Freddie
"Woman," Thad said after coming in the door the following morning after spending the night with the tie guy, leaning back against the door, head tipped to the side, watching me make coffee. The third pot of the day. Since it had been so long since I made coffee that I had no idea how many scoops to put in. The first pot was hot, yellowish water. The second had been so dark and bitter that I had needed to spit my sip into the sink. Hopefully, the third time would be a charm.
"Yes?" I asked, turning to him.
"Where is he?"
"Where is who?"
"Where is who? That fine ass man who was drooling over you last night, that's who."
"Oh. I don't know. Home, I would imagine." Thad's eyes got small. Annoyed. Disappointed. A mix of the two perhaps. "I wasn't going to go home with a strange biker!"
"Lover girl, it has been a decade since you've had any action. A decade. You needed to go home with a strange biker. Especially one that fine."
"I don't do casual sex."
"Honey, you don't do any sex. And I gotta say, that just can't be healthy."
"It hasn't exactly been a choice."
"Well, yeah. But now it is."
"I didn't even know how to talk to him," I admitted, shaking my head. "I felt like a little girl confronted with an intimidating man."
"Oh, Fred," Thad said with a little sigh, moving over to me, wrapping an arm half around me, pressing a kiss to my temple. "You'll get there. There's time. Now let me just take a shower, then I will take you out to breakfast before work, okay?"
I nodded, turning to watch the coffee drip for a moment before there was a loud rapping on the door, something that made me insides jump - a knee-jerk reaction to hearing that sound startling me awake so many times in the past. For shakedowns or just morning wake ups.
Hearing Thad singing and the slap of water on the shower floor, I knew it was up to me to answer. And I felt oddly nervous about that.
"Thad open up. We gotta talk."
If I was nervous before, it was amplified by the sound of that voice. A familiar voice. One who called me weekly. Who visited me whenever possible.
Colson.
Thad's twin.
My eldest older brother.
By eight minutes and forty-two seconds.
A man I hadn't told I was free yet.
Even after Thad suggested we show up at his door before the bar the night before.
I, oddly, was worried about seeing Colson. Maybe because where Thaddeus was all light and love and easy humor, Colson was all seriousness and standoffishness. He'd taken much longer to come visit me after I was sent away, never really giving me a reason. It had hurt more than I would ever admit. He hadn't apologized. I hadn't brought it up. And, if I were being honest, there had been a bit of a wedge there ever since.
He wasn't going to be happy that I had been out for over two days and hadn't told him.
"Don't make me search for your key," his voice called through the door, sounding impatient.
Taking a breath, squaring my shoulders, I forced myself to move across the floor, oddly wishing that I had something on other than loose lilac silk pants and a black tee. Which was ridiculous seeing as all he had seen me in for a decade was a hideous prison uniform.
I slid the lock and pulled the door open.
A cursory glance would say that Colson and Thad were identical. They were both tall, broad, had strong jaws, the same eyes, nearly bald heads. But if you looked closer, Colson was almost two inches taller, longer around the trunk than the leg like Thad. He let his face go to stubble whereas Thaddeus was an almost compulsive shaver. Colson's cheekbones hollowed out a bit more than Thad's, giving him a somewhat angry look at times. His lashes - and Thad would slap me if he heard me ever say this - were much thicker than Thad's too.
His gaze found my face, his whole body shocking back at seeing me stand there. Like he was faced with a ghost instead of his own sister.
"Jesus Christ," he hissed, shaking his head.
"Bad words, Daddy."
Now that was a voice I had never heard before. I knew of the owner of it, of course. You didn't forget that you had a niece, even if you had never met her.
Jelena.
She was four and a half, short, sturdy on brushing thighs and with a slightly rounded belly. It was clearly a 'she dressed herself' kind of day since her shorts were black with neon stars and her top was a long sleeve rainbow print. Her hair was worked into an elegant wrap-around style braid that ended in a braided bun behind her ear, putting her cute slightly pointed ears with little diamond studs on perfect display.
