Eleven
Amelia
It was somewhere around Virginia when my common sense started trickling back in and I pulled off at a family-friendly looking rest stop and pulled out my phone. I had just left. I hadn't told anyone I was going. Granted, my office work would be fine left unattended for a while, but someone needed to take over at the meetings. Sometimes when I was sick, Father Sanders would step in or Dr. Mary, a retired psychologist, would cover for me in a pinch. I made a quick call to both of them, leaving a message saying I had to leave town suddenly for a family emergency and asking if they could work out the meetings schedule between them until I got back.
Then, eyes blurry from the road and several nights of little to no sleep, I climbed into the backseat, double checked to make sure the doors were locked, and passed out for a few hours.
Sleep did nothing to settle my nerves. If anything, I felt more and more on edge as I drove. Part of it was the half a million dollars of illegal drugs in my wall and the worry about the man who put them there. The other part was, well, the whole... going to see Johnnie thing. Because that was just completely insane, right? Who in their right mind went to see a criminal about another criminal? Was there like some bad-guy code that I would be breaking? Even as I thought that, though, I was filled with a kind of weighted certainty that I had nothing to fear from Johnnie. Maybe he was a criminal, a killer, and I had seen how fast and steady he was with a gun, but I just sort of picked up on a vibe that he would never hurt me. So there was that. But still, it was probably super weird to go to him with my problem.
Though I was more than halfway there so turning back was an equally unpalatable option. If things went bad with him, well then I would just point the car in another direction and land up wherever I landed up.
That plan made me feel marginally better as I finally crossed the border into Jersey. Navasink Bank was a seemingly never ending town where mansions butted up against a slum which butted up against an industrial-looking area which gave way to a suburb. Deciding Johnnie didn't seem like a McMansion kind of person or a white-picket fence kinda guy, I parked on the main drag in the industrial part of town, getting out and stretching the muscles that screamed in objection to the movement after being cramped up for so long. I turned in a small circle, taking in my options for starting my search. There was a locksmith, a coffee shop, a closed bar. No one was on the street. I grabbed a coffee, asking the barista if she knew anyone by the name of Shooter and she shook her head. Same luck at the locksmith. The bar was obviously closed. I walked further down the street, losing more and more faith in my plan as I went.
How stupid was I to think I could show up in a town as populated as this one obviously was and just... ask if anyone had seen a guy named Shooter? I knew better than that. I didn't grow up in small towns. I grew up where no one knew anyone. Hearing voices, my body tightened and my head jerked to the side, seeing that I was walking past some kind of gated building that had at one time been a mechanic shop. Several men in jeans and leather cuts were standing out front, talking. Bikers. Great. If there was one group a woman alone didn't want to cross paths with, it was bikers.
"You lost, cupcake?" one of them called and, despite my better judgment, I turned to look. He was younger than the others but tall with dark hair and light eyes and a nasty looking scar that ran down the side of his face, cutting off at the sharp jut of his jaw.
He moved a foot away from the others, head cocked to the side as he waited for me to answer. I clutched my phone in my hand and swallowed hard as I turned, lifting my chin to not look so freaked out at the prospect of talking to some random hot-guy biker. "I'm looking for someone," I said with a shrug.
"Who you looking for, honey?" one of the others, a tall guy covered in tattoos, his blond hair long on one side and buzzed up the other, asked as he moved to stand next to the younger guy.
"Oh um..." I heard the shakiness in my voice and the blond gave me a soft smile.
"Relax, we won't bite."
"Right," I said, swallowing hard. "I was wondering if any of you knew someone by the name of Shooter. Or even Breaker. Or Paine..." I trailed off as the two shared a look. "Weird names, I know," I went on, nervousness making me chatty. "I think Paine is a tattoo artist. If you could just point me to a tattoo shop or..."
"I'll do you better than that," the blond said, moving forward. "I will walk you to Paine. He's right down the street."
"Oh. That's not necessary. I'm sure I can find it myself."
"Sure you can, sweetie," he said, moving to stand next to me and there was nothing in his green eyes that suggested he meant me any harm. "But I am going to walk you anyway." With that, he turned and started walking, leaving me to follow behind. After a brief hesitation, I did. "My name is Cash," he supplied, hands tucked innocently in his front pockets, giving him an almost boyish aura.
"Amelia," I supplied.
"How do you know Paine, Break and Shoot?"
"I don't. I mean... I know Shooter. I, ah, met him recently."
At that, Cash stopped dead and turned fully to look at me. He did a slow inspection, a smile spreading across his handsome face. "Of course you did," he said, oddly, then started walking again. "I'll take you to Paine. He will bring you to Shoot."
"Thanks," I mumbled and we fell into a companionable silence until we walked up to a glass front building and he pulled the door open, gesturing me to walk through first.
