Her lips were on fire and her hand was stinging. What had happened? She'd been kissing him—tell the truth, girl, you were two seconds away from unzipping his fly and climbing him like a tree—and then he'd said something. She'd barely even heard the words, not really, just felt her ears explode with white noise, and then her hand was flying, and she'd punched this man who probably doubled her weight and could definitely bench press her.

 

He took it, though. Rolled toward the ribs she'd nailed. She'd aimed too high, and her knuckles were stinging. Danny—it hurt her just to think of his name in connection to a solid memory—would be pissed at her. He'd take her back to the heavy bag and make her practice another half hour.

 

She wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. She thought about hitting him again, but between his heavy, useful muscle and his scarred knuckles, she was sure he knew how to really fight, whereas she mostly knew how to hit that big leather bag, and even that was rusty. He'd let her hit him. And he would have let me fuck him, too. No, that wasn't entirely fair. He'd pushed her away, and said that thing about Danny. Thinking about it, about the words, made her gorge rise, and she had to take several long, slow breaths through her mouth to stave off the panic.

 

"Mister," she said, and then immediately felt ridiculous, because he didn't look any older than her, not really, "I don't know what you're doing here, or what kind of game this is, but I'd appreciate it if you'd get the fuck out of here before I call the police."

 

"Okay," he said, and his tone was way too agreeable, nothing like that smoky burn that had gotten inside her panties and made her want to do things to him that she'd only ever seen in videos. She couldn't shake that feeling of familiarity, hard as she tried, but she didn't care anymore. She didn't give two shits; she just wanted this man out of her shop. Delilah's shop. Fuck it, it didn't matter.

 

She watched as he reached into his back pocket. Before she had a chance to tense, he pulled out a wallet. He drew out three bills, way too much for the stupid clipper cut that had taken five minutes, and a slim white piece of card stock. He dropped both into the chair, so she wouldn't have to touch him. Or he wouldn't have to touch her. One or the other.

 

"I came because of Danny," he said, again, and she contemplated hitting him in the nose this time, even though Danny swore all she would do was break her knuckles. Boxer break, he'd called it.

 

But she had the idea that a big, solid man like the one in front of her could easily stop her from hitting him, if he wanted to. It followed that he'd let her hit him. Why? I came because of Danny. There were only so many people who could say something like that. It had been a lot of years since her big brother had died.

 

"I don't know what you're playin’ at," she said, and then almost cursed. She'd worked hard to get the burr out of her voice, to sound right to the spa clientele who came here from all kinds of ritzy places. She didn't like hearing it creep back in.

 

"I'm sorry to upset you," he said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. The card is my number. I'll be staying just outside of town. If you never want to hear from me again, I promise you won't, but if you want to talk, if you want to remember him together, call that number and I'll go wherever you want me."

 

In her imagination, any number of things happened. She called the police, who took him away in handcuffs for harassing her, or she leaped into his arms and he eased the ache that had woken up between her thighs, or first one and then the other. But in reality, she stood still, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides, until the thick heels of his motorcycle boots tapped out of the salon floor.

 

The little bell had entirely quieted before she moved, running across the floor like someone was chasing her to slap the lock shut on the door. Her heart was squeezed tight. She pressed the heel of her hand into her sternum, trying to loosen the ache before it entirely choked off her airflow.

 

She needed to breathe. She needed to breathe and not release the aching, choking sobs that were trying to escape.

 

She hadn’t cried since the day she was 13 years old and they put her big brother in the ground. She talked to him every single day, to the point that some of her more casual significant others hadn't realized her brother was dead, but she hadn't seen him in fifteen years. Most days, she could carry that weight. Today, she couldn't even see the shape of the pain it was so intense and so present.

 

The salon was quiet. She'd turned off the overhead music and the burbling fountains before the man had come in. Which was a lesson learned, she thought, forcing herself back into a functional mindset. Always lock the door before you start closing up, so you don't have to put up with incredibly sexy and deeply upsetting last minute visitors.

 

She could hear a song. A bubbly, happy pop song from the early ‘90s. She and Danny and their next door neighbor, Cody, had danced on the front lawn with that song blaring from Danny's boom box. She'd just started to have breasts, and she could see Cody watching her for the first time, feel Danny's uncomfortable realization that his sister had turned into a girl, and that his friend had noticed.