I'd never met her mother. Neither had Jelena for that matter. But seeing as she didn't resemble Colson, I figured she must have taken after her mother with her sturdier frame, her large eyes that were golden with the faintest hint of green, her rounder face, her pouty mouth with a bigger upper lip.
"You're right, Jelly," Colson agreed, placing his giant hand on top of her small head. "Winnie," he said, voice an odd hiss. Deeper than usual. Thick with - dare I think it - emotion.
"Hey Colson," I said, giving him a wobbly smile. "I'm home," I added even though it went without saying.
"I see that. Jelly, this is Aunt Winnie," he told the little girl who looked up at me with those big eyes, something like recognition there.
And then her baby fat hand thrust out toward me. "I'm Jelena. Daddy calls me Jelly."
"And why is that?" Thad's voice asked from behind me, making Jelly's face light up as she dropped my hand.
"'Cuz I got jelly in muh belly!" she declared loudly enough for all the neighbors to hear, hauling her shirt up to show us all said belly.
"Yes you do, little boo. Come on in here. Uncle Thad will get you some strawberry milk," he called, making the girl barrel through the doorway and collide with him bodily, prompting him to wrap an arm around her middle, lifting and flipping her upside down. Her squeals carried out into the hall where I moved, closing the door behind me, sealing us away from the ears of an impressionable little girl.
"How long you been out?" Colson asked, hands slipping into his front pockets. A defensive move.
"Just about two days," I told him.
"And you didn't tell me because..."
"I didn't tell Thad before either. He found out because he called and I was already on my way here."
"And you didn't tell me once you got here because..."
Colson was not someone who backed down, who let you have your reasons without explanations.
"Honestly, I don't know," I admitted. "I was nervous."
"About seeing me."
"I guess."
"Fuck," he hissed, running a hand down the scruff on his face, glancing down the hall before he looked at me again. "How did we get like this?" he wondered. "Winnie?" he asked when my gaze slipped to my feet for a moment. "Spill it."
"You didn't come see me for almost a year," I admitted, knowing that one way or another, he would get the truth from me. I might as well use the band-aid technique.
Colson's head hung, shaking in either shame or regret. Maybe a mix of the two. "I'm a shit," he declared, voice rough. "Never meant to hurt you. You gotta know that."
"I know that."
While Colson and I might not have been quite as close as Thad and I had always been thanks to shared interests, he had always been there for me, had always been my protector, my shoulder to lean on.
"We can rebuild this," he told me. With conviction. Which was how he always spoke, honestly. But this was with determination. Like he had set his mind to it. Like he was going to do everything in his power to make it so. "With Jelly, it was hard to get out that way as much as I would have liked. But you're here now. We'll work on this."
"We won't need to work on it," I declared, moving toward him, wrapping my arms around him, feeling that warm sensation move through me once again as his arms folded around me, familiar, comforting. "It will all fall into place."
Until...
I pushed that thought away, refusing to harp on it. That was a problem for another time.
"Come on. I gotta get in there before she cons his gullible ass into giving her cookies for breakfast."
We moved inside, having coffee, deciding to all go out to breakfast together.
It was odd to see Colson as a father. She brought out a softness that I hadn't ever really seen in him. Colson had been the man of our family, even when he was nothing but a little boy. The weight of that burden had made him older than his years, heavier when Thad and I got to be young and light.
When he had told me on the phone that he'd gotten a girl pregnant, I had always known he would take care of it. I knew he would work to provide for it, be a part of its life. Then when, three months after Jelena's birth, her mother decided she was not cut out to be a mother and gave Colson the choice to take over, or have his daughter put up for adoption, he had, of course, stepped up. As I knew he would. I hadn't been able, when I had heard the news, to picture it. I could see him doing the necessary tasks. Feeding, cleaning, washing clothes for her. But I couldn't see him rocking, snuggling, being sweet and silly with her. I hadn't thought he was capable.
But sitting at a diner with him as he cut up her food, had a bubble blowing in their milk contest with her, as he entertained her with silly drawings on the placemat, I realized I had been wrong all along about him. There had always been sweet and soft and fun inside him. It had just taken a little girl with an infectious laugh to bring it out of him.