The inside was what you would expect from a tattoo shop: flash art in black frames on the white walls, large mirrors to view finished work, tattoo tables and chairs, and drawers where, I imagined, all the ink and antiseptic and razors were stored. It was rather sparse, but perfectly clean and I had an image of Johnnie flash into my mind, lying on one of those tables, getting some of his colorful work done. I licked my lips unconsciously as a voice called toward us from the back room.
"Better not be another god damn tramp stamp," he said, but the words sounded more amused than anything. Then he walked into the doorway from the back and, well, I started to wonder if all hot guys decided to set up shop in Navasink Bank. Because, well, Johnnie was hot; his friend Breaker was not hard to look at either; both the biker guys were good looking; and then there was Paine. His already in-place smile spread across his handsome face, making me take a deep breath in genuine female appreciation. "Aw babygirl, tell me you want to get stabbed somewhere naughty," he said, his voice a low, deep sound that I was sure could melt panties of any woman in a two mile radius.
Beside me, Cash laughed, unexpectedly wrapping an arm around my shoulders like we were old friends and not complete and utter strangers. "Amelia here is a friend of Shoot's. She was looking for him."
Paine made a tisk-tisk sound. "He break your heart, babygirl? 'Cause lemme tell ya, I'm real good at fixin' things."
I felt a small smile tug at my lips, charmed despite myself. "I just... I need to talk to him about something."
Paine inspected my face for a minute and I swear it felt like he saw through me. "Fuck," he said, his voice getting rougher. "He knock you up?"
"What? No!" I said, almost a little hysterically and Cash's arm squeezed me a little.
"Try not to freak out the already freaked out chick, huh, Paine?" Cash asked and Paine's face softened again.
"I just... have a situation and I want some advice. That's all."
Oddly, Cash threw his head back and laughed. It wasn't just a small chuckle either, it was the kind of laugh that lit up his whole face and moved through his whole body. Finished, he shook his head at Paine. "Fuckin' seriously with these women..."
Paine smiled back, knowingly, and they obviously weren't going to let me in on the inside joke, because Paine just turned to me and started talking, "Just let me grab my keys, babygirl, and we will head over to Shoot's place."
Alone, Cash's arm fell from my shoulders. "See you're freaked out, honey," he said, running his finger between my brows where I knew I had tension lines formed. "But you're safe with Paine."
"Says the scary biker dude." I heard the words. I heard my voice saying them. But there was no way I could have said that out loud to said scary biker dude. What was wrong with me?
"Scary biker dude, huh?" he asked, gesturing toward himself. "I always thought I was more of a hot biker dude myself."
Okay. Apparently they were all good looking and had some kind of superhuman charm too. The poor, poor women who lived in this town. They didn't stand a chance. "Alright," I said, giving him a small smile. "Hot biker dude."
"That's better," he said, flashing me another smile as Paine walked back out. "I'll leave you to it. Amelia, honey, I'm sure I'll see you around," he said, holding the door open for us and we all stepped outside, Paine pausing to lock the door. "Do us all around here a favor," he said, turning to face us, walking backward. "Stay away from skin traders, crazy exes, and bombs, 'kay?"
"Um... okay," I agreed, my brows furrowing.
"Trust me, we get a pretty girl 'round these parts, crazy shit starts happening," he said with a smile then turned and walked away.
Well. That was kind of eerie. I was, in my own way, involved with some 'crazy shit'. He also called me a pretty girl which, despite said 'crazy shit' going on, penetrated and felt kinda nice.
"Just about a block this way," Paine said, touching my hip until I turned and fell into step with him. His hand fell and he gave me my space. "So you the reason he's been in a mood since he got back?"
"Um. I don't think so. Maybe Millie decided she doesn't like him so much after all."
"Millie?"
"His cat."
Paine stopped dead, making me turn and look at him, his brows scrunched together. "His cat?"
"Ah... yeah. He kind of... inherited her. She's the devil in a fur coat."
"Interesting," Paine said, moving again.
We stopped a few minutes later out front of an abandoned store front, the windows blacked out. "Johnnie lives here?"
That earned me another penetrating look from Paine and I did my best not to squirm under the inspection. "Johnnie?"
Oh, shoot. That wasn't smart. What if these people didn't know about his past? Was he going to be ticked that I let that slip? True, Paine was supposed to be a friend, but maybe in the criminal underbelly, you weren't as honest as you were in normal relationships. If that was the case, I definitely just screwed things up for him. As if sensing my discomfort, he let it drop. "Don't judge it from the outside. That bastard spent a mint fixing the place up." Then he turned and hit the buzzer for the second floor.
"Yeah?" That was Johnnie's voice. I totally didn't feel a shiver run up my spine at the sound either. Nope. Not me.
