Downing back the rest of my beer, I toss the bottle toward the garbage can, making a loud clang in the otherwise quiet room.
“You played me. You fucking played me.”
“No, I didn’t.” She runs her fingers along the ridges on the edge of the bar top, back and forth, back and forth. I cock an eyebrow, waiting for her to spit out whatever the hell she wants to say.
“This is hard.”
“May, August, whatever the fuck your name is, just—”
“My name’s April,” she interrupts me, and then shakes her head. “April Marie White.”
I lean forward, my palms on the counter. “Say what you gotta say, then get the fuck out.”
“I’m a police officer—a detective. I’ve been working deep undercover for the last two years, since before I met you.”
Without even thinking, I pull out a bottle of tequila and a shot glass, fill it up, and gulp the liquid down. Then, because I’m angry, bitter, and fucking pissed off, I do something that I know will bother the hell out of her. Something that, I suppose, can get me arrested. Definitely something my brother would have a fucking coronary over if he saw me. I reach into my pocket, where I have a small baggie stashed. I dab two lines right on the table, roll up a dollar bill and snort coke in the middle of my club, in the middle of the day, in front of a police officer who I thought I loved but who I now fucking hate. And I explode. All the emotions I’ve been trying to hide through alcohol and drugs and a fake smile—they’re all pouring out of me, and she’s going to see it all.
“Oh my God, Matt! What are you doing?” she cries as I press my finger to the table and rub some of the excess against my teeth. “This isn’t you! Please don’t.”
“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do? This is me.”
“It’s not.”
“You don’t know me. I don’t know you.”
“I couldn’t tell you who I was.”
“And you’re not a cop anymore? You gonna arrest me?” I challenge her. Daring her to fuck with me. I just want to hurt her as much as she hurt me.
“No, of course not. And yes, I am still a cop, but I’m not undercover anymore. I’m out. Closed the last case.”
I run my palm down my face. I can’t seem to process the words I’m hearing. I’m listening to it, but I can’t grasp it. Maybe it’s the drugs and the alcohol.
I pace back and forth. “You told me you were a pharmaceutical rep.”
“You told me you loved me,” she shoots back, sadness filling her face, but in her voice is the same feistiness I fell in love with. “You told me you’d chase me.”
“I did. But it wasn’t you. It was some lying bitch named June Simpson.”
“No.” She shakes her head, holding back tears. “It was me. I told you to remember that that was the real me. You promised you would. You promised.”
“When you said you were traveling to see clients? That was a lie,” I state, still pacing, my fists beginning to clench.
“Matt, I’m so—”
“No!” I stop abruptly on the other side of the room to point at her and yell. “No! Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t say anything. Just answer me. You lied?”
“It was my jo—”
I stalk over to her and get right up in her face. “Shut the fuck up.” She quiets and I see her lip quiver slightly. “You lied to me.”
She exhales slowly and looks down at her feet. “Yes.”
I move away from her because I’ve never been so mad. Not ever. Not when I was fired from the firm because of the “bad publicity” for being involved with Panic’s shit storm. Not even when Nick, my father, and I were arrested.
Fuck! I slap the side of my head. “You were an undercover cop here! You were the reason we were arrested.” I hear an unfamiliar noise come from my throat—a growl? “You fucked me for months in order to shit on us.” I can barely recognize my own voice. I can’t remember ever losing it like this. Not ever.
“No, Matt, that’s not—”
“You fucked up my entire life.” Once I start, I just can’t stop. All the worry from the last year, the heartache, the stress of Panic—everything morphs into anger in this one moment. “You used me to get info on my father. Now I have to work eighty-hour weeks because I need to save this fucking nightclub. I was fired—do you know how humiliating that was? And I can’t stand to look at my father’s face now. I’ve had to pretend everything has been okay for the last year in order for my entire goddamn world not to fall apart. My brother was a fucking mess for a long time. All because of you!” I slam my palms down, hard. “You had me and Nick arrested! Does that even register with you?”