"Did you get a card from Auntie May?" Thad asked, making the entire aura around the table shift.
Auntie May.
That was a sore spot.
No.
It was a gaping, festering wound.
For all three of us.
See, Colson, Thad, and I were as close as we were out of necessity, the need to close ranks, protect one another.
Colson and Thad were eleven and I was nine when Child Protective Services ripped us out of our beds in the middle of the night, pulling us through the only home we ever knew, bringing us to a room with a social worker who told us our mother could no longer take care of us anymore.
That was not exactly a surprise.
We hadn't seen our mother in three days.
It was not an uncommon occurrence. And we had learned to take care of ourselves. Get up for school. Eat cereal. Get to the bus stop together. Come home, sit at the table and do our homework, watch TV, eat freezer meals cooked in the microwave, go to bed. Shower, rinse, repeat.
She would come shuffling in with greasy hair, purple circles under her bloodshot eyes, looking somehow thinner than she had been when she left. She'd fall into bed, shaking, crying, throwing up. Then she would get up and be gone again.
And then in a room in the social services building, we met Auntie May. Our mother's older sister who had washed her hands of her well before we were born. There had been no appearances on holidays, no birthday cards on birthdays. In fact, we hadn't been aware our mother had any family until she came into that room, her low heels clicking on the worn linoleum floors.
Auntie May was what our mother might have looked like had she lived an easier life, had she not spent all her money on drugs instead of food. Where our mother was rail thin, all sharp angles poking out of skin, Auntie May was softly rounded in the chest, butt, and belly. She dressed in a way the principal in our school did - straight and pressed slacks, a silky shirt underneath a tailored blazer, with oversized jewelry.
She looked like our mom in the face, though hers was much rounder. And, sure, while our mother's eyes were often sad or bloodshot, there was a warmth there. Auntie May's eyes were cold. The kind of cold that made us all huddle closer together.
I didn't remember the exact conversation, but the social worker had asked her if she would be willing to take us on.
Her response?
I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I?
From that day, our fates were sealed.
Free of the responsibility to care for us, whatever self-control our mother had evaporated. From what we knew, she spent the next several years in a cycle of drug use - using, running out of money, tricking herself out to get the next hit, overdosing, swearing she was recovering, then not. By the time I was twelve, she got hauled in for her first prison sentence.
Disgraceful, Auntie May had hissed after the call had come through. Embarrassment to this family was another of her favorite things to say about our mother. To our faces.
Auntie May did, on paper, all she was meant to do. She kept a nice roof over our heads. She made sure we ate, showered, did our homework, took us to doctor appointments, hired tutors if we were falling behind on work. Because Auntie May had the money for things like that - having spent her life working her way up the ladder in a big energy company, affording her a life full of luxuries but empty of a partner, her own children, friends.
What she didn't do was genuinely care. Maybe she loved us in her own way. But her love came with strict conditions. Like never embarrassing her by being unkempt, never talking back - especially in front of company-, never having her need to leave work to come pick us up from the principal's office, never doing anything that might in any way reflect poorly on her.
Not surprisingly, I never heard from or saw her again after I got locked up.
"Please," Colson said with a snort. "We all know how I have brought shame on this family," he said, putting his left hand - free of a wedding band - on his daughter's little shoulder. "She doesn't send cards anymore."
"Not that kind of card," Thad said with a smirk. Thad had handled Auntie May's rejection with the ease he handled everything. And maybe he had been more prepared for it, knowing that once he came out, she would want nothing to do with his godless ways. "It was technically from her attorney, I guess. About us getting cut out of the will."
"Who is she going to leave it all to then?" Colson asked, shaking his head, his gaze going to his daughter, knowing the opportunities he could afford her if he got even a small piece of her estate when she passed.
"Some scholarship for girls."
"Well, at least it is going somewhere decent," I figured. Since she hadn't been willing to help me get something more than a public defender for my case, I always figured I was out of her will years back.
"We don't need it," Colson added. "I am already working on a savings for Jelly."
A savings that would likely have a lot more in it had he not helped put money into my commissary.
