Mr. Fixit

by Lauren Landish

  “Right away—” I begin to say.

  Cassie cuts in quickly. “How am I supposed to get the experience if you don’t give me the chance? Please, Myra, I won’t let you down. I’ll just watch, learn, and follow Hannah’s instructions.”

  Myra pauses, staring at Cassie thoughtfully.

  Seeing a hole in Myra’s armor, Cassie presses her advantage. “I can play fetch, help her with research . . .”

  Myra holds up her hand. “Okay, you know what, Cassie? You’re going, but you’re going to be Hannah’s assistant. Whatever she needs, you do, and nothing more.”

  “Thank you!” Cassie lets out a squeal of delight, coming forward to give Myra a hug, but stops dead in her tracks when Myra fixes her with a frosty scowl.

  “Don’t thank me. Just do your job well,” Myra growls. She turns and nods at me. “Report to me when you’re done. I’m counting on you.” She walks out of the room and enters her office, closing the door behind her.

  I let out a groan and mutter under my breath, “Just great . . . she’s saddling me with the motor mouth from hell.”

  “Oh, come on, Hannah,” Cassie says, flashing her dimples at me. “You’ve got the wrong impression about me. You’ll see.”

  I point a stern finger at her. “I’m serious, Cass. I don’t want you to even breathe without my approval. We can’t screw this up.”

  Cassie’s smile only widens. “You got it, boss.”

  “And no fetching coffee!” I have to add, remembering the narrowly avoided lawsuit. “I don’t want any more fried balls on my watch.”

  Cassie salutes me. “Got it. No more fried ballsacks!”

  Staring into her smiling face, I can see disaster just over the horizon, but I’m hoping I’m wrong. If Myra says for her to go and watch, I’ll go with it.

  Want to read the rest? Get Stud Muffin HERE.

  Playing for Keeps

  by Lauren Landish

  These are 2 short stories that I wrote for special Holiday Box Sets ( Playing for Keeps from Wicked Ways & Christmas Thief from Bad Boys Under the Mistletoe). They are no longer available anywhere, so if you missed those, you can read them here!

  Join my mailing list and receive 2 FREE ebooks! You’ll also be the first to know of new releases, sales, and giveaways.

  Christmas Thief

  By Lauren Landish

  Chapter 1

  Jaxon

  There's a swirl of snow in my headlamp, and the wind bites as I putter along at thirty miles an hour. It's a lot worse at highway speeds. You have to be either insane or desperate to ride a bike in winter in this city, and honestly, I'm a little of both.

  I hate this fucking bike. I wish I had my old Harley, but after getting out of the pen, there wasn't a lot left. Aunt Eleanora died eight months before I got out, heartbroken and thinking that my life was ruined. Just like how her little brother, my father's, was. When she died without a will, everything was liquidated, including the Harley. Her life insurance paid for the hospital bills, the tax man took his chunk... and I was left with just enough money after some other expenses for a cheap shit Yamaha. This fucking bike's so pussy that I can't even imagine taking it anywhere close to a real biker bar. I'd be catching asswhippings before the engine even died.

  I turn down Lakeside Boulevard, also called Boardwalk a couple miles later on, settling into a slow cruise. Tonight a lot of the mansions along Lakeside are lit up, a holiday tradition that dates back to the early 1900s. What started as a bit of showing off by the industrial barons who built this city to show the working class who could really celebrate Christmas properly has turned into a full-on tourist destination, the most extravagant homes being written up in the newspaper and making the local news.

  But this is the last night. After December 23, by tradition the whole damn thing shuts down. Supposedly it's to give the workers at the various estates time with their families, but I've always thought that it was to give the fat cats a chance to get the fuck out of town and up to their winter retreats in the mountains or up the coast where us common folk aren't allowed. Actually, considering the drunken chaos that tends to be New Year's along the Boardwalk, it's a good idea.

