by Elle Thorpe
I tried to calm the racing of my heart. For some reason, this classroom full of women was twice as intimidating as the big men I’d had yesterday. But intimidated or not, I wouldn’t let them get the better of me. I was here to get Heath out. But I was also here to do a job. And I intended to do it well.
Before taking my place at the front of the classroom, I squeezed Selina’s shoulder. “I’ll find him tomorrow. I’ll give him that hug for you.”
Selina’s eyes lit up like I’d promised her a million dollars.
“So this the bitch all the guys want to fuck?”
My head snapped up. I had no idea who’d said it because the entire room was laughing and speculating over why the guys would be so interested in me.
“She is a bit rat-looking, don’t you think?”
I took a deep breath before letting it out.
Selina gave me a small nod of encouragement. At least if nothing else, I might have won one prisoner over today.
21
Mae
Mae
I was completely and utterly drained by the time I made my way out into the parking lot after class. More than anything, I was yearning for a long soak in a hot tub, an overflowing bowl of ice cream all to myself, and an episode of Bridgerton.
But my visit to the infirmary haunted me. That woman, lying on her deathbed, frail in her old age, body riddled with cancer… She was hardly a danger to society anymore. And all she’d wanted was a priest. Someone from the church to treat her like a human being.
I didn’t have the pull to get a priest. But I knew someone who did.
I got out my phone and called Tori’s number.
“Hey, sunshine. Whatcha doing?”
I gripped my phone a little tighter. “Just finished a shift at the prison.”
My best friend still wasn’t happy about me taking a position there, but like the good friend she was, she’d said her piece and then let it go. “How was it?”
I sighed. “Good mostly. But there is something bothering me, and I wonder if you can help me…”
I filled her in on the situation in the infirmary, on what I’d seen, and how my heart had gone out to the woman.
Tori’s murmurs became increasingly louder, filled with sympathy, and then with outrage. “They can’t deny her access to a priest!”
“They have.”
“On what grounds?”
I shrugged. I leaned against the wall of the prison, staring at the back end of my car. “There’s a lot of problems here. The warden doesn’t seem to be very proactive in getting programs running. I don’t know if it’s a lack of budget or if he just doesn’t care…”
“That doesn’t mean they can just deny a woman her last rites.”
“I agree. Is there anything you can do on your end? Someone at the church who could help?”
There was fierce determination in her voice when she answered. “Leave it to me. I’ll fix this.”
I smiled into the darkness. This was why I loved her. She was such a determined little firecracker. I had no doubt in my mind she’d organize both a priest and the warden into anything she put her mind to.
She hung up on me to start organizing her new mission, and I put my phone away in my bag, pleased I’d known someone who could help. I headed again for my car, the junk food stashed in my kitchen, and Netflix calling my name.
When I was halfway across the lot, though, the skin prickled at the back of my neck, awareness crawling over me. I glanced around, but there wasn’t much to see. A few other cars parked beside mine, but no other people. I clutched my keys a little tighter anyway, unease creeping, even though I could see nothing to warrant it. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.
I’d use the keys as a weapon if I had to. I darted a peek over my shoulder, instantly realizing the source of the feeling.
Rowe’s dark-brown gaze met mine through the prison window.
I breathed out a sigh of relief and raised a hand in greeting.
Rowe disappeared from the window completely.
“Well, hello to you, too, grump,” I muttered.
“I thought I was in a pretty good mood, but I can be grumpy if you want me to be.”
I shrieked at the voice behind me and spun around. “Liam!” My heart pounded against my rib cage. “Holy shit. Where the hell did you come from?”
He pointed to his car parked beside mine. “Just there. I was sitting in my car, waiting for you to finish your call.”
I hadn’t even recognized his Porsche. He was the last person I’d expected to see here after nine at night, so I hadn’t exactly been looking for it. “What are you doing here? Stalker much?”
He was dressed more casually tonight than I’d seen him since high school. Blue jeans covered his long legs, and a short-sleeved button-up shirt clung to his chest in a way that was very pleasing to my eye indeed.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s hardly stalking when you have an invite. And a security pass.”
“Who invited you? Wasn’t me.”
“Do you not remember our conversation in my office? I agreed to represent your little murderer friend, and you agreed to go on a date with me.”
“He’s not a murderer.”
“So you say. How about that date?”
“Bit late, don’t you think?”
“Bit late if you’re eighty, I suppose. Last I checked we weren’t even close to that old. Come on. Leave your car here. I’m starving and I know this great place to get something to eat.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off.
“I promise, Grandma. I’ll have you tucked up in your bed before midnight.”
He gave me such a boyishly charming grin that I couldn’t say no. If I was being honest, there was a little part of me that was kind of thrilled he was so impatient for this date that he’d turned up here tonight. I changed directions, heading for the passenger seat of his car. “Fine. You want to do this now, we do this now. Then I owe you nothing.”
“Deal. But I bet by the end of the night I’ll have you wishing you did owe me another date. Because I am the date master. I know you never got to experience it in high school, because you were too busy being a stick-in-the-mud, but my reputation was widely known.”