Guilt flooded my system, stealing my appetite, making me push a plate of previously mouth-watering French toast away so I could rest my forearms on the table, hands cradling my lukewarm coffee cup.
I would make it up to him, to her, before I went back. I would get a job, sock it all away, put it into a trust for her. Or leave it with Thad with instructions to give it to Colson for Jelena when she needed it.
"And you know we will all be putting in," Thad agreed as he picked up the ketchup to trace over his golden hash browns.
"Of course," I agreed. "I owe you guys."
"Shush," Thad said, waving a hand that made four separate silver rings catch the light. "You're family," he said simply.
"So what's your plan, Winnie?" Colson asked, checking the time on his phone because Jelly had a dance class he had to take her to after we ate. I tried - and failed - to picture my big, somewhat scary older brother full of a room of leggings and tutus.
"Find a job," I told him. That was true enough. I couldn't rely on Thad's graciousness forever. And it seemed like it was going to take a bit to go through with my plan since a Facebook search hadn't gotten me any closer to finding him. "Which I am assuming will not be easy."
While I likely had a better shot than a man in my position, I knew no one saw 'ex-con' on the application and jumped for joy.
"This is Navesink Bank, boo," Thad said, waving a hand toward the window at his side. "Got different employers here."
"Right," Colson agreed with an eye roll. "But we don't want her to have to be in that life."
"I wasn't saying she should start selling..." he trailed off, gaze going to Jelena who was watching him with big eyes. "Tic Tacs," he decided. "But the Tic Tac manufacturers have many legitimate places for her to sidle up to a desk. That's all I'm saying."
"Like Mallick," Colson said, voice full of insinuation. Like it was Thad's place to try to get me a job at the gym.
"Exactly. Like any of those yummy Mallick boys, actually. Grassis. That gym that's owned by those... well... those hill people who all fill out their utility pants well."
"I'll figure it out," I assured them with more confidence than I actually felt.
I'd never even been on a job interview before. I had nothing to put on a resume. I didn't even have a valid driver's license anymore. Or a bank account.
"Baby steps," Colson said, seeming to read the growing panic on my face. "It's not gonna happen overnight. Jelly, you about done? We got to get going."
"Shit, me too. I mean shoot," Thad said, when Jelena giggled. "I have a 90s Hip Hop Dance class to teach."
"Who even goes to a class like that?" Colson asked as Thad stole the bill he was reaching for, leaving him to toss money on the table for a tip instead.
"Mostly the younger stay-at-home-mommies. You, dinner later?" he asked, offering me his cheek to kiss.
"Sure. I'll cook."
"Got your key?"
"Yep," I said, fishing it out of my pocket.
"You want a ride?" they both asked in unison.
"I think I will walk," I told them as we made our way up to the front where Thad dealt with the bill. "What? No," I objected when Thad slapped some cash into my hand.
"Shush," he said, slapping my butt hard before heading out the door. "Love you!" he called before disappearing.
I was still tucking the money into my back pocket when Jelena collided with my thigh, her arms wrapping around my leg as she left what I suspected was a syrup smudge on my jeans. "I stole some of your fat toast," she told me in a hush like it was a big secret.
"That's okay. I wasn't eating it anyway," I assured her, my hand pressing between the juts of her shoulder blades in a makeshift hug. "Go dance pretty, okay?"
"Okay!" she declared, turning to make her way to the door.
"I'll text you," Colson said, having gotten my new cell - a cell I wasn't one-hundred-percent sure how to use fully yet - number when we sat down. "We'll get together again."
"Soon."
"Yeah, soon," he agreed, giving me a one-arm hug before taking Jelena's hand and making his way out the door.
I waited for everyone to leave, watching their cars pull away, before making my way outside, the crisp air making me wish I had worn a jacket. And about five minutes into the walk, I wished even more that I hadn't worn the heels Thad had thrown at me. Another block later, I comforted myself that I would never have to wear them again seeing as I was darn near certain that the insides were now stained with my blood.
"Hey, baby," a voice called at my side, a shadow emerging from the overhang of a front stoop. "Where you headed?" he asked, coming down the stairs.
Prison had been a funny thing.
