by Hart, Lane
“Looks like that worker’s comp injury you lied about is suddenly all healed up.”
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Oh, please. Don’t act coy,” I say when I walk up and grab his arm to guide him back around to the stairs that lead to his apartment. “We’re here for the four grand you owe.”
“Well, I still don’t have any money,” he replies as we go up the stairs to the second-floor landing.
“Then you better hope we can find at least a thousand dollars’ worth of electronics to steal or you’re gonna be hurting for real this time.”
I shove him through the front door Fiasco has already opened and then shut and lock up to frisk him. “Well, what do we have here?” I ask when I find a cell phone in his back pocket. “Last week you told us you don’t own a phone.”
“I didn’t. It’s new!”
“Save the bullshit,” I tell him. “What’s your password?” I ask.
“Guess.”
I grab the sides of his jaw in one hand and squeeze. “Fine! Four-four-eight-nine!” he mumbles.
I let his face go to try the code, and surprise, surprise, it actually works. I slip the device into my pocket. “Since you lied to us twice now, the phone is asshole tax and won’t count toward what you owe.”
“Oh come on!” he exclaims, throwing his arms in the air.
“Shut up and sit down,” I tell James. When he doesn’t immediately follow my order, I tell him, “Now,” while pulling out my gun from the back of my waistband and holding it on him. The firearm has his ass taking a seat on the sofa in the living room real fast. He moves so quickly a rush of air ruffles my hair, and for a split second, I swear I get a whiff of lavender and berries, reminding me of Jetta. I’m losing my goddamn mind over that girl. Shaking the thoughts away, I get my mind back on the job. “Fiasco, search the place for goods since he’s still claiming he’s broke. Look in every drawer, under beds, every inch of this place.”
“You’ve got it,” he agrees before he starts into the first bedroom.
“That’s not even my room; it’s my sister’s!” James mutters. “She doesn’t have anything of value.”
“Guess we’ll see,” I tell him as I stand in front of him to make sure he can’t run.
“How about we work something out?” he asks me. “I could set you boys up with my sister. She’s easy…”
Did he really just…
Clenching my fist tightly to make my thick silver rings really stand out, I haul back and then slam it right into the son of a bitch’s jaw.
“Ow! Fuck! What was that for?” James asks as he dabs at his lip that my knuckles busted as they soared past his loud mouth.
I squat down to get in his bleeding face. “That was for offering up your sister to solve your fucked-up problem.”
“Nothing in the first bedroom,” Fiasco announces when he starts for the second room down the hall, just as I hear the doorknob turn.
“Who the fuck is that?” I whisper to James as I stand up straight again.
“That’s her! That’s my sister. Wait until you see how hot she is; then you’ll want to take my deal.”
This fucker won’t learn. I hit him with an upper cut that makes his teeth rattle as his head rears back and he collapses limply into the chair.
“Fiasco, we’ve got company!” I warn him in concern. For all I know, this could actually be some of James’ buddies who want to brawl.
“Who is it?” Fiasco asks when he comes back to the living room with his gun out and ready, aiming it toward the door.
“Don’t know, so be ready,” I warn him.
“Dammit! It’s just my sister!” James protests weakly as I hear the key turn and the door behind me open. I keep my back to it so I can keep my gun leveled on James. I know Fiasco can be a dumbass, but he’s always going to have my back when it counts.
I hear a feminine shriek before Fiasco says, “Drop the purse then get in here, shut the door, and sit your ass down beside him.”
“Sean, what…what’s going on? What are you doing to my brother?” the girl exclaims. Fuck me, her voice sounds so familiar I have no choice but to take my eyes off James to look over my shoulder at her. And goddamn if the sexy blonde with her hair braided like a beautiful princess doesn’t look so familiar that I have to flip my hair out of my eyes to get a better look at her. Her face, those warm chocolate brown eyes…fucking hell I must be tripping, because she looks exactly like Jetta except for the purple hair.
This is what I get for obsessing over a girl for weeks. I’ve started seeing her and smelling her everywhere I go, even though I’ve been asking around and not a soul knows who she is or where I can find her.
The girl stares at me just as intensely with her forehead creasing and then gasps. “Devlin?”
Wait a second. She knows my name? Then that means it really is her!
“Jetta? Is that you?” I ask when I turn my back on James to see her better. And one look at her banging body, those killer curves in her cutoff denim shorts and amazing tits pushing against the front of her t-shirt and I know it is her. “Holy shit, baby.” I hold out my arms for her, expecting her to run right into them.
“How did you find me? What are you doing here?” she asks when she sidesteps me and goes over to kneel in front of James. “You’re bleeding! Did they do this to you?” she asks him.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing, just a little blood,” he replies while brushing the pad of his thumb over his leaking lip.
“A little blood? Sean, they’re holding you at gun point!” Jetta shouts as she jumps up and spins around to face me and Fiasco. “Are these the guys who took the TV last week?”
Uh-oh.
“Yeah,” Sean mutters. I wait for him to explain to her why we took the television, but he doesn’t cough up any of the details about his gambling debt that would make him look like the bad guy.