I slid into the passenger seat and rolled my eyes. “Your reputation as a man whore was widely known. Your reputation for dating girls, on the other hand, was about as well-known as Whirlwinds of Aurora.”
He paused with his hands on the wheel. “Who?”
“Exactly.”
He frowned at that, turned his car on, then said, “Hey, Google. What is Whirlwinds of Aurora?”
I dropped my head into my hands, embarrassment already heating the back of my neck. “Dammit, Liam. You couldn’t just let that one go?”
Google took that moment to pipe up with an answer. “Whirlwinds of Aurora was a three-piece punk rock band out of Providence. It was formed by lead guitarist Simon Schuler, drummer Laura Burns, and vocalist Mae Donovan.”
I dug a toe into the floor of his car, hoping for an escape hatch to appear.
Liam gawked at me. “You were in a punk rock band? Excuse me, I’m so confused right now. Maybe I need to play that again because I don’t think I heard it right. There is no way that sweet little Mae Donovan, valedictorian and hall monitor, started a punk rock band. Hey, Google—”
I punched him in the shoulder. “Shut up. I wasn’t that much of a nerd.”
“Yes, you were. And part of the reason you didn’t like me at school was because I scored better than you did.” He paused and chuckled at himself. “Both in the classroom and out of it.”
“Suffocating on your ego again.” I pulled on the handle of the door, opening it up. “Here, some extra space for your massive head.”
He grabbed my hand. “Hey. I’m only joking. Get back in.”
His touch froze me to the spot. His fingers were soft and warm and felt distinctly nice wrapped around mine. I didn’t tell him
that I’d really had no plans on going anywhere. For a moment I thought about pretending to get out again, just so he’d keep holding my hand. But I shut the door and dealt with the disappointment when he let go.
Liam put his hand on the back of my chair as he looked over his shoulder, reversing out of the parking space. My hormones did a happy little dance, and I stole the opportunity to let my gaze wander along Liam’s forearm, his biceps, and then finally his profile.
He dropped his hand to the gearshift, putting the car in drive and steered toward the big black gates that would let us out onto the roads of Saint View. “So tell me more about this band. What did you call it again? Windy Fedora?” He threw me a teasing grin.
“Whirlwinds of Aurora.”
“Quite a mouthful.”
“Yeah. But at the time we thought it sounded poetic. Teenage angst and all that.”
“So, what happened to the band? Or are you still secretly the lead singer, strutting your stuff onstage for thousands of screaming emo fans after you finish teaching little kids how to count on their fingers each day?”
“Not so much. It was a very short-lived adventure. Band broke up when Simon asked Laura out and Laura turned him down.”
“I would have thought that was a good reason for a new song?” He raised his voice a few octaves and sang in the worst, most off-key voice I’d ever heard. “Guitarist and a drummer! Should have been a stunner! But she said no. Oh, what woe.”
I cringed. “Damn. I really wish I’d known back then about what an awful singer you are. Not to mention a shockingly bad lyricist. It would have made me feel a whole lot better that you scored higher than I did on the SATs.”
“Ah, you admit you were jealous of me.”
“I admitted no such thing.” But we both knew I had been. I liked to win. So did Liam. Even though we hadn’t attended the same schools, they’d been so intricately linked it sometimes felt like we had. My valedictorian certificate still hung in a corner of my bedroom. But I’d never forgotten that Liam had been a grade point or two ahead of me when he was announced valedictorian for Edgely Academy. That had irked me something fierce.
Liam steered through the streets of Saint View confidently, making turns, taking us deeper and deeper into what was essentially the ghetto. I stared out the window. I hadn’t been this far in years. This area was really nothing like Providence. The further in we got, the more the houses on the streets outside fell into disrepair. They became smaller and smaller, the yards littered with rusted car shells and beat-up old bikes. Some houses were completely abandoned, windows smashed, graffiti decorating the walls, no sign of life from within.
Liam’s stupidly expensive car would draw attention out here. An uncomfortable worry niggled at me over that. I couldn’t imagine where he was taking me, though I instinctively knew not to be concerned about him. I might not have liked the guy, but I’d never felt unsafe in his company.
The streets outside were another story. They gave off a menacing vibe, shadows lurking, danger promised in dark alleys. “Do you know where we’re going? Please tell me you aren’t one of those guys who won’t use the GPS because your sense of direction is just so great you couldn’t possibly need it?”
Liam didn’t answer me, distracted by slowing the car to a near crawl, almost stopping altogether outside one house. It was on a very poor street. Only every second or third house was lit from the inside with electricity, and I suspected that if there was anyone inside the others, they were squatters. But this house did have a glowing shine from behind tattered curtains. And the front lawn had been neatly mowed recently. The steps that led to the porch had broken boards, though, and the streetlight out the front lit up the night enough for me to see the peeling paint on the front door.
Liam stared at the house.
“Liam?”
He jerked like he’d forgotten I was there and put his foot down on the accelerator a little too hard. The car lurched forward, my head bouncing softly on the headrest behind me.