It exposed you to a violence you likely hadn't been around while free - violence from fellow women. But it also managed to shield you from the violence of men. Or, at least, that was the case in my prison where the male guards weren't - as far as I knew - predators. Just people who had a job to do.
A sliver of uncertainty slid down my spine, making my shoulders push back, my chin lift, wanting to give the aura of confidence and lack of fear even as my pulse quickened as I saw him step onto the sidewalk.
"What you too good for me?" he asked, his hand reaching out, closing around my wrist.
I'd been aware of the noise - a loud car on the street.
It wasn't until the noise got loud then cut off that I realized it wasn't a car at all.
"Fuck off," a deep, not unfamiliar voice called from my side. When the hand didn't immediately drop from my wrist, I watched as Virgin - what the hell kind of name was Virgin anyway - pushed down the kickstand with his boot, slowly lifting up off the seat, dragging a leg over it to stand towering over me. Every movement was in half speed, was pointed, almost... threatening. "I won't tell you again," he added in a deeper rumble.
The hand around my wrist disappeared, snatched back comically fast.
"Sorry, man. Didn't realize she was one of yours."
With that, he turned and jogged back up the stairs and into the apartment building.
"Thank you, but I could have handled it," I assured him. "And what did he mean by One of yours? You have several women?"
Why did I care?
"Not at the moment," he said with what I could only call a lazy grin. "You want a ride where you're going?"
"I--" I started, only to be cut off.
"You're walking like your feet are killin' you."
"They are," I admitted with a small smile, knowing it was pointless to deny it. In another block, I would probably be saying to hell with the disgustingness of the ground, kicking off my shoes, and making it home barefoot.
"So you got nothing to lose and everything to gain from taking a ride, yeah?"
It was hard to argue with that logic.
"Where were you headed? Is that a hard question?" he added, white teeth peeking out of his lips in an amused smile when I didn't answer.
"I am supposed to be looking for a job. But... I don't even know where to start."
"You new in town?" he asked, picking up on my feeling of complete loss.
"In a way. Sort of. I grew up here. But I left ten years ago. I just got back the day before we met."
"You need a job this fast?"
"Yes. I mean, Thaddeus is happy to spot me until I get on my feet again, but I don't want him to have to. But all the restaurants around here have changed."
"Well, let's see. There's the Mexican and Chinese places, but I doubt they're hiring. More family business kind of things. The pizza place is the same. There's Famiglia and Abby's though."
"Abby's?"
"It's a delivery-only place that does comfort food shit. Soup. Mac n' cheese. Open all night. Great if you got the flu or something. Abby is the chef, but the way that place is growing, I figure they could use some help. And Famiglia is an upscale Italian place. Run by the mob. Just so you know. Dunno if that is a deal breaker for you."
"No." Actually, it sounded like a place worth looking into.
"Interesting," he said with a smirk I didn't quite know how to interpret. Pleased, maybe. But why? Because I was okay with the mob? Or, more likely, because I wasn't scared of being affiliated with them. An illegal organization. Like the one he belonged to. I mean, not that he wanted to be involved with me. Of course. Everything about the man screamed I'll give you the night of your life, but leave before the sweat dries. Not that I knew much about such things, but any woman knew that vibe when she found it in a man.
"Where is Abby's?" I asked, looking both ways down the street.
"Closer to my end of town. By the compound," he clarified, moving to toss a leg over the seat of his bike, reaching behind him for the helmet. "Come on," he offered, holding the helmet out toward me.
"You don't wear a helmet?"
"Not in town."
"That's stupid," I told him, taking the helmet.
"Yeah, probably," he agreed, not at all offended. "You gonna put it on?" he asked when I didn't move to do so, thinking - for the first time in years - about my hair. But, in the end, the throbbing in my feet said there was no way I was getting to the other end of town without a ride. And this one was free. "That'a girl," he told me with a nod as I slammed it down on my head and secured the buckle. "Ever been on a bike?"
"No."
"Climb on. Close ranks. And hold on."
