Chapter 9
Emma
When I fell asleep, Sebastian was snugly pressed against my side with one arm holding me against him. So waking up and finding an empty bed is a bummer. But I’m not surprised. Guys like him don’t stick around the next day. And even though I’m alone, I still try to pretend I’m not looking for a piece of paper with his number on it, or maybe even a business card. But there’s nothing. No sign he was here, and definitely no sign that he wants to see me again.
And that’s okay.
One night of incredible sex with a gorgeous man is better than none. And since that’s all I have on my horizon, I’m grateful for last night. I stumble into the shower to wash the sweat and come from my body, stopping short when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Small bruises mar my hips and thighs. I don’t remember being in any kind of pain, so the visual reminder of our night together makes me smile. He is one sexy man. As I turn on the water and wait for it to warm up, I recount the magic that was his tongue. God, how is he single?
The hot water from the shower feels nice, but I regret washing away Sebastian’s scent from my skin. If I could wear the evidence of our night together all day, I would, but that’s too pathetic. Even for me. Since I don’t have anything planned for the day, I strongly consider crawling back into bed and doing nothing. But instead, I get dressed and turn on my delivery app, setting my status to available.
There aren’t a lot of corporate orders on the weekends, so I’ll be in my car all day delivering meals to people at their homes or parks. There’s a festival going on at Barfield Crescent Park, so I’ll probably make at least a few runs out there to bring food to vendors who can’t leave their stations all day.
~**~
For the next week, I go about my life as if I didn’t just have amazing sex. That’s the problem with amazing sex. You don’t just have it and forget about it. You have it once and want more. It’s like a drug that calls out to you every minute of the day. Before I was with Sebastian, I barely thought about sex. In the back of my mind, I wanted it and needed it, but I definitely wasn’t obsessed with it. Not like I am now.
Because right now, it’s all I can think about. And not just any quickie sex with a stranger. No, I want it like it was with Sebastian. That’s what sucks the most. I’ll probably never see him again, other than maybe the occasional sandwich drop-off at his offices. So, I’ll have to make do with the memories of our amazing night together.
So day after day, I keep myself busy and try not to think about what I’m missing. There’s no sense in dwelling on something that isn’t meant to be.
It’s 11:15 on Monday when I get assigned a large delivery. Seventeen lunch boxes from Bacon Bits Deli need to be delivered to a law firm down the street. I don’t want to drive, but there’s no way I can carry all that food on foot, so I rush back to my car, double-park in front of the deli, and load up the order.
The building is only a couple blocks away so the drive doesn’t take long. But it’s parking that is usually a bitch. Fortunately, the law firm is in a building with an underground parking lot. I have to carry the bags up in two elevator rides, but at least my car is in a loading zone close to the entrance. Jobs like this are a pain in the ass, but if the $200 order earns me a $30 tip, I won’t be complaining.
In fact, I’m seriously tempted to visit the foot massage place next to the deli. The sign out front boasts a twenty-minute massage for fifteen bucks. It’s an indulgence I probably shouldn’t consider, but I deserve to splurge on something for myself. I finally have my bills paid off and can start thinking about building up a savings again. Throwing away a few bucks on a massage isn’t the most responsible thing to do, but it isn’t going to break me. Besides, my feet can definitely use a nice rubdown. And the rest of my body won’t mind one either.
For the next twenty minutes, I pretend the man rubbing my body through my clothes is actually a six-foot-three businessman with tattoos peeking out from under his collar and the hungriest eyes I’ve ever seen. The grip and smells aren’t the same but I make do with my imagination since that’s all I’ve got.
My phone goes off halfway through my session, but I ignore it. If I only have twenty minutes of human contact today, I’m going to enjoy every one of them. Then my phone rings again. And again. It’s starting to get embarrassing, and it’s way past annoying. But I turn off the sound and shove it back in my bag. It’s an unknown number, and I usually don’t pick those up anyway.
