as well,” I reminded him. “I’d rather not try our luck. No more than we have to anyway.” Braxton and I were both larger guys, and we knew how to fight. But we didn’t know enough about the way the Mambas operated that I would feel confident going in there, the two of us versus the three of them. For all we knew, they might have backup somewhere nearby. Or they might just be stronger and wilier than us.
Besides, we didn’t know what kind of shit these Mamba dudes might pull. If their threats on local business owners were anything to go by, they had a different rulebook than the rest of us. Where Ray firmly believed in chivalry and the art of a fair fight, that might not necessarily be the case for the Mambas. I wouldn’t put it past one of them to bring a gun to a fistfight. But I didn’t know how to explain that to Braxton without sounding condescending. These were the kind of risks that I just wished he already thought through before he decided to run after whoever it was with his fists flying.
Braxton shook his head. “So very different,” he muttered under his breath, looking out the window as I drove back to the rental car shop.
I hid a grin. He was right. We were both so very different. And sometimes we worked well together, and sometimes it was more like this, like I was trying to comfort a sullen kid who didn’t get what he wanted.
18
Anne
I couldn’t deny that I was a little disappointed not to see Landon for the whole week. After he had spontaneously shown up at my place to take me to breakfast on Sunday morning, I don’t know what I had expected. I guess I’d thought that he would at least try to come convince me that I really did want to go out on a date with him. But instead, I hadn’t heard anything.
I tried to remind myself that that was for the best. That the last thing I needed was for him to mistakenly get the idea that I might welcome a date with him. I was doing my best to put him out of my mind, but there was something about him that I just couldn’t seem to forget. My house felt emptier than it ever had before, even when I’d first moved into it and hardly had any furniture.