Close ranks. He wasn't joking. From the looks of things, I would be plastered to his body. And to prevent myself from flying off the back, I'd have to wrap my arms around that solid body of his - a thought that made my chest feel tight, made an odd, aching sensation move across my belly.
Pretending to ignore that, I attempted to throw a leg over, forgetting my teetering heels and my, well, shortness, that made me wobble and almost miss, my hand slamming down on his shoulder for stability.
"So, I'm assuming dance wasn't your childhood extracurricular activity, huh?" he asked, a low rumble of amusement in his voice.
"No one would ever call me graceful," I admitted, shaking my head at myself as I finally got my leg over and settled in, the seat forcing me to slide forward until my thighs gripped the outer sides of his, the juncture between pressed intimately against his body.
"Gotta hold on," he reminded me, but before I could do so, his hands reached back, grabbing my wrists, pulling them around his sides, securing them across his stomach. A rock freaking hard stomach, I might add.
When I drew in my next breath, it was shaky for reasons I couldn't even pretend I didn't understand. But then the next second, the engine roared to life, the bike peeled away from the streets, and my stomach just seemed to drop straight out of my body. And then dragged along the street for the short five-minute drive to the other end of town.
"You can relax now," Virgin told me, voice amused, making me realize how tightly I was still clinging to him even though we were stopped by the curb.
"Mhm. After my stomach climbs back up into my abdominal cavity, that is exactly what I am going to do." But even as I was saying the words, my arms were untangling themselves from where they had curled around his midsection, holding on for dear life, the grip so tight it must have made taking a proper breath difficult work at best.
"Not a fan, huh?" He asked, waiting for me to climb off before doing so himself. "I practically grew up on one. Forgot that not everyone has the stomach for it."
"It's not that. It's like a rollercoaster. Freaky when it is happening. And you swear you will never put yourself through it again. Until your feet are back on solid ground. Your belly settles. Then you are running back to get on line again."
"Spent a lot of time in amusement parks?" he asked, seeming a mix of amused, curious, and almost... sad? But sad seemed wrong. For such a big, scary biker guy.
"My brothers and I learned that the best way to survive summers was to avoid our aunt. So we got passes to Six Flags when we were teens and drove down in the morning, came back before she got home from work." It was the most adventurous thing I had ever done. No one would believe that since I had a record that said quite differently. But sneaking out and lying to my aunt was as daring as I had ever been.
"Not a great family, huh?" he asked, tone seeming to hold familiarity, intimacy. Like he knew that feeling all too well.
"Well, my brothers are everything," I admitted, feeling like that was too much, over the top. But it was true nonetheless. They were everything. "And my niece is a sweetheart too. But growing up, we had some rough times."
"I grew up in a heroin-dealing MC. I know about rough times too."
"Your mother was okay with you being around that?" I asked, figuring if he was willing to talk about it without prompting, that it wasn't being nosy to do so.
"My mother dropped me off there and never came back for me," he admitted.
"How old were you?"
"Four?" he half told, half asked.
"And you grew up with bikers? Just bikers?"
"It was an interesting childhood," he admitted, reaching up to rub a hand across the scruff on his face, holding back a smile.
From what I heard about MCs, I imagine he grew up with next to no rules and a revolving door of half - or fully - naked women around.
Yeah, I bet that would have been interesting for a growing boy.
"So, you gonna nut-up and go in there?" he asked, jerking his chin behind me, making me aware of what we were doing. Not getting to know each other. Not exposing shared wounds or little childhood rebellions. No. He was driving me to apply for a job.
Half-turning, I saw a small storefront wedged between two much larger ones - a laundromat to the left, a pet store to the right.
Abby's.
It was in the spot that a small Chinese place had been when I had left. The all-glass front had been frosted, the only thing to see through the white being the bold lettering at eye-level saying the name of the establishment.
My brow furrowed, wondering why - with a place that small - you would choose to close yourself in, block out the world.
I guess, if I maybe, possibly, got the job, I could ask.
"Go on," Virgin encouraged, not really doing anything to help the nerves.
"Are you just going to stand there and watch me?" I asked, pulling the helmet off my hair, reaching up to hopefully fluff it into place.
"Yep."
