Finn
“Man, she shut you down!” Speed was laughing a few hours later. The pool hall was closed, officially, but Titan, Speed, and Finn were cleaning up. “It wasn’t even, like, a soft letdown or anything. You know? Like girls do sometimes because they don’t want to be mean. That was a hard shutdown. Man, she was all like, ‘No, I happen to know Wes does well.’”
“Shut up, Wes,” Finn snapped back.
Speed just continued to laugh. His eyes were sparkling, and he wrapped his slim arms around his middle as if his ribs hurt. Maybe they did. He’d been going on like this for the better part of an hour. “Oh man, I could have told you she wasn’t easy to get to if you had just come to me first.”
Finn picked up a chair, turned it over, and plopped the newly cleaned seat down on a recently scrubbed table. “Did you two ever date?”
Speed shrugged his shoulder. His laughter slowly subsided into giggles and then a lopsided grin. “Not exactly, man. I mean, check this. Like, we grew up close to one another, like three doors away, right? I knew her when she was just a little thing, all freckles and scraped knees. Back when she thought bugs and mud were cool. Those were good times.”
Finn had a hard time picturing Cora playing with bugs and mud. She wore a business suit like she was born in it. Who was this woman? She had all the markings of an upper-crust woman. The elegant way she moved. The cool way she had pushed him off her. She flashed her money easily and never seemed to lose her cool. All of it added up to a privileged woman. Yet, according to everyone who had known her way back when, she had been a tomboy with a bad-girl streak.
Where was that woman? he wondered. He’d really like to meet her. Was she hiding under those Armani suits and cool features? How did he help her let that out? Buying her drinks hadn’t worked.
“So what? Did you give her a cricket and say you were boyfriend and girlfriend?”
Speed ran his tongue across his teeth in amusement. “Naw, man. It wasn’t like that. See, we were in high school. This was back before she dropped out. We had crashed the homecoming game and were smoking under the bleachers when she just kissed me.”
“She came on to you?”
Speed shrugged. “As far as I could tell, Cora was never one for letting men come on to her. Got some control issues or something. She likes to manage things. Even when she was wild she liked to be the queen of the roost. So yeah, she just kissed me. I mean, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted it. She’s always been hot. Back then her hair was really long, and she put all these streaks in it. Like a raver girl. It was wild.”
Titan spoke up as he hauled the mop bucket out of the back room. “What happened then?”
“It was just…I dunno, man…it was weird. I know people say shit like ‘oh, it was like kissing my sister,’ but it wasn’t. It didn’t feel wrong. Just…I dunno, man. Empty. Like, when you kiss a hot girl there are supposed to be all kinds of tingles and your body gets all messed up and your head stops thinking. We didn’t feel any of that. I mean, if she had started stripping, maybe I would have jumped all over that, but…we just didn’t.”
Titan shrugged and thumped his hand against his chest so it vibrated. “It happens, man. Sometimes the heart knows better and stops a bad thing from happening.”
Speed nodded, almost solemn. “Yeah, man. That it does.”
Finn didn’t know about any of that. He’d never had a problem being with a woman. If she was willing, and wasn’t waving a knife in his face, he was pretty much up for it. One of the few times where his body had been like “no, man, don’t do it” was with Cora’s mom. That had been awkward and uncomfortable. He still couldn’t figure out how a woman like Cora had come from that. Oliver, well, he could see that a little bit. The kid could get manipulative and liked to get his own way. It was shitty, but true.
“So what are you going to do?” Titan asked as he swept the mop over the floor, leaving a clean streak among the collection of dust and spilled drinks. “She told you to back off. Might be best to just leave it alone.”
Finn plopped the last of the chairs onto a table so Titan could get a good mopping in. He slid himself down in one of the booths and shook his head. “I don’t know. Letting her get in touch with her wild side again had been my plan. Get a couple drinks in her, let her feel a little bad. Man, it usually works.”
“Not this time,” Speed said, pulling out the register to count out the day’s earnings. “You are going to have to try harder than that if you want her.”
Did he want her? Before tonight she had just been the hot sister to one of his friends. A woman he had wanted to seduce in order to help get Oliver out of the situation he was currently trapped in. Oliver deserved better than to be under the thumb of a woman who flashed her money around and ruled over everyone around her.
“What do you know?” Finn asked. “She didn’t exactly jump into bed with you.”
Speed continued to separate the stacks of bills and the credit card receipts. “But I remember who she did jump into bed with, and I can tell you there were a couple of things I noticed about all of them.”
