THE KING OF THE SOUTH SIDE

 

Loralynne Summers

 

Copyright © 2017

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself staring down the barrel of a gun.

I mean, yes, I was in some sketchy corner store in like, the worst neighborhood possible. And yeah, it was just after two in the morning. And it was hot, the kind of nasty, oppressive heat that burns when you breathe and makes people do stupid shit because they can’t think straight—like, say, a woman exhausted and alone going to a ghetto corner store in the dead of night. So yeah, the gun in my face shouldn’t have shocked me. But it did.

Still, shocked isn’t the same thing as scared. Guns didn’t scare me; I’d been around them my whole life. If I was the type that scared easily, I wouldn’t be where I was, exhaustion or no.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t have any cash. I don’t have any credit cards. And there’s only enough in my bank account for this cheap-ass beer and—”

“Bitch, shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you,” said the guy holding the gun.

I sighed. “Well, if this is going to take a while, I’m putting the beer down. I’m too damned tired to stand here holding it.” My eyes scanned the store as I stood. The cashier was slowly moving his hand below the counter. I knew from past conversations with him that two things were located there: the silent alarm, and a Big Fucking Gun—the Desert Eagle .50, much bigger and scarier than the pea-shooters these idiots had. And idiots they definitely were, because if they’d planned this robbery at all, they’d know that Steve who worked the night shift was a former Marine.

I won a backhand for my smartass comment. Not my first hit to the face, but the bastard wore an obnoxiously large ring, probably overcompensating for something. Regardless, that was going to leave a mark. My mom always said that one day my mouth would get me into trouble I couldn’t get out of, and it was starting to look like she might have been right. I stared at the face behind the gun. His features were obscured by the obligatory black knit ski mask, but his eyes were angry and intense.

“Got anything else to say?” The gun returned to its former position. I noted several poorly done tattoos on his arm, presumably prison issue, which made the good one on his wrist stand out. It looked like a graffiti tag. I knew better though, from triaging countless gun and stab wounds, and recognized the gang symbol when I saw it. This information didn’t have the cognitive impact it should have.

My lips parted. I’ve never been blessed with much of a filter between my brain and mouth.

A hand covered the gun as a second robber stepped in before I could get anything out.

“Hey man, let her go. She can’t ID us. Look at her; she looks strung-out, chances are she won’t even remember anything in the morning anyway.”

Indignation flared and I prepared a slew of curses and insults to throw back at the second man. But he caught my eyes, and the earnestness in his gaze stayed my tongue. He looked terrified. And young, from what I could tell. For half a moment, I considered explaining myself, not that they would have cared. I knew I looked like shit, but strung-out? Fuck this asshole. I’d like to see how peachy he’d look after working nearly thirty-six hours straight.

“Just leave, Miss. And forget about anything you saw.”

I shrugged. “Whatever. You douchebags do your thing. I’m out of here. I don’t feel like having to wait for the next bus and you assholes are making me late.” Leaving my well-earned beer on the floor, I cut my losses and left them to Steve and the cops, if they decided to show up.

“You call the cops and I’ll find you, bitch,” someone yelled after me. I assumed it was my new friend with the gun and pinky ring.

“All I wanted was the damn beer.”

I double-timed it and made it to the bus stop in the nick of time.

“Damn, Claire, you look exhausted,” noted the driver as I swiped my pass.

“You don’t know the half of it. Wake me up when we get there please, Jovi?”

“You got it, girl.”

The bus ride between work and home sucked. It was an hour each way once you figured in all the stops, but you couldn’t beat the salary. Working the emergency room in the absolute worst part of the city paid better than anywhere else. The bosses jokingly called it “hazard pay,” but it wasn’t much of a joke. After the first month, I’d done what most of my coworkers with a commute do, and gotten a bus pass. Most mornings I was too tired—mentally or physically—to safely drive home.

The bus stop was a block from home. I walked it on autopilot, then stumbled up the stairs into my tiny apartment and flopped across the bed, hoping to forget the last two days, and especially the last few hours.

****

The nice thing about my ridiculous hours—and the overtime I pulled because of the gas pipe explosion that packed the hospital—is that I ended up with a few days off in a row. When I stepped off the bus to return to work, the incident at the convenience store was all but forgotten. I wove through the crowds of people, passing the dealers, prostitutes, and homeless who cluttered the corners. My phone dinged, and it was when I looked down to check the message that I inadvertently crashed into someone. Fortunately, it was someone I knew.

Or used to know. I hadn’t seen him in ages. But some people are gifted with the immortality gene—no matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen them, they never change. Maybe a pound or two one way or another, but that face is immediately recognizable and they look exactly the same as they did years ago.

“Jonathan! Oh, my gosh! Sorry for running into you! How are you? I haven’t seen you since high school!” I hate when people sound overly enthusiastic about mundane shit, yet here I was doing it to him. I think I was just happy to not have someone shouting and cursing at me for not watching what I was doing.

“Hey, Claire, how’s it going?” His tone was more down to earth, not the five-octaves-high false excitement noise that came out of my mouth.

“Good! I’m on my way to work, I don’t have long. Do you have time? Can you walk with me?”

“Yeah, I’m free. Where we headed?”

“Saint Helen’s. The hospital. I’m a nurse.” I pointed at my scrubs. There really wasn’t anywhere else in this part of town that I’d be headed dressed as I was.

“No kidding? That’s awesome. You always were good at taking care of people. What about your husband? Is he a doctor?”

“Oh, dear God, no, I’m not married. I don’t have time for a boyfriend, let alone a husband. Get out of here with that shit.”

He chuckled. “Well, that’s good to know. I wouldn’t want to have to worry about a jealous lover coming after me.”