“You okay?” I asked.
And just like that he was back to being his cocky self. “Of course. And yes, to answer your question. I do know where I’m going. We’re just about there.”
He turned the car down a narrow driveway and parked at the back of the nondescript building. There were obviously people inside, judging from the light and soft music lilting through the warm evening, but there was no sign on the building that gave away what this place was.
I peered through the windows, slightly nervous. “What is this place? Do you really want to leave your car here?”
“Worried it might get stolen? You snob.”
“I’m not a snob. But I am slightly worried that we may get back and find your car has no tires.”
Liam laughed as he got out and walked around to my side, opening the door and escorting me out as well. “You’re totally a snob. It’s a friend’s place. The car will be fine.”
The music was louder outside the car, and I realized there was a live band playing inside. The woman’s voice was deep and throaty, in a way mine had never been. But oh, had I ever wished it was. The tone was enticing, almost siren-like, and I found myself walking toward the door, pulling ahead of Liam.
“Hey. Wait for me.”
I let him open the door for me and stepped inside the brightly lit room. I blinked in the lights, my eyes adjusting from the darkness outside. It took them a moment, and my nose was quicker. A delicious aroma wafted past me, and my stomach grumbled in response, reminding me I hadn’t eaten dinner. “Oh, wow. What’s that smell?”
Liam came up behind me. “Smells good, huh?” He took my hand and led me around a couple of empty tables, to where the band was playing. They stopped when they saw us, the woman’s eyes widening in surprise. She cut herself off mid lyric. “Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in, will you? What are you doing here? Shit, am I being sued again?”
Liam grinned. “I was in the neighborhood, and hungry. You know I won’t eat anywhere else around here.”
The woman stepped down off the small makeshift stage and crossed the space between us. She paused in front of Liam, not even glancing in my direction, and just shook her head at him.
He gave her one of his charming grins. “Please, Eve. Feed us. We don’t want to go somewhere else and get food poisoning.”
“Damn straight you don’t. The only other place open at this time would be Ugly Joe’s.”
Eve made a face, and Liam made a gagging noise, then they both grinned.
The woman finally turned to me. She glanced over me over, her gaze starting at the tip of my head and working its way down my body so slowly it might have been uncomfortable, except for the fact that her gaze was completely unsexual. “Who’s this?”
I wasn’t going to wait for Liam to introduce me. “Hey, I’m Mae.”
“You here for a job?”
I frowned. “A job? No, no. I have one. Actually, I have two. Definitely don’t need a job.”
Eve shrugged. “Pity. You’d do well with that face and body. If you change your mind…”
I blinked. “Sorry?” I glanced around the room in confusion before my gaze came back to rest on Liam.
He was barely containing his laughter. He put his arm around my shoulder, his heavy biceps weighing me down deliciously. “Oh, Mae. Sweet, sweet innocent Mae. You really haven’t changed all that much from high school.”
Eve chuckled. “Stop being a jackass. She’s obviously not from around here.” She turned back to me. “You’re at a strip club, sweetie. I actually thought that was why Liam had brought you here. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d asked me for a job for a friend.”
I gaped at her. And then elbowed Liam sharply. “That better not be why you brought me here.” Then I realized how insensitive that probably sounded to Eve and rushed to clarify. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that that wouldn’t be a very, um, nice job. I’m sure you’re a very good employer. But like I said, I’m pretty full up on
the employment side.” Heat flushed my cheeks.
I could honestly kill Liam.
Liam took my hand again and led me to one of the tables, pulling out a chair for me. I glared at him as I sat. “Don’t think that gentlemanly manners are going to save you from this one, buddy.”
“I swear, we’re only here for the food. I happen to know that Eve makes the very best stew around, and that she always has a pot of it on the stove on Tuesdays when they’re rehearsing. The club isn’t open to the public Monday or Tuesday, though, so no strip show for you, unfortunately.”
Eve piped up. “You’re welcome to come back on Friday night, though. We go all out on the weekends.”
“Um. Thanks. That sounds nice.”
Eve nodded, seemingly happy with that response. “I’ll bring you both stew, yes?”
“Yes, please. With bread?” Liam asked.
Eve ruffled his hair, like he was an annoying little brother. “Fine. Bread, too. But you owe me a free consultation next time someone tries to sue me, got it?”
Liam rolled his eyes at me. “She hasn’t paid me for a single consultation yet. And she’s been sued a lot.”
“I heard that,” Eve called from the kitchen.
My stomach rumbled again, impatient for the food that smelled so good. “Is that how you two know each other? She’s one of your clients?”
“No.”
He didn’t elaborate. Okay then. “Ex-girlfriend?” The beautiful brunette woman had curves I would kill for. Her long dark hair tumbled around her shoulders in waves, and her tight-fitting dress showed off her killer legs and thighs. It was easy to imagine that she may have, at one point, had them wrapped around the man sitting across the table from me right now.
Liam snorted like the idea was ridiculous. “God, no. We’ve never… And never will.”
