Zip, Zero, Zilch

by Tammy Falkner

  We’re flying to Vegas, and then from there we pick up the tour and we’ll be on a bus the rest of the travel. Two full weeks in Vegas, and then four more weeks of going all over the place. I’m excited, but I’m also apprehensive.

  Logan and Emily arrive last at the airport. They get out of the car and Logan is wearing a toboggan. “Dude, what’s up with the hat?” Pete asks him.

  Logan ignores him. He has dark shadows under his eyes and I’m a little bit worried about him.

  Sam shoots Pete a look, and I see Paul studying Logan hard. Logan ignores them, and keeps unloading the luggage from the car.

  Sam pulls me against him and whispers in my ear. “The next time I see you, I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

  I choke.

  Sam laughs as he pats me on the back, holding me tight against him. “Sorry, was that too graphic?” he asks me.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  He growls and kisses me.

  Suddenly, someone shoves his shoulder and knocks him off balance. “Dude, you’re in public,” Matt says, but he’s grinning.

  My sisters watch as hugs go around the group, and Emilio and Marta bullshit with the Reeds right up until it’s time to go through security.

  Marta adjusts the neckline of my shirt and says, “Call me every day.”

  “I promise.” I grin. I love that she’s like this.

  She wipes a tear from her eye, and Emilio grabs me and hugs me, swinging me around. “Love you, Woody,” he says close to my ear.

  “Love you too,” I murmur back, my face stuck somewhere near his armpit. He does the same with my sisters, and until we all finally break free.

  “This is way too much hugging,” Lark says as the Reeds tell them goodbye, too.

  Sam whispers something to Emilio and then Emilio steps back and hitches his hip against the wall. He grins. Something is up. I just don’t know what.

  “So,” Sam says really loudly.

  Friday is holding her phone up and she has the video on. What’s going on?

  I glare at Sam, because apparently I’m the only one who’s not in on the joke. “What?” I ask him.

  Then he pulls a box from his pocket and drops down on one knee in front of me. I cover my mouth with my hand.

  He pops the top of the box and I see a great big diamond ring shining back at me. “So, you wanna?” he says.

  “Do I wanna…?” I repeat. My heart is in my throat.

  “Marry me, cupcake.” He stares up at me, blinking those beautiful blue eyes.

  “Now?” We’re about to leave. I jerk my thumb toward the airport. I can’t make any more words.

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Not right this second, but soon. We can make little cupcakes together. You can be my plus-one. Or it can just be me and you. But you and me is not negotiable. I kind of need you, cupcake. Have ever since I met you.”

  I look down at him.

  He adjusts his stance. “How much longer are you going to make me kneel here on my bad knee?” He grins at me.

  “Oh, God!” I cry. I help him up and then I hold out my hand. “P-put it on me. I w-wanna.”

  My hand is shaking in the air, and he takes it in his and slides the ring onto my finger. That’s when I realize it’s Emilio’s mother’s ring. I look at him and he shrugs and smiles.

  Then Sam picks me up and spins me around. I’m dizzy when he finally sets me down and I cling to him.

  Cameras snap all around us, and I bury my face in Sam’s chest. He laughs and holds me close. “You sure?” he asks me quietly, so only I can hear.

  “More sure than I have ever been of anything.” And I mean it. I really do.

  Emilio gives me one last hug.

  “Did you know about this?” I ask him.

  He shrugs. “He came to see me yesterday to ask me for permission.”

  “And?”

  “And he just asked you, didn’t he?” He chuckles. “He’s a good one.” Emilio brushes a lock of hair back from my forehead. “I wouldn’t let just anyone marry one of my daughters. Particularly not the first one I ever had.”

  My eyes fill with tears and I blink them back furiously.

  Sam gives me one last kiss and I wave at him until I can’t see him anymore. This time, I don’t want to see him as a speck in the distance. It’s not where he needs to stay. Not now. Not ever.

  Logan sits down in a chair in the waiting area and puts his head in his hands.

