Bane

It was because of this man.

But who was he?

The Jesse in my dream dropped the book to her lap and stared back at him. She looked about ready to jump up and run away, and I wanted her to. Badly.

The man took a step toward me. Her. Us.

She dragged my body to the corner of the couch.

“No,” she said. “Please. I know I shouldn’t be here, but I promise I won’t come back if you let me go.”

My brain ordered my body to move. For my eyes to open. I wanted to get out of the dream before it consumed me. I wanted to get out before I remembered something I was pretty sure there was a good reason for me to forget. The only thing I could feel was my eyelids fluttering in REM. My body was frozen, my mind reeling.

Move. Wake up. Get the hell out of bed right now.

The man inched closer, and she curled inside herself, much like I had after what Emery, Nolan, and Henry did to me.

I wanted to kick my legs. To fall off the bed.

The scent of vodka pierced my nose, settling in my gut.

I finally managed to open my mouth, but nothing came out. Not a whisper, not a scream.

Somehow, I managed to grip one post of the bed and straighten myself up, gulping the morning sun and cracking my eyes open. Panting hard and dripping cold sweat, all I could do was turn around to the pin board behind me and flatten my hands around it, frantically looking for this man’s back. I couldn’t find it.

I put on my Keds, finger Taser, and black hoodie and went out for a run.

This time, I didn’t stop until my knees hit the concrete.

I SPENT THE NEXT FEW days dragging my ass to business meetings, surfing with Beck, and sulking like a little bitch. Everything and everyone annoyed the shit out of me. My friends. My mom. My beard. I was even pissy at Edie just because she reminded me of my last conversation with Jesse.

Jesse, whom I’d been ignoring religiously for the past couple days, avoiding Café Diem just because I knew seeing her would make me start a world war.

I knew it was a dick move, but now that she was getting better at the whole life-ing gig, I definitely needed to put some space between us to make sure it wasn’t my cock she was riding the next time her crayon-blue eyes flicked at me beguilingly. As it was, I was entering dangerous territory by spending the advance Darren gave me like that shit was guaranteed.

New furniture for the hotel? Ka-ching.

New plumbing for Café Diem? Ka-ching.

New asshole Darren’s lawyers were going to tear me had they found out I broke our deal, touched the untouchable, and was now around a million bucks indebted to him? Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-fucking-ching.

Truth was, I didn’t think I had more power over Jesse than she had over me.

She had plenty of power over my ass. I was just a damn good con who knew how to hide it.

And power was a game I knew all too well. Once upon a time, my mom had dated a dude who’d stuck around long enough for me to actually remember his name. Artem. Russian. Well, obviously. Artem was not a piece of shit in the grand scheme of things. Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit. He was actually a father to me without doing the whole parenting crap. One thing he did was teach me how to play chess. The rules of chess were very simple: while it was true that the king was the most important piece in the game, he was also the weakest. The queen was the most powerful, and you best not forget that if you wanted to get ahead in life.

Jesse was pretty much the only pussy in this town that was completely forbidden to me, and yet, I found myself craving her more and more. It was a combination of a few things. Her defiance, her quiet strength, her wit, and her compassion toward others.

I found myself trudging to Café Diem despite my best efforts because I wanted to make up for not checking on her on her first day. And the day after. And the one after it.

It’s okay to judge me. I’m fucking judging myself, too.

It was surreal. Opening the door to my café without wanting to. Strolling between the busy tables without meaning to. Parking my ass on the stool by the counter, in front of Jesse and Gail, knowing I should be somewhere—hell, anywhere—else.

Gail’s bald head was shining like a marble, totally weird in contrast with her feminine, round face, and she wore a Stay Weird black T-shirt, red Chucks, and matching nail polish. Her lips were powder pink, against dramatic makeup. Jesse was wearing something, too, though I was too mesmerized by her moving, pouty lips to notice what it was.

“Tell me more about him,” Jesse probed, so focused on Gail she didn’t notice me. But Gail sure did. And she did that little let’s-fuck-things-up smirk of hers before she turned around back to Snowflake for an answer.

“He’s nice, I guess. Kind of strange, but that’s hardly a fault in my book.” Gail wiped steamy mugs fresh out of the dishwasher with a cloth and arranged them neatly behind her, against the white, exposed-brick wall. She better not have referred to me, because not only was I not nice nor strange, but I was also her fucking boss.

“Hale is super hot, though. Plus, he’s like this crazy philosopher dude. And he never hits on anyone, so he obviously likes you,” Gail sing-songed, her words shooting straight to my veins, heating my bloodstream.