“Get the fuck out of here now before I call the cops!” Jetta, at least I think it’s her, yells at us, pointing her finger toward the door.
“What? No, baby. You don’t understand. Just let me explain,” I say when I lower my gun and stuff it down the back of my waistband.
“I don’t want you to explain anything! I just want you two…psychos to take your guns and get out!”
No. No fucking way. This is not how I wanted to see her again, the girl I haven’t been able to forget after three weeks, which is honestly like a new record for me. Now she hates me for slapping her brother around and won’t even give me a chance to tell her why. I don’t want her angry with me. If she’s angry, then there’s no way I’ll be able to convince her to let me get in her panties again, which is pretty much the only thing I want from this life before I die.
Before I can say anything else though, Fiasco beats me to it as he lowers his own gun to his side.
“Listen up, James. You better have at least a thousand for us next week or you’re going to be in a world of pain,” he warns Sean, making me wince because a threat to her brother was not exactly the last thing I wanted to leave Jetta on, but what choice do I have? I can’t give the asshole special treatment just because I banged his beautiful sister at a rock concert and want her again.
“He’s not giving you anything!” Jetta announces, looking like an angry kitten, so cute and adorable trying to be tough. Fuck, I’ve missed her.
“We’ll see about that,” Fiasco says and then he’s pulling on the back of my cut to get me moving out the door before I can say or do anything else.
Chapter Ten
Jetta
* * *
“Now start talking,” I tell my brother after the men leave. “Was Devlin here looking for me? Is that why he took the television and hit you?”
“How the hell do you know Dev?” Sean replies.
I clear my throat and the sudden, extremely vivid memories of that night from my head. “That…is a long story.”
“Yeah, well, so is mine,” Sean says when he gets up from the sofa and g
oes over to the fridge. Grabbing some ice cubes, which have now apparently become a trigger for me because it makes me think of Devlin, he tosses them onto a paper towel and holds it up to his lip. “You first.”
“Fine! I met Devlin at that concert I went to a few weeks ago.”
“So you fucked him?”
“We hooked up, yes,” I reply through gritted teeth. God, my brother is so judgmental. “Now tell me what he was doing here, Sean?”
“I owe the Dirty Aces a little money, that’s all. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?” I repeat indignantly. “It looked like a huge deal since they carry guns and were pointing them at you.”
How is it possible that the sweet, funny guy I met is a gun-toting outlaw and I had no clue?
“Maybe you should be more careful about the guys you fuck around with,” Sean says. “Never know who they could really be out of bed.”
“He wasn’t wearing the leather vest thing with a skull and patches on it that night,” I say in my defense as I take a seat on the sofa with my arms crossed over my chest, pissed at my brother for getting into who knows what kind of trouble, and furious with Devlin because he’s apparently not a nice guy.
“What are the Dirty Aces?” I ask, recalling the words on the patches of Devlin and the other guy’s jacket.
“A motorcycle gang,” he explains as he comes and sits on the arm of the sofa. “They run some shady businesses in town.”
“Ones you apparently go to?”
“Something like that,” he huffs.
“How much do you owe them?” I ask Sean.
“No clue. Those assholes make shit up as they go along, adding ridiculous interest rates.”
“Well, I’m guessing it’s more than the thousand you need by next week,” I mutter. “What the hell are you going to do, Sean?”
“No clue.”
“That’s just great,” I scoff with a roll of my eyes.
“I’ll take care of it,” he says when he gets to his feet and starts walking toward his bedroom. “Just promise me you’ll stay away from Devlin. Those guys are nothing but trouble. I bet they want cash for a drug problem or some shit.”
“Are you into drugs?” I ask in concern.
“Fuck no,” he grumbles. “Are you going to stay away from him or not, Jetta? He fucks a different girl every damn night. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“Yeah, of course I’ll stay away from the jerk,” I promise him. I already knew he was a playboy. “Why would I want anything to do with him now, after what he did to you?”
“Good,” he says with a sigh. “I’m going to bed.”
“It’s only eight o’clock!” I point out.
“So? Today sucked. They took my fucking phone, and I don’t have a television!”
“Sorry, Sean,” I say as he disappears, and then I hear his bedroom door slam shut.
This is what I get for deciding to spontaneously break my three-date rule before sleeping with a man. If I had waited, then I would’ve found out more about Devlin’s “job” and why he carries a gun and beats up on people.
But then I wouldn’t have had an epic night with a rock star…
Devlin
* * *
I still can’t get over the fact that Jetta, my Jetta, is the sister of a humongous asshole.
“So was that the Jetta you’ve been asking everyone about?” Fiasco asks as we head to the next stop on our list of debtors.
“Yep.”
“Well no fucking wonder no one knew her, man!” he says with a chuckle. “She has blonde hair, not purple. How drunk were you that night?”
Rolling my eyes, I tell him, “She had purple hair before, I’m certain of that. I held it and pulled it and…yeah, it was definitely purple.”
“Got to admit the blonde is a good look.”
“Yeah, it is,” I agree as I drum my fingers on the windowsill. I really want to tell Fiasco to turn this Thing around and go back so I can talk to her. Which is stupid since she just threw us out.
