Max didn’t know what to say to that. It was such a sweet sentiment.
“Well, anyway, things got rougher and rougher with my mom. We were barely speaking through my senior year in high school. When I graduated, I went directly to Holt and asked for a job. I think that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. You’ve seen the mellowed out Holt, but she was a different beast before Isabelle. She was the same person, just more intense. Version 2.0 is the improved model. At first, my mom was thrilled I had a job and was gainfully employed. She didn’t ask anything about it. I think she assumed I would be a good for nothing loser and she’d be supporting me the rest of her life. A few months after I started working for Holt, a detective came by the house looking for me. He was just following up on a case. I think I had forgotten to sign some paperwork or something like that. Maybe he was looking for Moose or Lola, who knows. Anyway, my mom freaked out. All of a sudden she wanted to know who, what, and where I was working.”
“And let me guess, Holt Lasher didn’t pass inspection? Or working for a bounty hunter?”
“No, definitely not. Either one. She didn’t want me working for that lesbo. So I told her I, too, was one of those lesbos. I’ve never seen anything quite like what happened next. My mother looks nothing like me, and isn’t in the best shape, but she sprinted around the house like an Olympic-caliber athlete and collected every item that belonged to me, or may have been mine, and dumped them all out the nearest window. She just started throwing things out every window in the house. My favorite cereal went flying out the kitchen window, my shampoo and towels out the bathroom window. All my clothes out my bedroom window. She tried to fit the mattress out the window, but it didn’t fit, so she winged it down the stairs and out the front door. Desk chair, out the window. Literally anything that didn’t belong to her was flung out the nearest window. It was insane. I was able to grab my computer before she tossed that, luckily. It took her less than an hour to purge me from the house. I was able to get my stash of cash and a few other things from my room while she was ripping through the bathroom. I sorted through what I wanted from the yard, and I haven’t been back since. I left most of my clothes with a friend for a while, but I couldn’t stay with her for more than a few days.”
“Holy shit, Pretty Girl,” Dubs said. “That’s so horrible. Have you talked to your mom since then?”
Max shook her head. “Not a word. She knows how to find me. She’s clearly not interested. Her last words weren’t all that kind. I don’t think she wants to have a daughter anymore.”
“I’m so sorry.” Dubs seemed at a loss for words, a rare occurrence.
“Thanks,” Max said. “I bounced around for a while, then just started camping out on the street when it was warm enough. I stayed at the office overnight when I felt like I could get away with it. I was trying to save up enough to put down money for an apartment, but then Isabelle discovered my secret. And now I’ve got a beautiful little shoe box in, as you call it, Holt’s attic.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, only interrupted by the waiter taking their order.
“What do you want to do after this case is over?” Max asked.
Dubs looked startled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what do you want to do with your time? Will you go back to stealing cars? Will you get a desk job? Will you become an astronaut?” The answer was important to Max. She couldn’t imagine having to one day chase down Dubs and toss her in jail. She also couldn’t imagine a future for them if Dubs was planning on resuming a life quite so far outside the law.
“I honestly have no idea,” Dubs said. “When I first got out, I figured working for you all would be a good way to get started back up again. Remake my name. But now…” She trailed off.
“But now?” Max wasn’t going to let her get away with that answer.
“Now I don’t know. I don’t think I get to keep seeing you like this if I’m stealing cars for a living. And I’ve grown to like what we’re doing. It feels good waking up in the morning. Not just because you’re usually sprawled all over me. What’s up with that, by the way?”
Max shrugged. “I’m a snuggler. And I’m asleep. I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”
“No complaints,” Dubs said. “None at all.”
“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ to this fairy tale and unicorns.”
“There’s some business from my past that won’t quite leave me be,” Dubs said. She looked phenomenally sad. “It has to do with Levi.”
“Will you tell me about Levi?” Max asked. She had shared a great bit of herself with Dubs, and she wanted to know more about her too.