She’s crying now. Full-blown tears. But this woman, she can act. So, fuck her and her fake tears. “I wasn’t the one who was selling drugs at Panic, Matt. That was all your father.”
“Yeah, but you were fucking me in order to get info on him. Makes you a whore, doesn’t it, Junebug?” I hiss, and she flinches. “Whores aren’t allowed in Panic anymore. You made sure of that when we were arrested. Prostitution was one of the charges, remember?” Suddenly I’m standing inches from her. “So, like I said, get the fuck out.”
April
I can’t say anything other than the truth. It’s the reason I’m here, after all. I knew he’d be mad. How could he not be? But this rage, it’s like a bomb that finally exploded. I didn’t even know he had it in him to be this angry, and I don’t know what else I can do but say my piece. “Yes. I helped build the case against your father.”
He’s just standing there, a tic in his jaw muscle, his arms crossed over his chest, making him look menacing. My sweet, funny man, who didn’t deserve to be lied to. His nose is practically touching my nose when he hisses, “Bitch. Get. The. Fuck. Out.” My heart stops beating for a minute. I never—not ever—thought I’d hear him saying the words coming out of his mouth right now. He’s a different person standing here in front of me. Completely unrecognizable.
I try to grab his hand, but he pulls it away from me. “Out. Now.”
“I didn’t take the job knowing I’d meet you. I didn’t know I’d fall in love with you. I didn’t…I just couldn’t tell you. But it’s still me, Matt. You know me. We stayed in bed for days just talking and making love—I’d never done that before. We had a real connection.”
He runs his hand over his almost-bald head and grabs the back of his neck. “Real connection?” He snorts. “Nothing about you is real. And as for staying in bed for two days, I don’t remember a single conversation that involved you. Looking back, everything always came back to Panic. Hell, you even asked about Nick and my dad. I was so fucking stupid.” He hits his head with the side of his palm, and I wince at the force. “You use anything I told you? You use that to get us all arrested? Do you know how many times in the last week I’ve gone over our conversations in my head trying to remember what I told you? If I somehow unintentionally incriminated my father or myself, for fuck’s sake?”
I shake my head vehemently. I remember those conversations vividly. “I didn’t talk about myself so that I wouldn’t accidentally give myself away—not to gather intel on you or your brother. I didn’t even remember I was a cop when we were talking. That was the real me, I swear to you. Nothing you said was incriminating. I’m so sorry, Matt. Please believe me.”
He rolls his eyes. “Not the point. I’m sure there were other conversations that were.” He turns back to the bar. “If there’s one thing I despise—you know this, we talked about it when I was stupid enough to open up to you—it’s lying. You lied to me. We almost lost the club, and we’re fighting tooth and nail to keep it going. Sorry if I’m not so quick to see how your apology could mean dick to me. Now, like I said, get the fuck out.” He heads to the front door of the club and opens the door for me, sweeping his arm out for me to exit. I look at him one last time and walk away.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I was planning on coming right back, a month tops, but the other job ended up taking l
onger. I was going to explain as soon as I could. I know this doesn’t mean anything to you, Matt. But I wasn’t lying when I said I love you. I still do.”
“Yeah, well, I fucking hate you.”
The door is slammed in my face before I can say anything else. The pain that those words cause is something I’ve never felt before. A deep ache right in my chest. He might as well have slapped me.
After I met Matt I knew this was a possibility, but the way we felt about each other…somewhere in the back of my mind I thought he’d forgive me.
I’ve never been more wrong in my life.
Chapter 8
Matt
“Are you planning on coming in today?” I bark at Nick over the phone.
“A few months ago you sat me down and said you wanted more responsibility. You said you wanted me to take it easy. I finally do that, and you’re up my ass?” Nick snaps back.