By the time I peel my body out of that reclining chair, I’m almost relaxed. Not post-sex kind of relaxed, but I’m way less tense than I was when I came in. At least until my phone rings again. I’m just about to drop into my car seat, so I answer the damn thing, ready to tell off whoever has the wrong number so they can leave me the hell alone.
“Fuck, Emma. Why the hell don’t you ever answer your phone?”
“Excuse me? Who is this?”
“Seriously? You don’t even know your own brother’s voice? It hasn’t been that long.”
I groan inwardly. Or maybe it was outwardly based on his own scoff. “Eli? Whose phone is this?”
“Mine. It’s new. Hey, I’m at your place. When are you gonna be home?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I so don’t need a visit from my brother right now. Whenever he shows up, he usually brings drama―if not a few women―with him. “Eli, it’s not really a good time for me. I’m going through some shit…”
He cuts me off before I can finish my excuse. “I’m going through some shit too, Em. This is an emergency. I need to stay with you for a while.”
I pull out into traffic even though I have no interest in going home now. Any threads of relaxation that might’ve still been inside me disappeared the moment I heard Eli’s voice. “For how long?”
“I don’t know. Just get your ass home and let me in.”
“Fuck off, Eli. I’ll get there when I get there.”
As usual, he ignores everything I say. “And bring food. I’m starving.”
He hangs up before I get the chance to hang up on him. Dammit. I seriously hate him. But at least I now have a new destination in mind.
I head to Sushi Rito for a giant sushi burrito then eat it on my drive home. I might be willing to let that asshole stay with me for a few days, but I’m definitely not going to feed him when he’s being a dick.
When I get home, Eli isn’t camped out on my doorstep like I expected. Thank god. Maybe he got bored and decided to find someone else to crash with. I open the door with a smile on my face until I see him sprawled on my couch with a bag of chips laying on his chest.
“Are you breaking and entering now?”
He spits crumbs all over himself when he tries to talk with a mouthful of chips. “Can’t help it if Mercy still has a thing for me.”
Dammit, I forgot to warn Mercy that he was back in town. I grunt as I pass him and head straight to my bedroom to take off my shoes and bra so I can get comfortable.
“What’s for dinner?” he calls out just as I’m slipping into a pair of sweats. Fucker.
“Whatever the hell you get yourself for dinner. I already ate.”
“I told you to bring me food.”
I walk out to the couch and grab his feet, throwing them onto the floor so I can sit at the other end. “I don’t care what you told me. I don’t jump just because you’re hungry. If you had asked nicely, I might have considered getting you something too. But when you demand shit, you get shit.”
He rolls his eyes and flips the channel on the TV just as a commercial comes on.
“You know, you can fast-forward through commercials now. It’s some new-fangled technology from the turn of the century.”
“Thanks, but this annoys you more.”
“Have fun eating ketchup and stale bread for dinner.” I’m almost pissed at myself for having a full pantry of food at the moment. I wish ketchup and stale bread were his only options, but if he thinks that’s all I have, maybe he won’t bother looking.
He shakes the bag of chips he’s devouring. “Nice try, sis, but I already found your food. I just didn’t want to make anything. But I will if you’re gonna be all bitchy about me being here.”
“Why are you here, Eli? I haven’t seen you in over a year.”
“Can’t a guy come visit his sister without all these questions?”
A normal guy probably can. But Eli isn’t a normal guy. “No. Because you only see me when you need something, and at the moment, I’ve got nothing to give. I’m broke. So, I hope you aren’t here for money.”
“How can you be broke? Rick makes good money. I’ll borrow it from him.”
I bark out a laugh. “You’re a little late, dude. That asshole has been gone for months. He left me with a pile of bills and back rent to pay, so you’re shit outta luck.”
Eli sits up straighter and rests his bent elbows on his thighs then clasps his hands together. He looks at me with the most serious expression I’ve seen from him since, well…ever. “You really don’t have anything? No savings I can tap into?”
“Nothing. I swear. Not that I’d give it to you if I had it, but I don’t have anything.”