  There, up ahead on the right. Officially it's listed as 1375 Lakeside Boulevard, but for over a century now it's been known as Whitechapel because of the small snow-white chapel in its own separate offshoot wing, put in by the original owner as a way to say thanks to God after his young twin daughters were saved from the Russian flu recurrence that swept through in 1892.

  The eldest of those daughters, Margaret Smith, married Lamont Prescott, a British businessman who settled here for romantic reasons. They had a son... who had a son... who had a son... who had me, Jaxon Prescott, last of my line.

  I pull over on the lake side of the road, getting off my bike to look across at Whitechapel. The lights are good, but not too good; the current owners don't want too much notice of Whitechapel, either good or bad. They want it to be as bland as possible for Lakeside, and so it's just... there. It should be my home, it should be me sitting in the library, sipping eggnog and looking forward to my birthday in four days, two days after Christmas. I should be wearing a sweater instead of a cheap shit black denim jacket over top an even cheaper hooded sweatshirt.

  I should be... except for Henry Johnson.

  Sixteen years ago, he stole my house, my life, my family and my future from me.

  Tomorrow night, I return the favor.

  Chapter 2

  Mandy

  “What's wrong, honey?” Mom asks as I look up from my book to glance out the window. I don't know why I did it, it's been years, and there's no way that I should be thinking the thoughts I am, but for some reason, I'm thinking about him. Then again, his birthday's in a few days, and I always think of him around his birthday. And of course... tomorrow was the day he was taken away from me.

  “Nothing, Mom,” I answer instead of telling the truth. “I guess I thought I heard some carolers, something like that. It was just the wind though.”

  “Well, wind or not, what you need is some sleep,” she says with a smile. “Remember, you have your exams two days after Christmas.”

  “I know, I know,” I halfheartedly complain. “Seriously, what sort of university would pick two days after Christmas to have their entrance exams?”

  “Come on Amanda, it won't be that bad missing the ski lodge this year. Besides, I know you’re going to enjoy being on your own, even if it is here at the house. And you're the one who chose a university in Singapore after prep school.”

  “I know, and you're right,” I reply indulgently. Actually, I've been looking forward to this first holiday away from my parents since I learned more about how exactly my parents ended up living in Whitechapel. It ruins the whole family dynamic to me.

  “Just remember, we might enjoy some time without our daughter around, too,” Mom jokes, making me roll my eyes.

  “Seriously? Isn't it like, two days to Christmas? There's got to be some sort of church holiday or something that you're being sacrilegious against with that sort of talk.” I so need to get out on my own and away from these two.

  “Oh yeah, Christmas... ho, ho, ho,” Mom says, making me groan again. I so need a drink. Even a stiff eggnog would help. Actually, from the smell of it, Mom's had a few already, which is probably why her tongue's a lot looser than I want it to be. “Come on, this is our last night here, and Henry wants us to open some gifts together.”

  “I'll be there in a few minutes,” I reply, sitting up. “Tell Dad five minutes?”

  “Okay honey. Don't wait too long, or else I might let Henry unwrap his first present from me before you get there.”

  Don't make me fucking gag. She sashays out of the study and I take another deep breath, wishing I could fast forward through the next few months.

  It's not the exam that has me feeling like this. Getting to go to Singapore for college is just a means to an end of getting me away from this house. Every day when I wake up here in
Whitechapel, I'm reminded exactly of how my family got here. And of my own betrayal.

  I still don't know why I didn't speak up when Dad called the cops on him. I knew what he was doing, and he wasn't trying to hurt anyone or anything. Back then, he looked like a bad boy but inside there was a sweetness to him. I found it at school, where his aunt insisted on sending him even after his parents... died. All the other kids at St. Foster's ignored him after their attempts at bullying ended up with four members of the football team going to the hospital. Me though, I saw something different.

  I remember the talks, and even more, the three times we kissed. He was my first kiss, and the third one was right there, outside this study in the driveway. He'd just gotten his bike, a gift from his aunt, but I could see past the tough exterior, past the rebellious tattoos he was already getting somewhere, past the chrome on the Harley. I let him touch me that third time, just a hand over my breast through my winter sweater, the memory on my skin a condemnation for what I did to him just days later. Tomorrow, in fact. Christmas Eve.