“I told you to take some shit off your plate, not give me the entire goddamn plate.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Matty. You couldn’t handle the whole fucking plate. I’m on my way. But you should know, fuckhead, I was there last night until midnight while you were out getting drunk somewhere.” With that, he hangs up.
Now I feel like an asshole. Was Nick really here last night? I glance over at the outgoing mail and notice, for the first time, that all the invoices are done. And with all the shit my brother has gone through in the last months—being in Paris at the concert during the attack there, scared for his life—he deserves some time off.
Just when I think I’m getting my life together, I see June again, and shit falls apart. Today I have meetings with three different liquor vendors, something I do not want to deal with, but it’s too late to cancel—my first meeting just walked in.
“Hey, Nick. Where do you want me to set up?” Ronald asks, putting down a box on the bar top. Ronald’s a regular vendor who’s there to show me some new vodka products that he’s promoting.
“Right there’s fine, man.”
“How’ve you been?” Ronald asks as he opens up two different bottles of vodka. If there’s one thing I do not like, it’s fruity drinks, and by the pink and purple hues of those bottles, I’d bet my ass these are fruit-flavored vodkas.
Grabbing the nearest stool, I sit down and listen to Ronald sell his product, explaining about trends, different mixers, and the cost of the bottles. Then he opens the first one and pours some straight into a glass, some more into a different glass with tonic, and some into a third with 7-Up. Rolling my eyes, ready for the assault on my palate, I down the first one, followed by the second and the third. “Easy there, Matt,” Ronald chuckles.
Normally I just taste the new products and move on, not necessarily shooting back three of them at a time. As soon as I set the third glass down I frown, all the flavors mixing together in a nauseous concoction of alcohol and berry. “Ready for the lavender?” Ronald asks, pouring into the same three glasses, but this time with the purple vodka.
Ugh…lavender? I almost purge the berry when I see the purple liquid.
Shrugging, I down the next three just as quickly. “Not too bad,” I croak out. It wasn’t that bad. Not really. Not after a few.
“You want to make the usual order, then?”
“Nah, man, I’m not buying as many of those as your regular vodka. Let’s start off with one case of each.” I might be bordering on tipsy, but I’m still not stupid enough to get a load of colored vodka. As I shoot the shit with Ronald, I hear the beep from the front door, and in comes Holly, the second vendor of the afternoon. After everyone says their hellos, Ronald packs up and leaves and Holly takes his place. She’s tall, almost as tall as my six-foot-one frame, with thick blond hair, red lipstick, and red nail polish. Her dress is tight and short but still professional. For months she’s been giving me the I-want-to-fuck-you eyes. And damn, I should take her up on it. Now that I’ve finally gotten closure with June, I can date or screw whomever I want. Right? I mean, for the last year I felt some sort of guilt—like dating would mean I was cheating on her, even though she’d disappeared. But now that I know she’s a lying bitch, I should take Holly up on her offer.
“Looking good, Matt,” Holly says with a wink as she sets up four bottles of wine on the bar. “Want some?” She gestures to a bottle of pinot noir, but everything rolls off her tongue in a way that screams dirty no-strings sex, and I know she doesn’t mean the wine.
I sway a little. The six shots are starting to burn through my veins now. “Yeah, sure.” I watch as she holds the bottle like she’s gripping my cock, her hand moving up and down as if she’s stroking it, then popping the cork with more gumption than needed, arching her tits my way. Her voice is a little high-pitched, and through the cloud of alcohol it irks me, but I let her continue her little game of seduction.
“Hey, Holly.” I turn at my brother’s voice. He’s walking in, hand in hand, with Katie.
“Katie, honey, how are ya?” I yell, my voice coming out louder and chirpier than I intended.
“Jesus Christ,” I hear Nick mumble. “You blasted already? It’s barely noon, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m not fuckin’ blasted,” I yell back. I feel the legs of the stool wobble as I lean forward, so I quickly grab the bar to steady me.
“Don’t look at me—I just got here,” Holly says, her hands up defensively.