I eyed him as we walked. The pound or two that he’d put on since graduation was more like twenty, and all of it muscle. Jonathan had clearly been hitting the gym, but I was glad to see he wasn’t one of those guys who got so big they couldn’t put their arms down.

“So how long have you been a nurse?” he asked, turning to look at me. I was reminded of how stunning his eyes were: light brown, not dark, bordering almost on golden, framed by thick lashes beneath a strong brow. His square jaw was covered with stubble, that sort of scruffy, more than a couple days without shaving, but not quite a beard look that made him look edgier, more dangerous knowing his questionable past. It also made him even more my type now than he had been in high school. I had never really outgrown liking the bad boys.

“A couple years now. I work the ER. It can get really crazy and fast-paced, but I love it. I love helping people.”

“Oh, man, were you working the other night? After the explosion?”

“Yeah, that was nuts. I was so exhausted when things finally calmed down. Ran on adrenaline, caffeine, and power naps for thirty-six hours before I went home to crash.”

He let out a low whistle as he ran a hand through his hair. It immediately fell back across his forehead in a defiant sandy curl. Certain parts of my anatomy tightened in response. I felt thankful we were already at the hospital, or I might have done something stupid.

“You always walk to work like this?” he asked with a sidelong smile.

I laughed. “Oh, no. I take the bus. I just like getting off a stop early when the weather’s nice. When you’re stuck inside a building for hours on end, you have to catch your vitamin D where you can.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I work a weird schedule, too. But I’m glad you only walk a little way. It’s not too bad here during the day, but at night … I’d be worried about your safety.”

“You know I can take care of myself. Remember that time I kicked Chris’s ass for trying to cop a feel on me in gym class?” I deflected, unnerved by the way I warmed at his words and look of genuine concern.

Jonathan laughed, the kind of hearty and full laugh you just can’t fake.

“Oh, man, the football team gave him so much shit for weeks over that. It was awesome. I’d noticed him getting a little too grabby and was trying to get near you to do something about it. Most people had already written me off as a lost cause. I’d have gladly taken the suspension for beating that dickwad. I’d have done anything for you.”

My breath caught in my throat as his expression turned serious.

“I still would do anything for you, Claire. I mean it. Can I give you my number? I don’t live far from here. If you ever need anything when you’re at work, you can call me. Any time, day or night.”

“I…” I found myself unable to speak. I stared up at him—I swear he’d grown even taller since school and now had to have almost a whole foot over me. He cupped my cheek, and I wondered if he could feel my heartbeat racing beneath his palm. “Okay,” I breathed.

We exchanged numbers, and I promised to call him tomorrow after I’d slept a bit so we could get together when I was free again. Over the next twelve hours, between stab wounds, dog bites, a gunshot, and other run-of-the-mill cases, my mind constantly strayed back to Jonathan.

I think we all have that one friend our parents don’t like and try to keep us clear of. For me, that was Jonathan. In elementary school, his appearance was always sloppy. It’s one of those things you only notice in retrospect, as you go through photos and memories. Obviously it never occurred to me—I liked him just the same. We didn’t get together very often outside of school, and when we did, it was always at my house, never his. Again, something you never take note of at the time. Toward the end of fifth grade, he moved away for a while to live with a relative. I later found out that his parents had been arrested for dealing drugs. There were rumors they’d been part of a drug ring with connections to the city we now both called home.

At the start of ninth grade, as we entered high school, he returned, now in foster care. We resumed our casual friendship, and when hormones would have tended toward something more, either by design or chance, it never happened. I was inclined to put more weight behind the former and my mother’s influence. I was by no means a Polly Prissypants, but as the daughter of the police chief in a smallish town, I always ended up with Beaver Cleaver types: squeaky clean boy scouts who said things like “gosh” and “shucks.” They never lasted long.

I moved to the city as soon as I could afford it. My family was awesome, but suffocating at times. And one can never truly outgrow their parents’ judgment. So in order to breathe I needed freedom.

Well, to be honest, in order to flirt with danger I needed freedom.

But that’s where I drew the line: flirting. If I truly wanted to live dangerously, I would have moved closer to the hospital. I talked a good game, yet I lived in a nice, safe apartment on the outskirts of the city, borderline suburbia still. I knew my limits. All the guys I’d “dated” since moving were really just one-night stands. I’d go to some dive bar, let some guy pick me up and take me back to his dump—assuming we even made it out of the bar and didn’t just go into some dark corner—and then I’d be gone.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

I looked up from the bench to see Jonathan standing over me. The heat and humidity had built for the last few days while I’d been off, and a storm had finally broken. I didn’t fancy looking like a drowned rat for the bus ride home, so I’d opted to wait at the nice covered stop outside the hospital. Jonathan, however, was drenched. His shirt clung to his body, and I was pleased to notice that the muscles didn’t stop at his arms.

“What are you doing here?” I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

“I was having trouble sleeping, so I thought I’d try to catch you when you got done.”

“Kinda risky. No guarantee if I would be done on time or not.”

“Looks like it was a risk that paid off from where I stand,” he said, squeezing excess water from his hair.

“I don’t know. You’re soaking wet.”

“Seems worth it to me.” An easy smile split his face.

I was glad it was dark enough to hide the blush that heated my cheeks. Silence spread between us, heavy and expectant, as he folded his arms and leaned against the Plexiglas wall. My brain calculated a million different possible scenarios at once. I could say anything and change the current trajectory of our interaction. Regardless, I’d already decided that I was bringing him home with me. Not to mention that he’d gone to the effort of finding me at two in the morning during a downpour. That spoke volumes about his level of interest regarding the resumption of our friendship.

The bus came around the corner. I stood, and paused as I passed him.

“You’ll have to let me know if you still feel that way when we wake up later.”