Dubs pulled back from the table a few inches and ran her hand through her hair. Max loved the way it flowed through her fingers and cascaded back over her neck and shoulders.
“I knew you would ask me about him eventually.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Max said, although she really did want to know.
“It’s not that,” Dubs said, her eyes soft. She took Max’s hand again. “It just still hurts, badly. Levi was like my kid brother, and I should have been the one driving the car the day he died, not him. Maybe no one needed to die that day.”
“I remember seeing the news story,” Max said, which was partially true. She did see the news story once she Googled it after meeting Mrs. Otis. “It said he died in a high-speed chase with police.”
“That’s the story of his death,” Dubs said. “But it tells nothing of his life. And if he hadn’t been defending my name, he would have just pulled over and taken his jail time or, since he was a first-timer, probably just probation. But that day, he couldn’t get caught, or at least he didn’t think so.”
“I don’t understand,” Max said.
“My mother died when I was three,” Dubs said. “I don’t remember her. The two people who raised me were my father and Mrs. Otis. They’re both world-class car thieves. I learned everything from them.”
“Mrs. Otis? Really? Who knew.” Max was surprised, although she shouldn’t have been. She had learned not to be surprised by anything.
“You should have seen her in her heyday. My God, she was amazing. Anyway, she was mostly retired by the time Levi was old enough to learn anything, so he learned from me. He’s four years younger than I am. He was.”
“Somehow we really let dinner take a morose turn,” Max said. “Sorry about that.”
Dubs laughed. “It is a little weird to be in this restaurant, with you in that bow tie, and us talking about Levi dying. But I do want you to know.”
“And I want to hear.”
“Okay, but after dinner, no more talking about bad things,” Dubs said. “Only happy talk.”
“Like how hot you look in that dress?” Max asked.
“That totally works. But I have to finish my story first. Before our dinner arrives. Levi and I were just starting to really make a name for ourselves before I got arrested. It was different than it is now. There were only a few organized groups working sections of the city, stealing cars and chopping them up and selling the parts. We were the best of the bunch. We were making a lot of money. Some of the older fellas didn’t like that. A challenge was laid down. We had to earn our place in town. It’s been that way for years. My dad had warned me the challenge was coming. We were getting too good.”
“What was the challenge?” Max asked.
“They’re always impossible tasks. Or nearly impossible. Technically difficult and exceptionally risky. Most of the old guard probably couldn’t pull it off these days, but the younger ones have to earn their way in. That’s what we had to do.”
“What happens if you fail?” Max asked.
“You can’t work in the city. But if you succeed, you get to carve out a little game for yourself. That wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to rule. I mouthed off. I talked about how easy their stupid challenge was going to be. Usually the rules for completion are malleable, since the task is so hard, but since I was an
idiot, it was full completion, or failure. There was no wiggle room. My counter offer was, when we succeeded, we not only got to keep our territory, we ruled the city.”
“I think I can see where this is going,” Max said. Her heart ached for all the pain Dubs must feel for the loss of her friend and the part she played in it.
“Yeah,” Dubs said, sounding sad and resigned. “I still believe I could have pulled off what they were asking. But Levi wasn’t ready. I think even he knew that. But I got arrested a month before the challenge was supposed to take place. I wasn’t even doing a job. I just saw a stupid car I thought was too beautiful to pass up. And it was beautiful, and the acceleration…Well, that’s what got me in trouble. I got careless. And booked. I know Levi held them off as long as he could. My father and Mrs. Otis tried to help too. But once the challenge has been thrown down, you can’t get out of it. We said we were a package deal. I had made that clear. At the time I thought I was helping him, because I wanted him to be protected, part of my crew, associated with me. Turns out that got him killed.”
“You couldn’t have known that,” Max said. She wanted to pull Dubs to her and hold her, to make the sadness go away. She knew there wasn’t anything she could do, but it sucked being so unable to help.
