Kylie
“And this guy,” I say, slapping a hand to the photograph on my wall, “has laundered millions to the islands. He has an exotic dancer who tapes it to her body and flies down there once every two months.” My heart is thudding as I look at the masterpiece I’ve created. It’s about a six-foot by six-foot wall that I’ve turned into a hit list. Photographs, documents, and sticky notes.
“Kylie, I don’t think you should keep this up.” Penny looks at my wall as though I’ve hung a little kid’s artwork over a Picasso. As though she can’t appreciate the beauty of it.
“You don’t like my vision board? That’s what I’m calling it. Oprah said everyone should have one. It’s healthy. Visualize it and it will come true.”
“This is not what Oprah had in mind. This looks like what the FBI finds when they finally catch the psychotic stalker serial killer and search his house. You need to stop this.” Penny makes a move to take a pushpin out of the wall, and I step in her way.
“Don’t mess with it. Everything here is connected. I have it exactly how I want it. There are just a few more things I need to do before I’m ready to crush these guys. All of them. They’ve been living fast and dirty for decades. It’s time to take them down.”
Penny draws in a deep centering breath. Something she likely learned in Yoga or meditation. One of those many things I never make time for.
“I know we’ve had this conversation before, but I’m really serious this time. I’m worried about you. We started this together. You and Dalton did a great job of getting the people in the building to back off, but this is something different. You’re becoming obsessed.”
“We’ve already been over this. I’ve come to every dinner party you’ve had at your new apartment with Dalton. I show up and chitchat. That’s my compromise. But this,” I gesture at the wall and smile. “This is bigger than you and me. This is what my whole life has been leading up to.”
“Please tell me you didn’t really say that. Your whole life is leading up to this insanity?” Penny has my father’s warm eyes and sympathetic smile. She’s using that on me right now, and I have to say, it’s almost working. But she doesn’t understand what I mean. She never will. She lived with dad. The king of unconditional love and acceptance. He has his flaws, big ones, but Penny never had to vie for his attention. He was always there for her. Living with our mother was a different story.
“I’m going to beat these guys.” I slam my fist into my palm and look at the pictures of the unsuspecting men who think they are too big to lose. “I suppose you told Dalton all about this?”
“You asked me not to so I haven’t.”
“Really?” I ask skeptically. “He’s your fiancé.”
“And you’re my sister. He knows I’m worried about you. I can’t hide that. But I’ve stopped short of describing this wall.”
“I’m doing all this for you too. You’ll see once I take them all out.”
“Why do you always need to win?” Penny’s mouth drops into a disappointed pout.
I could launch into a deeper conversation that’s way overdue for Penny and me. There are layers to our life we’ve been too afraid to peel back. Being neighbors has made us closer in proximity but we’re still feeling our way around in the dark when it comes to being sisters. Instead I give her the simplest and truest answer I can. “Because if I don’t win, I lose. And I don’t lose. If I do this right they will fall like dominoes without the slightest idea I had anything to do with it.”
“How have you gotten all this dirt? Are you putting yourself in danger? What kind of risks are you taking?” Her hand is propped on her hip, and I love how serious she is about this. Flaky funny Penny has recently mastered a maternal tone. I’m happy for her. Keeping Dalton in line has brought out a side she should be proud of.
“Risk is only a risk if it doesn’t pay off. This is going to work.” I tap the wall again. “You see this guy? I’ve got a lead I’m tracking down. Apparently he set his own yacht on fire for the insurance money.”
“Put on your shoes.” Penny walks over to the corner of the room and grabs my black heels. “You and I are going out. All you do is work, come home to this, and sneak away to play private detective. You and I are going to dinner and coming up for air.”
“You have plans with Dalton tonight.” I remember the desperate look in Dalton’s eyes this morning in the hallway when he reminded Penny they have a dinner with clients, and they can’t miss it. Reading between the lines, he was telling me to get my shit together so Penny can be on his arm tonight rather than at my place, checking up on me.
“He’ll understand. He’s worried about you too.”
Before I can counter there is a light knock on the door. “That’s Dalton, I’m sure. He’s going to be pissed off if you cancel on him again so you can babysit me.”
I swing the door open to find Ben with his hands casually tucked into his pockets. I hate that I find him attractive at all. It’s like discovering your favorite wine can be purchased at a gas station. I refuse to go there. But it tastes so good.
“What do you want?” I keep the door mostly closed so he can’t get a glimpse of the wall. He’s been good to Penny and Dalton. He doesn’t need to be crushed along with all these other bastards, but I’m not letting him in on my plan either.
“Come out with me,” Ben says casually, his shaggy black hair intentionally messy.
“Into the hallway?”
His boyish grin is hard to resist but I do. “No, I mean out for dinner. Just you and me.”
“Thanks, but no.”
Ben stands there with his wide shoulders, fit body, and dark eyes that I would find attractive if I let myself. Men like him are a waste of time for women like me. He doesn’t have the drive to conquer to the world or even be the top in his field. I’d be better off trying to have a conversation with a puppy.
In a sneak attack, Penny shoves my shoes into my chest and pushes me out my own front door and into Ben’s arms. He braces my elbows and my face plants into his chest. He does have a nice chest. Damn.
“What the hell?” I shout at my now closed and locked door. “Penny let me back in.”