 

She'd felt the beginnings of a thrill she wouldn't really understand for years to come as she'd swayed her bony hips and tried to gyrate sexily to the music. She'd wondered what would happen next, and when Danny had gone to cross the street, planning to walk to the store at the corner of their block she and Cody were supposed to follow.

 

Only she'd stepped deliberately into Cody's space, not sure what to do, but positive that if she ran her fingers down the bare skin of his chest, between the outlines of his thin, teenager pectorals, he would start the next phase of her life. Danny couldn't see, he was walking away, and it was a good chance to be brave.

 

But Danny had seen. He'd turned around, and shouted at them, and instead of looking both ways, he'd backed into the street.

 

And then he'd been dead. Cody had been gone. She'd never seen him again, not even at the funeral.

 

When her brother had been run over by a motorcyclist who didn't even stop to see what had happened, she'd thrown up on the grass. She was fairly sure she'd thrown up all over Cody's bare feet. Now, she was painfully close to throwing up on the floor of the salon. And no. She wasn't that scared, sad little girl any more. She was stronger and braver than that. She'd seen therapists. She could control the fear.

 

It was her phone ringing. She needed to answer her phone. That was what a sane, strong person would do right now, and god help her, it was what she was going to do.

 

Jessie pushed herself to her hands and knees, and then to her feet. The world seemed the wrong shape, but if she could just get to the phone, everything would be all right.

 

She crossed the space between the door and the counter where she'd stashed her purse quickly and picked up her phone just before the call went to voice mail. "Hello?"

 

It was her mother's voice. "Hey, baby. I thought you were coming over after work?"

 

Jessie glanced at the clock. It was a solid hour after she was supposed to have closed up the salon and been on her way. Had it taken that long to shave his head, or had she been crouched at the door of the salon for a truly ridiculous length of time? She couldn't tell. "Sorry, Mama," Jessie said. "I got stuck with a last minute customer, and I didn't get a chance to call you. Is dinner ruined?"

 

"Nah," her mother said. "Come on over soon as you can, and it'll be the perfect time."

 

"Okay," Jessie said. The silence stretched for a moment, and she found herself wondering what she was supposed to say next. Should she ask her mother if there'd been any news about the biker who'd hit Danny all those years ago? At the time, the cops hadn't had any leads, but the case hadn't ever actually been closed, and there had been a rookie on the case at the time, Sergeant Pedroza, who had found her in the grass crying, in her own vomit, and he'd put a shirt around her shoulders and passed her a bottle of ice cold water. He'd sworn to her mother that he'd never stop looking, and he'd stopped by every few years to—well, nothing much, because nothing new was ever uncovered. No one cared about the kid hit by a biker. They weren't rich enough or white enough for anyone to take notice. Just another poor white trash family with a father who’d gone to jail for meth, then disappeared instead of coming home. She could cut their hair, but that was all she was good enough for.

 

There was no need to drag out all that pain for her mother. "I'll be there soon, okay?"

 

"Yeah, baby," Mama said, and the call ended.

 

Jessie took a few more minutes trying to find the calm inner peace her therapist had talked about when she was a teenager. It was elusive, and she had a hard time breathing properly. But she needed to get her shit together. She was having dinner with her mother, and then she'd go home and figure out what the hell she was going to do about this mysterious stranger.

 

She picked up the bills he'd dropped in the chair, tucking them under the strap of her bra. She'd closed out the till earlier; she'd explain what happened to Delilah tomorrow and they'd fix the register. Probably Delilah would tell her just to keep the money.

 

She thought about just throwing out the card and pretending none of this bullshit night had even happened. He'd said he would stay out of her way; if she wanted to be done, she could be done now.

 

Instead, she flipped the card over. It was plain white on one side, and on the other, in a simple black font, it read "Tex Brewer, Fixer." A ten-digit number was printed below that. Nothing else.

 

A fixer. She'd heard that expression on TV, on that show about the woman in D.C. who slept with the President and made famous people's problems disappear. She'd never heard of it in real life. It felt a little bit like she'd been handed a business card that read "assassin."

 

Jessie shook herself. She couldn't spend any more time here, not making a decision. Mama had been nice about it, but she expected Jessie to show up promptly on dinner night, just like she had when she was a girl. They only had each other now, Mama had said every night after Danny died, when Daddy was gone. They had to cling like burrs.