"Don't you have anything else to do?"
"Nope."
"I can take a cab home after."
"Nah."
"I wasn't going to invite you up anyway," I added a little pointedly in case that was what he had in mind.
"Okay."
Frustrated, a low grumble escaped me. "Well, can you at least look over there?" I asked, waving an arm out toward the end of the street.
"Like this view better."
Alright. I was only human. I had to admit that those words sent a little swirling through my belly.
"Go on now," he told me, jerking his chin toward the restaurant. "I might hire you for the eye candy alone, but I think Abby might want to talk to you."
Shaking my head at him, forcing my measly breakfast to settle in my belly, I turned on my heel, cursing them in new and inventive ways in my head as I made my way to the door. Pulling, I found nothing but resistance. But I knew if I didn't do this now - with an audience - that I wouldn't be able to force myself to come back. My hand lifted, knocking a few times, hopefully loud enough to be heard over the clangs of pots and pans and the loud TV from within.
There was some more slamming, followed by the muting of the TV. Then a female voice.
"If you are not the cops, a coffee delivery, or a free ride to the nuthouse, I don't have time for this!" she declared just a second before yanking open the door, shocking me enough to take a step back.
Abby was younger than I would have expected for a restauranteur. She couldn't have been much older than me with a tall, willowy - just shy of lanky, all limbs - build, an impish, delicate face with oversized, black-lined see-through blue eyes made even bluer thanks to the vivid shade of turquoise of her pixie cut hair. Her thin arms were bare, displaying a range of black and gray tattoos. A full-body apron - that at one time must have been white but was currently a mismatch of reds, yellows, browns, and greens - was folded down at her waist, mostly covering her simple straight-leg jeans.
"Sorry," I told her. "I don't have a warrant. Or coffee. Or an electroshock therapy machine. I was just looking for a job."
"You cook?" she asked, rubbing the back of her wrist across a brow beaded a bit with sweat.
"Yes."
"Tomorrow, ten a.m. Come prove it." With that, she slammed and locked the door, making me almost unsure that I had heard her correctly.
"Well, that was a success. How are you going to repay me?" Virgin asked from behind me, making me turn to find him watching me with a smirk toying with his lips.
"I will offer you a cup of coffee. But that is it."
"That'll do," he agreed with a cocky smile as he got back on his bike, making me wonder as I took the helmet he handed me to slip on my head again if he thought a cup of coffee was the 'in' he needed.
Well, I decided as I climbed on again, he would just have to live with disappointment.
Mumbling off the address, I folded my arms around him again, feeling my stomach fly out, but bungee right back in, anchored by the sense of satisfaction building inside.
I had a job interview.
Granted, she didn't know about my record. She didn't even know my name. But with her level of frazzle, I figured that so long as I lived up to her cooking expectations, she might be able to overlook all that in favor of being able to get a little time away from her restaurant.
I would knock her socks off with some recipes I learned growing up. Then I would carefully mention my criminal record once she had dreams of sleeping in on her mind.
And I would wear flats.
"You gonna make it up the stairs, or you need a boost?" Virgin asked, that bemused smile toying with his lips as my hand went white-knuckled on the banister for the steps - ten in all - up to the front door.
"I don't have a ton of pride, but what I do have would not allow me - a grown ass woman - to be boosted up the stairs," I informed him, taking a deep breath which I told myself - even though I knew it was a bold-faced lie - that the breathing would cut the pain.
I could have sworn I heard snickering as I cursed my way up the last three stairs, reaching for my key as I did so.
"The fuck you wear them for if they hurt your feet?"
"That's such a guy thing to say," I told him, shaking my head. "They're new. I didn't know they would hurt my feet until I wore them for a day."
"They're icepicks attached to your heel and you didn't think they might not feel so great?" he shot back, brow raised.
I bit back a comment about how it had been a decade since I wore heels, so I had no idea how my feet would feel anymore. But that invited questions, ones I didn't really want to have to answer.
"Some heels don't bother your feet, believe that or not," I informed him with some authority I didn't feel as we took the elevator up to Thad's floor.