I’m only vaguely present when we show up at two more residences to demand the Dirty Aces’ money.
In fact, I don’t even remember Fiasco driving us to the pawn shop. I just suddenly look up and here we are in the parking lot.
“Not much to turn in today except the guitar,” Fiasco says as he reaches into the back seat and pulls the instrument out, hitting me in the back of the head in the process.
“Ow! Fuck,” I mutter as I rub the sore spot.
But then, I finally remember what’s in my pocket.
“I’ve got Sean’s phone!” I exclaim while retrieving the device from my pocket.
“That’s worth a few hundred probably,” Fiasco comments.
“No, it’s worth a helluva lot more!” I tell him as I put in the code Sean gave me, and boom, there’s Jetta’s name in his contacts. I get my own phone out to add her number in my phone, and then I scroll through his photos and send a few of him and her and her alone to myself. What a perv. I’m not sure why he has so many photos of his sister, but I can’t complain since I’ll be jerking off to these bad boys later tonight.
“Here. Take the phone and guitar in to see what you can get for them. I’ll wait here,” I say when I hand the phone over to Fiasco.
“Suit yourself,” he says when he climbs out with the goods.
While he’s gone, I start drafting a text message to Jetta. I enter in various greetings before deleting them, unable to figure out what the hell to say to her. Odds are, I’m only going to get one shot before she blocks my number. I really don’t want her to block me. I’ve waited for what feels like a lifetime to find her again, so I can’t blow this shot.
It’s like fate has brought us together again. She has to realize that too, right?
Jetta
A few hours after Devlin and his friend left, I’m rubbing aloe vera on my overbaked shoulders when my phone dings with an incoming text message.
Sitting on my bed with the device, I assume it’s from Carla or one of my friends back in Wilmington.
Instead, it’s a message from an unfamiliar phone number that says, I prefer the purple hair, but the blonde braids are cute too.
Who is this? I type back after staring at the message for half an hour, even though my heart is racing in my chest because I have an idea. How did you get this number?
Oh, right! Sean said Devlin stole his phone!
I’m getting ready to delete the message and block the number when he sends another message. Don’t block me. I’ve missed you like crazy. BTW, have you fucked anyone since the concert? I haven’t, which is some sort of record. Meeting you there, in a field packed with thousands of people was chance, but finding you again today was fate, baby.
Devlin.
Of course it’s him. He obviously got my number out of Sean’s phone and then thought it would be a good idea to contact me? He’s insane. And obviously lying about not sleeping with anyone since the concert. A guy like him was probably with a girl later the next day after I left him sleeping with Rob Lawrence in the rock star’s bed.
Still, despite how angry and annoyed at him I am, I can’t help but respond. My fingers fly over the keyboard before I give them permission to answer him.
It’s none of your business who I’ve been with, asshole! You have some nerve hurting my brother, stealing from him and then texting me!
The phone rings in my palm while I’m stupidly waiting for him to respond.
“What do you want, thief?” I say when I answer the call.
“Don’t you want to hear my side of the story?”
“Not really–” I say before he interrupts.
“Too bad, here it comes. Your brother has one hell of a gambling problem,” Devlin says.
“A gambling problem?” I repeat in confusion. I thought Sean owed money because he needed money, you know, just paying back a normal loan.
“That’s right, gambling. And Sean still owes us four thousand in unpaid debts.
His fault for not paying them after six months, not mine.”
I sit there in silence as I let that information sink in.
Is he telling the truth? Can I actually believe a word out of his lying thug mouth? No, probably not. But still, for some reason I can’t figure out why Devlin would lie to me about Sean gambling. There’s no way for Devlin to have figured out this is where I live when I haven’t been here long and haven’t ever used the address on any paperwork before I applied for jobs.
“Jetta? You there?” he asks.
“I’m here,” I huff into the phone.
“Sean’s in deep shit with the MC, and I wish I could make it go away, but I can’t.”
“Why should I believe you?” I ask as I lie back in bed and stare up at the ceiling with the phone pressed to my ear.
“No reason for me to lie, right?” he responds. “I bet you already asked Sean what we were doing there. Let me guess, he lied or avoided giving you details.”
“He said he owed you a little money, that’s all, and that you added on a bunch of interest,” I say softly into the phone because I don’t want my brother to hear me through the wall.
“The four thousand is with no interest actually,” Devlin tells me. “Our president is feeling generous now that he’s a father and soon-to-be husband.”
“What was Sean gambling on?” I ask, wanting more information and, as stupid as it is, not really wanting to end the call with him yet. Since moving back home, I haven’t been in contact with many friends. Most have moved away, or we’ve grown apart, except for Carla.
“We have all sorts of shit people bet on — football games, the Super Bowl is a big one, baseball, and other sports. Then there’s the actual casino boat with poker, blackjack and all the usual games.”
“Four thousand isn’t a lot of money,” I remark.
“Not really in the big scheme of things,” Devlin agrees. “If you can pay it back. While our president is generous with the interest, he’s still insisting that we collect every penny due by the end of the month because we’ve been too slack lately and no one is ponying up what they owe.”