Hale? Fucking Hale was here? Hitting on my Jesse? I mean, Jesse. Not mine. She wasn’t mine. Only, the small hole that opened in my chest didn’t agree with that last statement.

“Oh, I don’t date. I was just wondering what his story was. I caught him staring at me the other day. He wore the same FREE tank today. I just wondered what his deal was.” Jesse used her hip to shut a stainless steel fridge underneath her, where we kept the crushed ice. She prepared a smoothie for a surfer chick at the cash register. I was in awe of how natural she looked behind the counter. A part of me had still believed that Snowflake wouldn’t be able to fully settle into her job, and it was still early, but damn, she looked…normal. Although I was happy for her, a small, crazy, petty-ass part of me was pissed. Pissed that she no longer needed me like she thought she did.

I mentally started listing reasons why she needed to stay in the picture. My picture.

I gave her a job with flexible hours. I gave her security. I humored her with whatever she needed. But I also told her I was going to fuck other people. She not only accepted that, but also seemed to fit right into her role as a barista. Not that it bothered me that she didn’t need me as much as she thought.

Okay, yeah, it did bother me.

And it bothered me that it bothered me, because what kind of asshole wants others to be dependent on them simply to keep them close?

Me. That’s who.

“Famous Last Words” by My Chemical Romance played over “Crystallize” by Lindsey Stirling (we had a DJ drop ready-made music weekly because we couldn’t decide on playlists we liked), and Gail dug her phone out of her back pocket.

“Whoa!” My super emo employee held her cell phone in the air, her mouth forming into an O. I was still pretending to browse through my phone, pinching my eyebrows like it was important, and cursing Hale for figuring my shit out. I was ninety-nine percent sure he’d worked out my so-called angle and had decided to piss me off by hitting on the girl I had my eye on.

“Dude! Hale just texted me. He asked for your number. What do I do?” Gail squealed. Jesse’s eyes widened, as did her smile, and I wanted to die a thousand deaths.

You stab him in the face and then hand him over to me to finish the job.

Snowflake punched the blender’s button to buy time. I wanted so badly to kiss her for it. She was flattered, sure, but she wasn’t going to hand over her number so fast. Hell, she’d barely given it to me, and I’d courted her ass for weeks. But that didn’t change the fact that there would be more Hales. More good-looking, smooth-talking assholes that would try to hit on her ass, now that she was in plain sight, looking delicious and alive.

Snow White had woken up, and a prince was on his way, probably riding in a white Tesla.

There was always a fucking prince to rain on the villain’s parade.

The blender stopped. Jesse plucked it out of its hub and slapped the bottom as she poured the pink smoothie into a tall cup.

“Jesse? Should I give him your number?” Gail’s thumbs were already moving on her screen, and I wondered how much she would hate me if I broke them.

Say no.

“Sure.”

Fuck.

At the risk of becoming the douchiest dipshit to ever set foot in Todos Santos—a goddamn mission, considering the average income per household and number of entitled teenagers in this place—I decided to stay the fuck out of this conversation and actually found it in me to allow Jesse the time to give Gail her number. Not only did I successfully manage not to detonate with anger while Gail repeated it aloud while typing it back to Hale, but I also chose the moment after Gail tucked her phone into her jeans to make myself known.

By the way, did I mention that Hale was a dead man? No? Because that was the case.

“How are my favorite ladies?” I flashed my come-hither smirk. See? Casual. What’s that tick in my eyelid? Not a stroke, that’s for sure.

“Good question. That’s roughly eighty-five percent of the female population of SoCal, so you better start an online questionnaire to save time,” Jesse said sweetly, sliding the smoothie to the girl in the wetsuit. I’d walked right into that one, so I permitted her the moment to bask in Gail’s giggles.

One point to the girl with the Pushkin tattoo, zero to the asshole who is pissing all over her hard-earned trust.

The surfer chick rolled two dollars into the tip jar, then winked at me, sucking hard on her straw. Jesse followed that silent exchange, and that made me feel better about shit. Kind of.

“Work’s good so far?” I ignored Jesse’s spunk. She placed her elbows on the counter from the other side, and it didn’t escape me that she looked confident, and radiant, and fucking edible. I zoned in on her again, realizing she wasn’t wearing her usual black hoodie. She must’ve pulled that shit from the depth of her closet, because she looked…fresh. Colorful, even, with plaid red leggings that were tight everywhere, her trademark Keds, and a long yellow T-shirt with two skeleton hands giving you the finger. She looked delicious and alive, and I suddenly felt both possessive and protective of her.