“Why don’t we reschedule, Holly?” Nick suggests.
“No!” I snap. “I’m here. She’s here. This is work. Stop acting like you’re in charge.” I grab the wineglass.
“You’re wasted, Matt. You can’t be in charge of anything when you’re wasted.”
“I’m not.”
“Are too,” he retorts with a death glare.
“Okay, super-mature guys.” Katie pushes between us and places her hand on my shoulder. Addressing the rep, she says, “Holly, is it?” Holly nods. “Why don’t we leave the boys alone for a sec? Come upstairs to the office with me. Bring the wine.”
As Holly leaves with Katie and the wine, my brother’s eyes are still on me, his lips set tight, anger rolling off him. Once we’re alone, Nick starts to talk. “What the hell is wrong with you, Matt? You’ve been drinking a lot this last week. I’m worried about you, man.”
“Nothing to be worried about.”
“Is this about Dad?”
“Fuck Dad.”
Nick rolls his eyes. “Is it about June?”
“April,” I correct him. “Fuck April.”
“Okay, so this is clearly about Dad and April.”
He knows me better than I know myself most of the time. He is, after all, my twin brother. “You need to go home.”
“I’m not going home.”
“You are, Matty. Go sleep it off. Get your shit together. Come to dinner later and we’ll talk.”
I want to argue, but Nick cuts me off before I have a chance. “Geo and David are coming this afternoon. After the hell they’ve been through, I don’t want them to see you like this.”
Damn, all of them have been through so much. Nick, Geo, and David were all held at gunpoint during the Paris attacks a few months ago. Katie went through some very traumatic shit early on in her life too. What the hell have I gone through? Nothing, really. Love lost. But most people lose love at some point in their life. I need to pick up the pieces, man the fuck up, and stop wallowing. This asshole is not me. This must be what rock bottom feels like.
“April was here.”
Nick hisses.
“I hate her, Nicky. I hate her.” I know I’m slurring my words, and I think I feel wetness around my eyes.
“Matt…” He looks so sad. Is he sad for me? The room is spinning and I’m not so sure about anything anymore.
“She was undercover here. The entire time. She played me, Nick. She’s the reason we were all arrested.”
He comes closer, and I feel his hand on my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not.”
Fee
ling like complete shit, I slump down onto the bar. I don’t know what else to say to Nick. It stings—what he says, the shit with June, with dad. But my brother’s right. I need to stop acting like a selfish self-loathing asshole. “I’ll call a cab.”
April
“Get your ass out of bed,” Dean yells over the phone. He’s back in California with his girlfriend, Lori, and he’s been calling me for a few days.
I groan. “Leave me alone.”
“Are you going to make me fly back down to Miami to make sure you’re okay?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m vacationing. I deserve to relax after finally closing this case.”
Dean snorts. “You’re not fine. You’re depressed and crying and not answering your phone.”
“That’s how I vacation,” I grumble. “And how do you know I’m crying?”
“After two years of being up each other’s asses, I think it’s safe to say that I know you pretty well. So Matt wasn’t receptive, I take it?” Dean asks as I slowly move my arm off my face and wince at the daylight seeping in through the blinds. I guess he really does know me well.
“If calling me a whore and kicking me out of his club means he wasn’t receptive, then yeah. Oh, and he said he hates me.”
“What?” Dean roars. “I’m going to kick his ass.”
“He’s right, though. I mean, not the whore part, but the fact that he feels used. I did lie to him. And how can he not hate me? I got his father imprisoned.”
“Really? You forced the old man to help smuggle drugs?” Dean says. “You couldn’t tell him the truth.”
“It’s all a mess,” I say, feeling like complete crap.
“So, what’s the plan, April? You’re just going to sit in your rental and mope? Have you even unpacked?”
I look at the boxes in the corner of the room and throw the pillow over my face. I don’t want to deal with anything right now, not even unpacking.
Make Me Stay: The Panic Series Page 11