He towered over me as I opened the locks and moved inside, reaching down to free my feet of the torture devices, having to flex my feet up off the floor for a second before they un-stiffened enough to be able to walk on them.
"You're bleedin'," he informed me, making my gaze shoot down to find a bloody gash across the back of my heel.
"Seems about right," I agreed, making my way over to the coffee pot. "So this is Thad's place," I told him, waving a hand around.
"You got another sister?" he asked, hand touching the two kimonos on the back of the couch.
"Oh, ah, no. Thad has a kimono. And then a guest kimono. And I am, apparently, an idiot for not knowing one needs such a thing as a guest kimono."
To that, Virgin snorted. "I don't even have a guest blanket."
"I don't imagine you have many overnight guests."
"Can't tell if that is an insult or ego stroke," he murmured as the smell of coffee filled the air. Three scoops was the right amount, I had found.
"Maybe a bit of both," I admitted, reaching for the mugs, having to go up on my tiptoes to do so since I was vertically challenged and Thad was half giant.
"Need some help?" A voice asked. Close. Really close. So close that I felt the body sidle in behind me, strong thighs brushing against my ass, arms going around my sides, trapping me in as he reached for the almost-out-of-reach mugs.
And what was I thinking, you might ask?
Something absolutely ridiculous.
And cheesy.
We can't forget cheesy.
Because it was some freaking old school romance novel level of smarmy.
I might not mind imprisonment if it was between his arms.
See?
I was embarrassed by my own internal monologue.
In its defense, it had been a long, long time since there was even a clear and present danger about the imprisonment between a man's arms. And there had never been anything like the 'set the alarms to Def Con One' kind of threat that this stupidly good looking, obnoxiously sexy, unnaturally calm man with his front pressed against my back caused.
Sure that if I spent even a second more thinking of my current predicament - and how him bending me over the counter would not be a wholly unwelcome progression of events - my mouth blurted out the first thing it could drag out of the fog of my mind.
"Why do they call you Virgin?"
His arms - and the mugs nestled like little doll vessels in his giant hands - paused in mid-air for a moment, caught off-guard, before descending to the countertop with a quiet click, his hands abandoning them - and how much they must have missed his touch - and grabbing the counter instead. Lucky counter.
Jesus.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Did I fall off the back of the bike back there, slam my head, and find myself experiencing that lovely end-of-life reel of fantasies flashing before my eyes, as my brain fired off and died?
That was possibly the only explanation for my thoughts right about then.
"They call me Virgin because I don't give a fuck," he told me, voice - and therefore mouth - down near my ear.
Mouth.
Mouth and lips.
Lips and kissing.
Right at that little spot behind said ear, that spot that shocked off a thousand fireworks when touched just right. And something in me said he would know how to do it just right.
Okay.
Space.
I needed some space.
Ducking low - well, lower - I clumsily shoved myself into the small space under his arm, spinning outward, going toward the fridge as though it was imperative that at that very second, I get the half & half out for us.
A low, rolling chuckle let me know that he found my behavior - at worst - ridiculous, or - at best - kinda cute and amusing.
If I were a betting person, I would always put my money on the safest bet. Meaning the most negative thing when it came to me and my luck.
"That's funny. I mean... I doubt it was funny how you came to get that name. But it must be fun to explain that to people when they ask about it. Does everyone in your club have fun road names?"
"Some," he told me. "They call my best friend Sugar."
Oh, a third party.
That was safer territory, wasn't it?
"How'd he get that name?"
"You should ask him yourself. He likes telling it." My head jerked up, finding him watch me as I added too much sugar to my own coffee since I was distracted by trying to resist the urge to just tell him to take me, end the dry spell like he promised back at the bar. "Come to the clubhouse tomorrow night. Celebrate your newfound employment with some booze and interesting conversation. Don't," he cut me off when he knew I was about to object, "say anything now. Think on it. Decide later. Tomorrow night. After eight. Thanks for the coffee," he told me, taking a giant swig of mine that was now loaded down with so much cream it was barely warm anymore. "Go wash out those cuts," he added, making it to the door in about two strides, and letting himself out into the hall.