  “If you're out there, wherever you are... I'm sorry,” I whisper, looking out on the unending line of cars that slowly make their way down Lakeside Boulevard. I touch my forehead to the frosty glass and close my eyes, wishing that I could say Merry Christmas, but I don't have that right anymore. Instead, I take a deep sigh and leave the study. Walking down the hall that connects this wing of Whitechapel to where I know my parents are, I think of what a lie my life has been. What it still is.

  Four days, I just have to focus on four days from now. Part of me hopes that maybe there's a good sign to the exam being held then, since it's his birthday. Pass the exam, pass the interview, and then I never have to come back to this place again. Not until it's passed down to me, and then I can burn the whole fucking thing to the ground.

  Chapter 3

  Jaxon

  “Isn't it a little early to be drinking on Christmas Eve?” the bartender says.

  I shrug, reaching into my pocket and fishing out a twenty dollar bill, sliding it across the scarred wood. “It's early for some, late for others. Just a beer, and keep the change. You know, holiday cheer.”

  The bartender considers it, then shrugs. The twenty disappears and a Budweiser appears on the bar, already opened. “Just one. I don't need a fucking dead biker out there because you put down too much beer in my bar.”

  “No worries there, I've got work tonight,” I reply, sitting down. “Very important work.”

  “No wonder you want a beer. Fucking sucks to be working on Christmas Eve,” the bartender says, then laughs at the irony, looking around his bar. “Eh, I guess I'm one to talk. Still, I shut down early tonight, and tomorrow I'm spending the whole day with the family. What time you go in?”

  “It'll be late,” I say, taking a pull from the piss-weak Bud. Seriously, if I ever have a chance to become President, the first thing I'd do is tell the Air Force to bomb the plant where Anheuser-Busch makes Budweiser. Do the whole world a favor. “Probably go until after midnight, so Merry Christmas.”

  The bartender looks around the nearly empty bar then leans in, his face concerned. “What's got you, kid? And don't give me no shit about you not being a kid. Those tatts and that scruff of shadow on your face don’t age you that much.”

  I take another pull, then consider how I want to phrase this so I don't blow the cover on what I'm going to do in a few hours, but at the same time unburden my soul. “You ever been betrayed? Like, seriously betrayed?”

  “Had a best buddy who was fucking what I thought was my girlfriend behind my back, but I guess that's the best I can come up with. Fucker did me a favor. That was one crazy bitch, and the next girl I met was my wife,” he says with a chuckle. “Definite upgrade.”

  “Yeah, well... you might not believe it, but at one point I was going to go to college.”

  The bartender looks me over, then shrugs, unimpressed. “Not to sound like a dick, but most kids can go to college if they want nowadays. My sister's kid is a fucking idiot who can't do much more than watch internet videos and jack off, and he's going to State.”

  I can't help it, I laugh bitterly. “Yeah, well, that wasn't me. I had a full ride academic scholarship to Yale. And I earned that shit all on my own. Then... let’s just say I got sent away. A few years ago today, in fact.”

  “On Christmas Eve? Damn, what happened?”

  “I had a thing for a girl, and her dad didn't like it. Among other things. Anyway, he called the cops on me, saying I was trying to steal his car and making threats against him and his daughter. That wasn't the part that hurts. He's an asshole. But my girl, and yeah she was mine... she coulda said something. She didn't.”

  “You did time?”

  I nod, taking another sip of my beer. “The dad's got some friends in low places, or high places, or what the fuck ever. Even though I was seventeen, they sent me to jail instead of juvie. You don't wanna know what jail's like for a seventeen-year-old kid. Let's just say... it ain't easy.”

  The bartender shakes his head, and reaches down, pulling a short beer for himself. “I see too many guys come through here who know the system to be able to say that it's easy. I gotta say, that's a bad fucking over. You ever ask the girl why?”