  “Is he okay?” I ask Emily.

  She nods. But then she shakes her head. “He should have told them, and now he wishes he did. But he can’t, because now it would hurt their feelings.”

  Logan jerks the toboggan off his head and jams it into his backpack. Then he picks up his daughter and sets her on his knee.

  The longer Logan waits to tell them, the harder it will be.

  Sam

  It has been a week and a half since Peck left. We talk every day on the phone, and we use Face Time as much as we can. But I’m going crazy without her. I get my boot off next week, and then I’ll go back to training full time. I’m both excited and apprehensive about it.

  I worked at the shop all day today, and I’m cleaning my station. I roll my shoulders, because they’re tense. I know what I’m going to do tonight carries some risk, but it needs to be done, and I’m not going to leave it to Peck to do it. Nor am I going to take any of my brothers into it with me.

  Everyone is gone but me and Josh, and I turn the lights off and put the money in the safe. I take out the package with ten thousand dollars in cash in it, which I put in here earlier today, and stuff it into the pocket of my hoodie. Josh follows me to the door and I open it so he can roll through.

  “You have plans tonight?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “No.”

  “What do you do when you leave here, man?” I ask. I’m a nosy bastard. I can’t help it.

  “Nothing much.”

  I nod and say, “Good night, then.”

  He rolls in the other direction without a word.

  I shrug my shoulders and start down the street. Bone’s office is a few streets over, so I can walk there.

  But as I get close to the fence that surrounds his building, I see Paul leaning against the fence. He has one boot heel pressed against the fence, his knee bent. I know he looks relaxed to everyone else, but he’s not relaxed at all to me. He’s seething.

  “Are you stupid?” he fires off.

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “Did you really think we were going to let you go in there alone?”

  Matt walks up beside us.

  “Not you too,” I groan, letting my head fall back.

  “You get all of us, except for Logan.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “And we promised to call him as soon as this is over.”

  “I’m not taking you in there with me.”

  “You’re not going alone,” Pete says.

  “Fuck all of you.” I say it, but there’s no heat in my voice, and they know it.

  “Well, let’s go,” Paul says. “We need to go see the drug-dealing whoremonger now, because we have kids we need to get home to.” He arches a brow at me.

  “Exactly why you should stay here.” I march past them all, and they walk right behind me. “Do you listen to anything I say?”

  “Where you go, we go,” Paul says.

  I blow out a breath and ring the bell outside Bone’s office. I’ve been here before. It was back when Pete and I worked for him, but it has been a while. Someone opens the door and I tell him what I want. The door shuts in my face, and I hear feet move down the hallway. Then the door opens again and the guy motions us forward.

  He and two other guys frisk us all. He gets way too close to my balls and I sidestep to get away from his questing fingers. “Hey!” I cry.

  He shrugs and motions us into Bone’s office.

  The man himself is sitting behind a huge cherry desk. The walls are heavy dark-wood paneling, a
nd he looks supremely satisfied to see me.

  “Well, look who’s here,” he sings out.

  His guys go to stand on each side of the desk. There are three of them. They’re big and they’re packing.

  I stick out my hand and Bone shakes it. “I came to talk to you about my girlfriend’s mother.” I pull the money out of the pocket of my hoodie. “I want to make good on her debt.”

  He takes the package and hands it to one of his guys, who proceeds to count it. “Ten thousand, boss,” he says.

  Bone shakes his head. “Not enough.”

  “How much more do you need?” I’ll get him whatever he wants. But I really need to get my brothers out of here before someone gets hurt.

  “Ten more.”

  “Okay. I’ll get it.”

  Bone nods. He sucks his gold teeth for a minute and says, “You look like him, you know that?”

  Beside me, Paul goes even stiffer than he was.

  “Like who?” I ask.

  “Your dad.” He laughs. But it’s not amusing. Not at all. He picks up a pen and sights down the middle of it like he’s lining up a shot. Then he pretends to fire. “I never saw anyone cry quite as much as your dad did.”

