NINE

Hooch

To say I’m curious would be an understatement. I don’t doubt the woman when she says she has no agenda. Her apparent situation means she should be looking for any and every opportunity to rip us off, but there’s something bubbling under the surface, a pride, that tells me she wouldn’t have it in her to ruin her character like that.

Looking after the grounds is a shitty job; the prospects usually do it. Yeah, I’m testing her, but fuck it, can’t a man have a bit of fun anymore?

Digits storms back inside after showing the fairy where to find everything, his face a fucking storm.

“Was that necessary?”

“You questioning my decision makin’, brother?”

His eyes narrow, his jaw working side-to-side. He knows better than to query my leadership, no matter how trivial the subject.

“You got a thing for her?” I jerk my chin towards the front.

“Nope, but I also can’t stand people who fuck with others just ‘cause they can.”

I grumble my acknowledgement of his assessment and nod, eyes narrowed. “You think that’s what I’m doing here?”

“Aren’t you?” His feet shuffle as though he can’t decide if he should take me on or get the fuck away before he says something stupid.

“Not at all.” I shake out a cigarette and then offer him one.

He shakes his head. “What’s the end game then?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.” Fuck me, I sound like the late Carlos motherfucking Redmond. Drug business must be getting to me.

Digits storms off to take his leave with the rest of the crew still hanging about the bar. I bring the cigarette to my lips, flame poised midway when I freeze. Heather eyeballs me as she follows Digits through to the parlor.

“How long were you hangin’ about listenin’ in on shit?”

She hesitates at the doorway, clicking her fake nails. “Long enough.”

I stride over to the scrawny bitch, cornering her against the wall of the entrance. “You fuckin’ with that boy’s head was cute at first,” I say, gesturing in Digits’ general direction with the cigarette between my fingers, “but the rest of us brothers are tired of your fuckin’ games, whore. You’re here for general use, so you better start sharing what you have around a bit more or I’ll find someone to replace you who can.”

Her blackened eyes narrow as she stares me down. “That so?” Bitch has balls.

“Yeah, honey-pie. That’s so.”

I allow her to slip out from around me and make her beeline to Digits’ side. Telling a woman she’s not worth anything more than what her body can provide isn’t something I’ll ever be comfortable with, but sometimes you’ve got to play hardball to make the stubborn ones understand. The soft touch has never worked with Heather, and I’m damn serious when I mean I’ll replace her.

Girl just doesn’t realize she won’t stay breathing if I do. No such thing as watertight NDAs when it comes to jaded women. Only way you can ensure their silence is with a carefully placed bullet between the eyes and about six foot of solid turf between them and the world outside our walls.

The cigarette crackles as I succeed on my second attempt to light it. My phone vibrates in my pocket; I don’t need to pull it out to know who it is. Asshole has his own pattern assigned to him so I don’t get caught checking it in the wrong company.

Donovan Jessup: state coordinator for the DEA task force assigned to the fallout after Carlos’ “disappearance”. He’s the fucker who holds my future in the palm of his hand—although ultimately it doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with drugs.

How’s that for irony? If I’m to be taken down, it’ll be by a fed who’s assigned to investigate drugs, for a crime that has almost no relation to them whatsoever.

Asshole.

I step out front, relieved to find there isn’t another soul in sight except for the fairy across the yard fussing around with the old tools in the shed. Probably should buy some without splintered handles. It’s a bit of fun when the prospects spend several days picking wood out of their hands, but she’s a bit different—she doesn’t need the same grilling.

I watch her as she rustles around the workbench that stretches the longest wall of the shed. My cigarette burns out while she stacks empty plant pots and hangs the hand tools on their assigned hooks. The shed has some sort of order to it, but fucked if the prospects ever manage to do more than throw the tools in the door and hope for the best. As long as they can lock it, they don’t care what’s inside.

I light another smoke, conscious if I don’t I’m either going to knock back another bump or head indoors to get a bottle of whiskey. My habits are killing me—I know it. I’m not blind to the individual effects of drugs or alcohol on a body. And I’m certainly not naïve to the fact doing both at the same time is mainlining me straight to hell.

Still—it’s what gets me through the days. Without it, I would have ended this rocky ride months ago. What’s the point of living when there’s nothing to look forward to? Something I ask myself every day.

The fairy lives up to her name, flitting lightly about the space as she dumps empty fertilizer bags out the door, effectively starting a trash pile. I watch her work, impressed to hell that she’s taken the task on without so much as a complaint. She’s got guts, that’s clear. A pretty young thing like her travelling alone? She can’t have family, because I know if I had a knockout daughter like that I’d have her locked up so perverted fuckers like me didn’t sit across a dusty yard from her, hoping her shorts rode up a little further to give a glimpse of what’s between those tanned legs.

Dirty bastard.

No doubt about it—I need to get laid. Only problem is, last time I fucked my issues out with one of the girls who hangs around here, I ended up locking myself in the bathroom afterward so she didn’t see me having a full on meltdown.

Unleashing the kind of sensations, the emotions that come with a release such as sex only builds a pathway for the ones I’ve kept at bay in my head: loneliness, regret, hopelessness. I can’t reach the pinnacle with one without experiencing the fallout of the other.

I stub the second cigarette out and rise to my feet, pretty certain a shot or two wouldn’t hurt me all that bad. Sure could use it—no doubts there.

The fairy glances up from her work as I take a step backward toward the doors, and for a brief moment my feet hesitate. She’s the complete opposite of me: living out her days alone and seemingly enjoying it.

I could walk over to her and demand she tells me how to do it, how to survive the rest of my days without the people I want the most there to share them with me anymore. But then again, I don’t really want to be that friendly with her.

And truth be told, I don’t think she wants me to be either.