“He tried on his own. From what I’ve heard, he made it through the first half, but the police found him eventually. He couldn’t give up though, because of what I did, because I mouthed off. If I had kept my mouth shut, getting as far as he did probably would have been fine. But he had to make it through to the end. He had to lose the cops. So he ran. And the rest you saw on the news.”
“I know it might not mean anything, but you know it’s not your fault, right?”
“Oh, beautiful Max. That little, wonderful, gorgeous boy is dead because of me. It might not technically be my fault, but my hubris put him in the ground. Somehow his mother forgives me, a fact I will be forever grateful for. She texted me the other day and told me to never stop being a cocky little bitch. I told her my friend, the woman she met, tells me I’m overconfident all the time.”
“I do no such thing,” Max said in protest.
“They’re still after me,” Dubs said. “The challenge is still out there. Only this time, it’s not just for my territory. Since I saw my friend on the beach, they’ve been in contact. They say Levi died a failure. The only way to clear his name of that shame is to prove I wasn’t full of shit. They’re trying to use his death against me.”
“Is that normal?” Max asked. “Does one member have to step in and win back the honor of a fallen colleague?”
“I don’t know,” Dubs said. “This is kind of uncharted territory. And like I said, things have changed now. I don’t know what to believe. But there’s a lot of pressure. Daily. Hourly, sometimes.”
“Are those all the text messages you keep saying are from your dad?”
“Some of them are,” Dubs said. “He’s getting it from them, too.”
“You’re not going to do it though, right?” Max said. “We’re working on something bigger now.” Max didn’t like the idea for multiple reasons. She was sure Holt would veto it for one, and it sounded dangerous. She didn’t like the idea of Dubs in that much danger, at all.
“I don’t know,” Dubs said. “What would you do if someone was smearing the good name of Holt, or Moose, or Lola? What if something had happened to them and you were the only one who could set the record straight? You’d do anything in your power to do that, right?”
“Yeah, I guess I would. But this feels like manipulation, not honor. We should talk to Holt, see if she can figure out what’s going on. She knows a lot of people in a lot of places all over the city.”
“No,” Dubs said. “No one else hears about this. Just you and me. I trusted you with this information. Please don’t break that trust. I’ll figure out what to do. Maybe that will mean going to Holt, but not yet. If I do end up doing it though, it might help us. It could draw more attention to me, make the new guys think I’m getting back in business. Put more pressure on. That would be a good thing, right?”
“Yes,” Max said. “But only if it’s done in a controlled manner. We apply pressure carefully, otherwise it can blow up in your face. Please don’t do anything stupid, Dubs.”
“I’ll try,” Dubs said.
Max wasn’t entirely convinced, but their dinners arrived before she could get more of a promise from her. As agreed, they moved the conversation to less loaded topics.
As Dubs had suggested, they didn’t stay for dessert, however neither of them were quite as frisky as they had been to start the evening. When they got back to Max’s apartment, they held hands as they walked up the stairs. Max unlocked the door and led them inside.
“Will you help me out of my dress?” Dubs asked. “Then will you just hold me tonight?”
“Of course,” Max said.
Dubs moved to Max’s dresser and pulled out a T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. She turned around in front of Max expectantly. Max gently moved her hair away from the knot holding the halter top in place and untied the dress. She moved lower, her fingers skimming along Dubs’s bare back, and unzipped the lower half. Dubs half turned around. “Thank you.”
She wriggled out of her dress, her back still to Max, and slipped into the T-shirt and boxers. Max had to sit down. She had tried not to stare, but the apartment wasn’t that large. She might have survived the bare back and no bra, but Dubs’s thong had just about killed her.
Dubs grabbed a hair tie from the dresser and turned around, pulling her hair back loosely for bed. “Pretty Girl, are you planning on sleeping in the bow tie?”
“Um, no,” Max said. She wasn’t sure she trusted her legs just yet.