  “What?” Paul barks.

  “When I killed him. Before I stuffed him into the freezer, at least. He was still alive when I left him. Though I doubt it was for long.”

  “Why?” Paul asks.

  “Wrong place, wrong time,” Bone says. He shrugs like it’s nothing.

  Before I even know what’s happening, Paul jumps.

  Everything after that second happens like it’s in slow motion. Paul flies over the top of the desk and grabs Bone by the throat.

  Pete knocks one of the guys to the ground, and his gun skitters across the floor.

  Matt grabs another and flips him over onto his stomach. I throw a sucker punch at the last one standing.

  It’s melee. Nothing but pandemonium. I hear Paul’s fists flying, and the crunch of knuckles against bones. The grunts of my brothers as they struggle with anyone who would get in Paul’s way.

  Suddenly, time freezes. It’s like my mother’s old record player when it would scratch across a forty-five. Screech! The crack of gunshot vibrates the air around us and everyone stops moving.

  Paul is the first one to step back. He stands up with his hands in the air. The others do the same.

  One of Bone’s guys reaches for his gun and Josh yells out, “Leave it!” He points the barrel of his nine-millimeter squarely at Bone’s sidekick. The guy freezes.

  “Well, look who else came to the party.” Bone lies on the floor and laughs. His words gurgle and he turns his head to spit out a mouthful of blood. His face is a bloody mess, but he’s laughing. He rolls his head onto its side so he can look at Josh. Josh reaches down and locks the wheels of his chair with one hand. His other hand is steady.

  “Don’t move,” Josh says to the others. He motions for me and my brothers to come toward him with a jerk of his head.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Paul says.

  “You first,” Josh responds. He doesn’t take his eyes off Bone’s men. Or Bone. It’s like watching his eyes follow a ping-pong match. “Get out of here.” He jerks his head toward the door again.

  “What are you going to do?” Matt asks.

  Josh laughs. “I’m leaving with you.”

  Suddenly Bone moves, and he lifts a gun from beneath his desk where he fell. I watch as he raises it, and I know exactly when Josh realizes it.

  The blast from a gun shot in close quarters cracks hard, like a firecracker inside a glass bottle. The room shivers with the burst of it. Or that might just be my fear. I’m not sure which it is. We all fall to the ground, except for Josh. So I grab him and knock him from the chair, taking him down with us.

  The room goes silent. Bone’s men look over at him and then they run out the door. “Oh, fuck,” Paul says.

  “That wasn’t what I planned on doing,” Josh says. He shoves my shoulder. “Would you get off me?”

  I roll off of him and he adjusts his legs and pulls himself back up into the chair.

  “Is he dead?” Paul asks.

  I walk over to Bone and see that he has a single shot wound directly through the center of his forehead. “He’s dead,” I confirm. I kick his shoulder just to be sure. I half expect him to reach and grab my leg or something, but he’s dead. Dead as a doornail.

  “Fuck,” Paul breathes as he swipes a hand down his face.

  Matt is already dialing 9-1-1.

  The police show up and it takes hours for everyone to tell their stories. It’s late by the time we get back home. We all go to Paul’s, where the wives and kids are waiting. I swear, when we get there I’m afraid Friday is going to slap the shit out of Paul, after he tried to tell her about it all on the phone.

  Then we have to hash over it again. And again.

  “I can’t believe that really happened. What would have happened if Josh hadn’t been there?” Friday asks.

  Josh is locked up, at least for now. Reagan is already calling her dad to get him to go see him, to see if he needs or wants a kick-ass criminal attorney.

  “I don’t know,” Paul says.

  “When you jumped over that fucking desk…” Matt growls.

  “I know.” He picks PJ up and holds him close. “I know,” he whispers.

  I look around the room and see my brothers, all of whom have the women they love supporting them.

  “I need to go see Peck,” I suddenly blurt out.

  “Okay,” Paul says slowly, drawing the word out so that it lasts forever.