"Paine. Buzz me up." With that, the door unlocked and we went into a room with a staircase and made our way up into a hall with two doors, one to the left and one to the right. We went to the one at the right and Paine just reached for the handle and opened it, leading us in.
Paine was right; I shouldn't have judged the place from the outside. Johnnie had, indeed, spent a mint fixing up the inside. Firstly, it was huge, as in massive. A U-shaped kitchen full of expensive-looking stainless steel appliances and what looked like real marble red and sand swirl counter tops opened up into the L-shaped living space with a dark wood dining set set apart from a giant sectional that looked like if you sank into it, it might swallow you whole. The sectional was facing a television the likes of I had only seen on those television shows about celebrity houses. The walls were painted a deep blue, all the trim (including the thick crown molding) was a crisp white. The floors were wide-planked and stained dark. There was a hall to the right of the door we came in that had three doors off of it. Nice. The whole place was very, very nice.
I took all of this in, however, in about two-point-three seconds because after that, my eyes landed on Johnnie who was standing shirtless in his kitchen, basketball shorts slung low on his hips, giving me a delicious view of his body which made everything else around him fade into background noise.
"Look what showed up on my doorstep," Paine said from behind my shoulder.
Johnnie's eyes were on me, looking a mix of surprised and something else that I didn't know him well enough to decipher, but it was making goosebumps rise up on my skin. It was a full minute at least before he shook his head slightly as if to clear it and he finally spoke. "Angel, the fuck are you doing here?"
"You got a cat?" Paine asked, either oblivious to the tension in the room or completely ignoring it. My money was on the latter.
Johnnie wasn't listening though as he pushed off the counter and moved slowly toward us. "Baby, what are you doing here? And why is that look on your face?"
"What look?" I asked, knowing he saw right through me, but feeling uncomfortable talking in front of Paine.
"Hey man, take a hike," he said to his friend.
"No 'thank you for delivering the shaking-she's-so-scared girl off at my apartment like she asked'?"
"I'm not shaking!" I objected immediately.
"Honey, you are," Johnnie corrected, his voice low and soft.
Paine's hand landed soft on my hip again and I twisted my neck to look at him. "You alright with me leavin'?"
Oh, good lord. Not only were they all hot and charming, but they had that protective thing going for them too. "I'll be fine," I said, nodding. "Thanks for bringing me here."
He gave me a small wink, then cast some look that communicated something I couldn't interpret at Johnnie, then turned and left.
A few seconds passed before Johnnie moved. And I mean he moved, closing the distance between us and wrapping me up in his arms. If I was sure I wasn't shaking before, well, I was positive I was shaking the second his arms went around me. It felt like the past day of stress plowed into me at once, overwhelming my already shot nerves. "Shh, baby, it's alright," he murmured into my hair, his hands moving to stroke up and down my spine, the pace slow and comforting as my arms hesitantly moved to wrap around him, my hands resting on the warm skin of his back. We stayed that way for a long moment, him stroking me, me holding on and trying to deep breathe. "What happened, sweetheart?" he asked finally, moving his hands to my shoulders and trying to push me back so he could look at me. But suddenly, my arms were vice grips around him.
"Who is Luis?" I asked against his chest.
Against me, his body tightened. "You're this freaked 'cause you're worried about your boyfriend's murky past?"
At the words and the tone in which he said them, which were so unlike the Johnnie I thought I had started to understand, that I straightened and pulled away. "He's not my boyfriend," I snapped, wrenching away from him. "And I couldn't have cared less about his past. Except I have half a million dollars worth of heroin stashed in my wall and I'm pretty sure he's the one who put it there!" I was almost yelling as I paced around his living room.
Then suddenly my shoulders were tagged by two strong hands and my head snapped up to find Johnnie's eyes on mine, a wild fire behind them but his voice was almost freakishly calm when he spoke. "Amelia, I'm going to need to hear that from the start, okay?" When I didn't immediately move to speak, his hands moved from my shoulders and cradled my face. "Right now, sweetheart."
I swallowed hard and gave it to him. "The day after you left, Luis showed up at my apartment with wine, didn't seem to want to take no for an answer so I let him in for a drink. We were in my living room and he made a comment about me redecorating because there were scuff marks under my TV cabinet. I shrugged it off but I was already starting to freak out because I never moved that cabinet. Never. It's like... really heavy and I didn't want to get scuff marks on the floor so I knew that I wouldn't..."
"Focus, honey."
"Right," I said, shaking my head, finding his strange calmness really comforting and my frazzled thoughts were getting clearer. "He left and I went over and moved the cabinet and found a cut-out in my drywall so I pulled it open and..." I shook my head, letting out a breath. "There's eight kilos of heroin in my wall, Johnnie."