Eli throws his back against the couch cushions and screws his eyes shut. “Fuck. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
“What do you need money for anyway?” I grab the remote from the cushion between us and mute the TV. I hate talking over it.
He shakes his head without opening his eyes. “I pissed off the wrong people.” He takes a deep breath then glances at me. “Powerful people.”
“Who?”
“The less you know, the better. I just need to find some cash.”
“How much?” I have less than a thousand dollars between my savings and checking account, but if it’ll get him off my couch any sooner, I might actually hand it over.
“Five hundred.” Eli’s voice is low as he says it.
“Damn, Eli. That’s practically my entire savings.”
“Thousand.” His eyes are locked on mine, and the vulnerability I see there makes me feel weird inside. I don’t like seeing my brother so…broken. He’s a dick, and I hate him most of the time, but he’s always strong and confident and in charge. This side of him is new, and I don’t like it at all. “Five hundred thousand.”
It takes a second for the number in my head to sync up with the number that just came out of his mouth. “Five hundred thousand dollars? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I wish I were…” He picks up the remote and turns the volume up a few notches. It’s still low, but the background noise actually helps clear my head.
“What did you do?”
The asshole actually smiles for a second as if remembering something nice before a frown covers his face. “There was this girl…”
“Oh god.” I hold out my hand to stop him. “I’m gonna need a drink for this. Want a glass of cheap Chardonnay?”
Eli shrugs his shoulders, but he doesn’t seem to care either way. “Whatever. Just hurry up so I can get this out. I don’t want to drag it on all night.”
I kick his shin as I walk around him. “Oh, excuse me for interrupting your riveting story of how you fucked yourself into a fucked-up situation.”
“Damn, girl.” He laughs at my outburst. “When did you start talking like a guy? You’re worse than me.”
“I only talk like a thug when I’m talking to thugs.” I pull an open bottle out of my fridge and empty it into two glasses. As soon as I get back to the living room, I hand one glass to my brother then cross my legs on the couch so I’m facing him. “Okay, tell me about the hooker you were with.”
“How do you know she was a hooker?”
I raise an eyebrow at him from over my glass as I take a drink. “You were in Vegas. Of course, she was a hooker.”
He shakes his head then takes a sip of his wine. He doesn’t look impressed by it, but that’s too damn bad. My house, my cheap wine. “Well, I didn’t know she was a hooker at the time. I thought she was just a hot chick with great taste.”
I almost spit out my wine when I realize he’s being serious. I mean, my brother isn’t bad to look at, I guess. He’s tall and works out, but he’s such an arrogant douche that it’s hard for me to imagine any woman being interested in him. Which is why I know the woman he’s talking about is a whore. “Okay, anyway, then what?”
He glares at me but continues his story. “So, we go back to her room, and it’s this giant suite in MGM Grand. It’s like a house.” He looks around my apartment and holds his arms out. “The foyer is as big as your entire place.”
“Okay, so she is a high-end hooker.” I nod my understanding. “Good for her.”
“Uh, she was.” Eli doesn’t usually beat around the bush like this, so the fact that he won’t just say whatever he needs to say has me worried. This must be worse than I thought.
“What do you mean?”
He downs the rest of his wine then places the empty glass on his bent knee. “Her pimp came in and killed her. He just shot her in the head when I was on the balcony the next morning.”
My jaw drops when I realize Eli isn’t joking. “Right in front of you?”
He nods. “They didn’t know I was there. I saw this big dude walk in and pull a gun on her while she was still asleep. I wasn’t even dressed. I just snuck back inside through the doors to the living room then got the hell out of there.”
“Did they see you?”
Eli doesn’t answer for a long moment, and when he does, he won’t make eye contact. “Not exactly.”
“Quit the games, Eli! Just spit it the fuck out. What happened?”
He rolls his eyes like I’m the one being dramatic here. “I was buck naked. I grabbed a bag off the coffee table and ran. They didn’t see me leave, but as soon as I was able to duck into a bathroom, I realized the bag wasn’t full of clothes. It was full of money.”