  I shake my head, finishing my beer. “Never had the chance. Maybe someday. Who knows, man? It's Christmas Eve, she screwed me over on Christmas Eve. Hey, if anyone up there's listening, I'd like to see her tonight, just to ask her what the fuck she was thinking.”

  The bartender nods, and takes out the twenty I gave him, laying it on the bar. “Here, I noticed you dropped this.”

  “No... it's okay. Really,” I protest, but the bartender shakes his head hard.

  “Fuck that. Merry Christmas.”

  I take the twenty and fold it up, jamming it into my jacket pocket. “Thanks, man. And Merry Christmas to you, too.”

  It's dark now along Lakeside, although farther down around Boardwalk I can see the party district still going strong. While I'm not sure what the cross on my neck really represents anymore, the idea of drinking yourself shitfaced on a night when supposedly you're celebrating the birth of a child to a virgin seems pretty fucked up, even more than what most people would think about what I'm about to do.

  Whitechapel is dead black, not a single light on from outside, and I know it's now or never. I already know that Henry and his wife Juliet left town in his customized Mercedes SUV, heading upstate to his three thousand square foot 'log cabin' in the mountains. I know because I froze my ass off this morning while getting in a very long calisthenics 'workout' along the jogging path circling the lake across from Whitechapel. Thankfully, all those hours with the 'bar boys' paid off, and I don't feel like a fucking walking pulled muscle right now.

  I started this plan years ago, the day after they told me that Aunt Eleanora died of a rare cancer. I guess it's fitting, her husband died the same way before I was born, but she raised me for over a decade, and it hurt. I turned that hurt into a plan, although it took a lot of fucking work after getting out to scrape enough pennies together to get to this point. Information and skills on what I want to do don't come cheap, and I can't afford to learn on the job here.

  The bag on my back is almost totally empty except for the tablet that cost me more than my bike. With it, I detect then hack the house's WiFi, shutting down the phone and internet connection to the outside. I won't have a ton of time, but I know Whitechapel like the back of my hand still. I was born here. I took my first steps here. I even began learning how to read in the library here. And I know where all the hiding places are.

  The back door by the kitchen opens relatively easily with my lock pick gun, and I'm reminded of something that Spanky, one of my teachers, said. “Rich folk, powerful folk, they're some of the easiest to rob. They think that their power or their rep is better than a lock or an alarm. Take away the guards, and I bet the easiest house in the country to rob is the White House.”

  I don't know if Spanky was
being ironic or just being straightforward, but I thank him silently as I make my way carefully through the house, hitting up the main wing first. The study where Henry Johnson destroyed my father's life is where I open the safe; Johnson was so lazy he didn't even get the century-old safe replaced. As I pull on the heavy door, I can remember exactly the last time I saw this safe open. The day that Henry Johnson had my father dragged out of this study to be thrown into the streets.

  I find a little cash in the safe, not nearly enough for me, along with a USB memory stick that might have something interesting. I don't have time to scan it now, so I move on toward the other wing where I know the big safe is. In the big library, the one that I remember always smelled good, the smell of old books and leather. I don't want to resort to trying to take the jewels in the bedrooms if I can help it. I don't know a fucking thing about fencing stolen jewels, and trying to blindly fence jewels from a venture capitalist/mob banker is not my idea of a fun suicide.

  I cross the foyer, pausing to look up the stairs. My parents' bedroom was up there, along with mine too when I was little. I can barely remember it all, but Eleanora told me so many stories about Whitechapel, the memories blend seamlessly with her own stories to give me total recall of the layout. But later, if there's time, I'd like to piss on Henry's bed.

  I pass the stairs and head toward the large library, what had been my favorite room when I was a kid because my dad used to keep a model train set in there. I pause when I get close. There's a dim, almost impossible to see light under the door, and if I hadn't kept my penlight off and used my memories to guide me, I'd have probably missed it.

  Nervous, I reach for the BB gun in my pocket. It looks real enough, especially in low light, and let's face it, I'm not winning a shootout here, even if I did have the money for a real gun. But it might help for intimidation reasons.