Through the door she says, “No. Go out. Laugh. Have good time. You need this.”
Penny loves me, but she has no fucking idea what I need. She got lucky with Dalton, but most relationships are nothing more than a time drain.
“If I did want to have a good time it would not be with a man from this building.” I meet Ben’s eyes. “It doesn’t speak much to one’s character.”
Ben sets me upright again and smiles, seemingly unscathed by my insult. “I didn’t pick this place. It was a perk in a deal I signed. What’s your excuse for being here?”
“You know why.” I eye him skeptically.
“I’m not sure I do.”
“Then I’m not sure I care to tell you.”
“We can stand here all day and argue, or we can go eat somewhere.” He gestures toward the elevator as though this is all completely normal.
“Did Penny tell you to ask me out?” I can smell a conspiracy, and I don’t like being handled.
“No.”
“Dalton?”
He doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t look guilty about it either. “I had no idea you were so skittish.”
“Skittish?” Is there an adjective that less describes me?
He flexes his shoulders. “I can see how I might be intimidating, but you can relax.”
“I am not intimidated by you.” Not by anyone.
“Then one dinner shouldn’t be a problem.” There it is, the grin that does funny things to my stomach. “Unless you’re afraid you might enjoy it too much. I should warn you now, I’m not the type to put out on the first date.”
“On the first date or ever?” I sound like a snarky bitch, but he’s getting to me. He leans closer, and I get a whiff of his cologne. It’s masculine but understated. I hate that I like it.
“If I were a virgin would you be gentle with me?”
I slide my shoes on and cross my arms. “Not for a second.”
“No one could ever call you boring.” His cheeks flush and my own warm in response.
“I don’t have my purse or anything.” I look back at my closed door and try to count the ways I’m going to make my little sister pay for this prank. Doesn’t she remember all those wet-willies I gave her when she read my diary?
A moment later Penny slides one of my credit cards and my driver’s license under the door. This is ridiculous. Not only is she listening in, but clearly she intends to overcome any of my objections. Does she think he’s my type? I could argue the point, but I’m actually hungry. It may be easier to go to dinner and show her what a waste of time this is. I let her in on the secrets of my life and now I have to manage the result. Attempting to be sisterly is overrated.
“You won’t need your credit card. It’ll be my treat.”
“But not a date.” I bend down and pick up my things and then point at him accusingly. “This is not a date.”
“Because we have nothing in common. Any date would be a disaster.” He states this as though he’s taking the position that the sky is blue. As though any idiot can see how right he is. I completely agree with him. Ben is nothing like the men I date. First of all, he breaks my rule about proximity. I like men to have a home base in another state. Pilots are great. Military men. They cruise into town and cruise right back out. We can blame logistics for keeping us from getting serious. Dating someone who lives in the same building is a suffocating prospect. But for some reason when I hear Ben announce how bad an idea dating would be, I feel a pang of something I can’t define.
“A complete disaster,” I finally agree, because I’ll be damned if he thinks I like him. “But I’m not going to be held hostage by my sister and her crazy whims.”
“Go,” Penny shouts through the door. “If you don’t I’m going to start taking push pins out of the wall.”
“Push pins?” Ben asks.
I ignore his question. Like a time machine, Penny and I are transported back to a time in our lives when we had to draw a line down the middle of our shared bedroom at my dad’s house. She needed boundaries. I only came over to my dad’s one weekend a month, but when I did she couldn’t respect that parts of my life were off-limits to her. She needed to know how I felt all the time. Was I happy? Who the hell is happy? And here we were again. She’s trying to fix me again. “Don’t you dare touch my stuff. Penny, I’m serious.”
“Go and all will be left intact.”
“Let’s go,” I say, tugging Ben down the hallway at a ferocious pace. “The sooner we go the sooner this is over.”
“You’re turning me on right now,” Ben says with a smile.
If there’s anything I don’t like it’s being laughed at. I stop at the elevator and give him a look that sends my employees scurrying. “I wish I could say you were doing the same.”
Ben laughs, but when I growl deep in my throat, it becomes a cough. “You’re a real charmer, Kylie.”
“Fuck you.” I press the button of the elevator firmly. I don’t care what he thinks of me. This isn’t a date; it’s a joke. Penny won this round, but I won’t let her get away with this again.
“You care where we go?” he asks as we descend. How he’s taking these hits without getting riled up is beyond me. But he has a hell of a poker face.
“Aren’t you going to sweep me off my feet and try to impress me with something fancy or unique?” I look at him as though I’ve seen the plot to this movie before, and I’m not impressed.
“You’re an executive at a huge company. I’m pretty sure if you wanted something fancy or unique you could get it for yourself. I don’t have anything planned. Not unless this is a date.” He waits a heartbeat then smiles again. “Which it isn’t.”
My normal quick rebuttal jams up in my throat. Gas station wine is a choice. To drink it you have to choose it. That’s not the life I want for myself. “I have an idea. It’s not dinner. It’s something more exciting. Unless you’re going to be a wimp and run back to my sister to complain about where I take you.”
“Never.” The corners of his mouth rise slightly, and there’s a sexual tension between us that makes me glad I know exactly how to show him how wrong we are for each other.
I eye him, watching for a reaction. “Are you afraid of a little pain?”
“Not particularly.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Right now? That look on your face.”