Oh, this just gets better and better. “Let me guess. Half a mill?”
He nods. “I know that sounds awesome and all, but I’m getting to the bad part.”
“Oh, you mean watching a sleeping woman get shot in the head wasn’t the bad part?” I take a gulp of my wine to finish it off then slide the glass onto the table. “Then, please, continue.”
“Well, you know how I was naked and all?”
I make a face, not wanting to visualize that. “I guess.”
“I left my wallet there.”
Okay, now it’s all starting to make sense. The reason Eli is on my doorstep is because he’s hiding from some pimp he lifted half a million dollars from. Why am I even surprised? “So, they know who you are and where you live?”
Eli gives me the same guilty smile I’ve seen on his face since we met when we were teenagers. We have the same dad but different moms, so we didn’t grow up together. He found out about me when he was seventeen, and I was thirteen. He came to my house one day to meet me after his dying father, the man I’d never met, admitted to having an affair with my mom. The man knew my mom got pregnant, but he didn’t want his wife to find out, so he cut ties, and Mom raised me by herself.
When Eli showed up on our doorstep, I was excited to have a brother, but the intense loss I felt at knowing the man whom I’d fantasized about meeting someday was dead overshadowed that happiness for a long time.
We’ve had a rocky relationship since then. Sometimes we get along. Sometimes I want to kill him. Tonight, he’s lucky to be alive.
“He probably thinks I’m still in Vegas. That’s where I was living at the time. So, I just need to come up with the money to pay him back, and then I can move on with my life.”
“Wait a sec.” I run through his story in my head. “Where is the money now? You couldn’t have spent it all…”
Again, that fucking guilty smile is back. “I was on the run, Em. It’s not cheap to buy a car with cash and live out of hotels for months.”
“Months!” I want to smack him for being so stupid. “You blew through that kind of money in a few months?”
“It doesn’t matter where the money went.” He holds up a hand to calm me, probably not realizing I’m going to bite it off if he doesn’t get it out of my face. “The point is, the money’s gone, and I need help replacing it.”
“Eli, you have to go to the police.” I stand up and point toward the door.
“Whoa… I can’t.” He leans back as if he thinks I’m going to physically drag him to the police station. I have to admit, it’s a tempting idea.
My eyes are bulging out of their sockets in frustration. “Eli, you witnessed a murder, you stole money that was probably already stolen, and then you spent it all like an idiot. We have to go to the police. Now!”
Eli stares at me like I’m the crazy one here. “Do you know what will happen to me if I go to the police?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Your ass will live. Let’s go.”
“No way.” He plants his feet stiffly on the floor and seems to brace himself deeper into the sofa. “I’m not going to jail just because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You’re being overly dramatic, Eli. The police have experience dealing with this type of thing. They can handle it better than you have.”
“And you’re being overly optimistic.” He huffs out a breath, digging his thumbs into his temples before looking at me again. “Don’t you watch any movies? Once an investigation gets started, the psycho looking for me will know where I’m hiding. You don’t think sudden interest from the podunk Murfreesboro PD won’t throw up any red flags?”
Okay, that’s not a bad point. I cross my arms over my chest and just stare at him. “This is ridiculous.”
“Once word gets out that I’m here, he’ll send his goons for me. I won’t know who they are, but I assure you, they’ll know me.”
“There is such a thing as witness protection. You just have to stay hidden long enough to testify.”
He’s not convinced. “You may as well lay me in the dirt and put a daisy on my head.”
My eyes roll. “I think you’ve been watching too many movies.”
“Come on, Em. You know I’m right.” He probably is, or at least, he could be. Maybe the police wouldn’t be able to help him at this point.
“You know I hate you, right?” I heave out a heavy breath and slump down into the sofa.
“I know you do, sis.” He gives me a more genuine smile. “But you’re also the only person who loves me enough to help. So, what are we gonna do?”