"Mother fucker. Mother fucker," he growled, moving away from me and raking a hand through his hair. "That shifty fucking son of a bitch..."
"Johnnie... how do you know Luis?"
He exhaled a breath and didn't even pause in informing me, "I did a contract for him a couple years back."
"A contract?"
"I shot someone for him, Amelia," he said, no shame or discomfort in his voice which, in turn, lessened mine slightly.
"Who?"
He shrugged a shoulder and I totally didn't watch the way his tattoos danced or anything. "H dealer in Miami."
An H dealer in Miami. Another piece clicked into place. Luis had mentioned being in Miami for "business". So he had Johnnie kill the guy and, what, stole his supply? Good god.
"Baby, look at me." I did what I was told. "What did you do when you found the drugs? Did you touch them? Move them?"
"I'm not stupid," I said, running a hand through my hair. "I didn't touch anything but the piece of the wall I pulled out and I even wiped that after I realized what was in there. And then I put the cabinet back in place and cleaned the floor of the scuff marks and then..."
"And then?" he prompted.
"And then I came right to you," I said honestly. "I grabbed like two days' worth of clothes and I just... hit the road. I didn't know what else to do. Who else I could go to."
"You were right to come to me," he said, reaching out and tucking my hair behind my ear. "That sheriff in town... he would have let you take the fall for it if you turned it in. He always was a stupid, ambitious fuck."
"What am I supposed to do, Johnnie?" I asked, hearing my voice hitch slightly and taking a deep breath to try to keep myself from crying... again.
"First, you're going to calm down. You're safe with me. He won't think to look for you here. So take a deep breath," he paused long enough for me to realize that wasn't a suggestion, but an order and I sucked in a deep breath. "Good. Now when was the last time you slept?"
"I slept at a rest stop in Virginia."
"You slept at a rest stop in Virginia," he repeated, his face settling into hard lines, like he wasn't happy with that information.
"The road was starting to get blurry."
"The road gets blurry, honey, get a room somewhere. Rest stops aren't exactly the safest places on Earth."
"I survived," I pointed out, getting a little annoyed. I wasn't a child. I could take care of myself.
"'Course you did. Come on," he said, tugging a little at the hem of my shirt as he moved toward the hallway beside the front door.
"Come where?" I asked, following behind, but cautiously.
"To my bed, angel," he supplied, opening the first door in the hall.
"Your bed?"
"To sleep," he said, ducking his head a little to slant a serious look at my face before he started to smile a little boyishly. "Not that I wouldn't love to ravish you, honey, but you need some rest. I'll keep my hands to myself."
A part of me was kinda whispering (okay, screaming) that it would be totally okay if he put his hands on me, but I ignored that voice and stepped into the doorway of his bedroom. It was another large room. The walls were painted a deep hunter green and the space was dominated by the huge California king bed covered in crisp white sheets. Crisp like they were just laundered. Like maybe they had even been... ironed. Who ironed their sheets? I chanced a look at Johnnie. No way did a guy like him press their bedclothes. Did he have a housekeeper?
God, why did I even care?
"Kick out of your shoes, sweetheart," he urged when I just kept standing there dumbly. I kicked out of my shoes and made my way over toward his bed feeling self-conscious because I could feel his eyes on me. I pulled back the sheets and climbed in.
I had just settled on my side facing away from the door when I felt the bed depress behind me and Johnnie scoot in. And I mean in, until his entire body was wrapped around mine from behind, legs cocked under my bent knees, his arm heavy around my belly, like he had held me when I cried after his father's funeral. "What are you doing?"
"Amy, you just lost the closest person to you. On top of that, you think I'm a dick and that hurt your feelings. Now you find half a mil worth of drugs in your wall and you drive up to me, sleeping in a fucking rest stop, and you get here shaking. Just let me hold you for a couple of minutes, okay?"
"Okay," I said, my eyes already getting heavy. I didn't know what kind of mattress he had, but whatever it was, I needed one.
"She's my best friend's girl," he murmured when sleep was just about to claim me.
"What? Who?" I asked groggily.
"The girl who was at my Pops' apartment. She's my best friend's girl. She and he came down to make sure I was alright. I didn't fuck her. I'd never fuck her. I should have explained that before I left."
I felt his lips press into the skin behind my ear and, well, that was what did it. I turned in his arms and buried my face in his neck, stealing his warmth in the air conditioned room, and breathing in his scent which was something I couldn't put into words, something masculine and spicy, like male musk mixed with the traces of body wash from an earlier shower. "Thanks for telling me," I said quietly, maybe nuzzling in. But just a little bit, I swear.
His arms tightened around me. "Sleep angel," he commanded.
Then I did.