  “I’ll give you a ride to the airport,” Pete says.

  “I’ll take a cab.” I flash them all one big I love you sign and run out the door. I don’t even stop at my apartment for clothes. I go straight to the airport, where I catch the last flight out for Vegas.

  I need her. I need her like she’s the air I breathe.

  ***

  When I get to the stadium, they won’t let me in the staff entrance, so I have to call Logan and have him come get me. He walks up with Kit in his arms, and hands me a pass to hang around my neck. Kit is wearing a pair of noise cancelling headphones on her ears, and she doesn’t appear to like them very much.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Did you talk to Paul?”

  He scowls at me. “So Paul went off on him, huh?”

  I growl. “The moment he started talking about how he left Dad alive in that freezer, Paul jumped over the desk and grabbed him by the throat.” I shake my head. “Scared the shit out of me.”

  “I wish I had been there.”

  I’m glad he wasn’t, but I sort of wish he had been. “Do you know where Peck is?”

  He walks down a long hallway and through a set of doors. The floor is vibrating with the beat of the music, and my feet shake.

  He points onto the stage.

  I see her.

  She’s sitting on a stool with her sticks in her hand, and she’s playing for all she’s worth. Her hair is wet, and when she shakes her head, drops of water fly in every direction.

  She’s wearing a T-shirt with the arms cut out, and I can see her upper arms, toned from years of playing the drums. She may worry about other parts of her body, but she shouldn’t worry about her arms. Or any of the rest of her, as far as I’m concerned, because she’s fucking perfect.

  And she’s mine.

  Emily walks off the stage and comes toward Logan. “Let’s go talk,” she says.

  I point to Peck. “I want to talk to her.”

  I’m nearly shaking with need. I need her. I need to hold her, to have her touch me. I need her. Just her.

  “She’s going to be at least another hour.” Emily nods toward the exit.

  I follow, because they start walking without waiting for me.

  We walk into a quiet room that has a star and Emily’s name on it. Logan takes Kit’s headphones off, and she stops struggling with th
em.

  “Tell us what happened,” Emily says. She sits down. She’s sweaty too, but nothing like Peck was.

  I start at the beginning and tell them everything.

  Peck

  We’re done. Finally. Thank God. Because after a performance like that, I always feel like my arms are going to fall off.

  The crowd is going nuts, and we already did an encore. We have to be finished now. The venue management is motioning for us to call it quits, so we take a final bow and walk off the stage.

  There’s another group, a small-time act, that played before we did, and their drummer has been hitting on me ever since we got here. Apparently, he started drinking as soon as their set was over, because the smell of liquor wafts across the room toward me. I wave my hand in front of my face.

  I make a move to walk by him to go to our dressing room, and an arm suddenly snakes around my waist. I squeal as he jerks me against him and touches his lips to mine. The photogs that are allowed backstage go crazy taking pictures. I push back from him, and he doesn’t stop, so I slap him. The noise rings out around the room.

  He jerks back like I just hurt his feelings. Then he sneers.

  “What’s the m-m-matter?” he mocks. “You l-l-looked like you could use a k-k-kiss.”

  I start toward him with my fist raised, because I’m going to punch him in the fucking throat. But Star gets between me and him. I reach around her, but she holds me back. “Get out of the way, Star,” I warn.

  She nods toward security, but before they can get there, Fin—the tiniest out of our group of five—tugs on the guy’s sleeve. He looks down at her, his eyes filled with lascivious intent. “Hey, baby,” he croons.

  He bends down like he wants to try his luck kissing her, but she balls up her fist and hits him square in the nose. He falls back, completely stunned, and lands on his back in the middle of the floor. Star steps in the center of his chest and presses the heel of her boot into his breastbone. “If you ever fucking touch one of my sisters again, I’ll chop your balls off and feed them to you.”

  Our security guy loops a hand around Fin’s waist and picks her up, putting her behind him, while another scoops the drummer up off the floor.

  “Get him off our tour,” Star says. “I never want to see him again.”