“Here, let me help,” Dubs said. She moved between Max’s legs and untied her tie. Then she pulled Max’s shirt from her pants and began to unbutton it. Max was frozen in place. Her hands were firmly planted on either side of her on the bed, and it was taking all of her willpower not to reach out and pull Dubs down onto the bed.
Dubs had cleared the buttons over Max’s chest and was working on the ones over her stomach. Max couldn’t take it. She scrambled away. “I’ll take it from here,” she said. “Why don’t you get in bed? I’ll be right there.” She had no idea that having Dubs unbuttoning her dress shirt would be such a turn-on. It made her feel sexy and powerful. Not the things she was supposed to be feeling when Dubs had asked her to simply hold her.
“You okay?” Dubs asked. She looked amused.
“Fine, thank you,” Max said.
“I still think you’re the hottest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Dubs said. “And I really wish you’d let me finish getting that shirt off you. I was enjoying myself. I’m just feeling a little sad after I told you about Levi. Tonight, I wanted to feel your strength wrapped all around me. You always end up wrapped all over me anyway, I thought you might not mind starting out that way. Is that okay?”
Max felt a little like an ass. All she could think about was sex, while Dubs was grieving for her friend. “Of course that’s okay. Anything you need,” she said. “Let me get some different clothes on. I’ll be right there, big strong arms at the ready.”
It probably should have felt stranger for Dubs to want her to hold her, but they had been sharing a bed since the second night they knew each other. They already had an intimacy most people didn’t. Plus, there was whatever was growing between them. Max changed quickly and climbed into bed next to Dubs.
“Come here,” she said, opening her arms. Dubs slipped into Max’s embrace. “I’m all yours.”
Chapter Eighteen
Isabelle didn’t quite register why she was awake at first. She knew her usually soft, snuggly pillow was now squirming away from her. She tried to pull Holt back, but it was no use. When she did open her eyes, “work Holt” was wide-awake, standing next to the bed. That was enough to chase the remaining remnants of sleep from Isabelle’s consciousness as well. That’s when she heard th
e knocking.
“Who’s there?” she asked, as if Holt could see through walls.
“I don’t know,” Holt said. “Stay here.”
Isabelle didn’t know why Holt always insisted on issuing that command. She never followed her instruction, and she didn’t think Holt expected or wanted her to. Well, maybe she wanted her to, but she certainly knew Isabelle better than that. They were a team, which meant more often than not, Isabelle was by Holt’s side, especially when it involved their home. Big scary work things? Those were all Holt’s.
Isabelle’s heart was racing as they moved into the living room. She always felt safe with Holt, but someone had tried to blow up her office recently. And kill her. Those things made a girl jumpy.
As they got closer to the door, they could hear a voice on the other side. It was Lola. Holt yanked the door open and dragged her inside.
“What the hell are you doing at my door at two in the morning?” Holt said.
Isabelle knew Holt had every reason to be upset. She also knew Holt’s anger was coming mostly from fear, but Lola was in tears. Now probably wasn’t the time to rip into her.
“Sweetie, why don’t you get Lola something to drink? And put some pants on.”
“I’m really sorry to barge in here so late,” Lola said. “I didn’t really even know what time it was.”
“You’re always welcome here, Lola,” Isabelle said. “Maybe next time you could call first, though. Then you won’t get the dragon all grumpy, thinking someone’s breaking into her castle.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Holt said from behind the room divider that separated their bedroom from the rest of the loft.
“I’m well aware,” Isabelle said. “I can also hear you. What are you doing in there? Are you going to have any clothes left? It sounds like you’re ripping them apart.”
“Lola, I swear to you. Don’t pull this crap again, no matter how upset you are. Not after Decker.”
“Oh come on, H. I knew you didn’t have any guns in the house. The worst you could have done was rip the front door off its hinges and land on me. I’ve seen worse than a pipsqueak like you surfing a door. Hell, I got shot in the head recently. I’m still here.”
Pedal to the Metal Page 14