“Tell me,” Finn said.
“She liked honesty. That was a big thing. If a guy came up to her and gave her a lot of pretty compliments, she sent them packing. Cora could always spot a lie. Maybe it had something to do with her mom being a world-class phony. She never liked that.”
“So I have to be honest?” Finn couldn’t remember the last time he’d been really honest with a woman. He had never been a liar, or made a lot of pretty promises. He had, however, been more than willing to give compliments that stretched the truth fine enough to see through.
“Chicks dig that kind of shit,” Titan offered.
“She didn’t much like being called a chick either,” Finn remembered. Her eyes had done that thing where they turned into smoky ice. He’d kind of liked that. Would they melt when he touched her? “So what do I do? Wait for her to call me? Show up on accident?”
“It’s a small town. Y’all will see one another eventually.” Titan dragged his mop down the middle of the floor.
Finn’s phone rang. The dulcet tones of Johnny Cash hummed against his chest for a minute before he looked down at the number. He didn’t recognize it. But it was nearly two in the morning, so it was probably important.
“Hello?” he asked as he hit the Accept button.
“Mr. Marks?” The voice was clipped, but elegant.
“Cora?” he asked. The other two men in the pool hall perked up.
“Is Oliver with you?” she demanded, sounding just a little frazzled. He had wanted, just moments ago, to hear that voice of hers lose a little control. This was not exactly what he had pictured.
He glanced up. Titan and Speed were both looking at him. “No, Oliver’s not here. Why?”
“I just went to check on him, but the window is open and he’s gone. I thought he was going to bed. He promised he was going to bed. I believed him.” Her voice damn near quavered on the last part. Finn ignored the fact that it bothered him to hear the woman who had given him such a stern talking to was almost in tears three hours later.
“It’s all right. I’ll help you.”
“What?”
He stood up, already pulling his jacket over his shoulders. “I’ll help you find him. I know where he likes to hang out. I’ll bring him back.”
“No, you’ll take me with you,” she argued.
“Why?”
“If he does this again, I need to know where to look.”
It wasn’t a bad point, and he liked the idea of her having to cling to him on the back of his bike. She’d probably enjoy that. He knew he would. “Yeah,” he finally said. “All right.”
# # #
She was standing outside when he pulled up on his bike. Her hair had that fluffy look of being freshly washed. There was a natural curl to it so the red framed her face, making her look even paler than she already was. The deep green business suit she wore was nearly the same cut as the one she wore earlier today.
She looked like an unfinished doll. Still pretty, but not quite ready for the world. If he hadn’t known she was worried, he wouldn’t have spotted the tightness around her eyes or the rigid line of her shoulders.
“Hop on,” he said. His foot hit the ground to steady the bike.
She looked at it like it was made of explosives. “No, we’ll take my car.” She held up her keys.
Speed had been right; she liked to be in control. Fine, he’d hand her the reins for a while. See how it went. Besides, they didn’t have time to argue with Oliver out and about. There was no way he was doing anything good.
“Did he have his bike?” Finn asked as he parked and pulled his key out of the vehicle.
“No. It’s impounded and I told him he wasn’t getting it back until after he went to court.” She hesitated a moment before saying, “A boy that young shouldn’t have a bike. It’s dangerous.”
Finn let out a shocked bark of laughter. “I’ll bet he just loved that. Might have been what sent him out tonight.”
She used the button on her keys to unlock the door. “You think I caused this?”
“Not on purpose,” he said, eyeing her as she plopped down in the driver’s seat. “Are you planning to drive, too?”
“It’s my car,” she expressed, leaving no room for argument.
Finn figured there weren’t a whole lot of people that argued with her. Another time he might have pushed and seen how far her steely demeanor would keep her cold. He held up his hands in surrender and slid into the passenger’s seat. It was a really nice car. It had the dual climate controls, heated seats, a place for all the electronics to plug in, the On-Star crap, and a GPS tucked right into the dashboard. Everything about it screamed luxury. Yeah, he thought, Cora definitely likes things to sparkle. He noticed there was no backseat.
“How are you planning on getting him home when we find him? We can’t fit three people in this car.”
“How were you planning to get the three of us on your bike?” she shot back.
He couldn’t exactly argue with that. She was a sharp woman. He hadn’t spent a whole lot of time with sharp women. College girls who were just beginning to figure out their own minds and lonely women who weren’t so interested in wit as they were in what was under his jeans. All of them had been fun, but none of them had made him work so hard to get anywhere. He kind of liked it.
“Fair,” he said, letting himself enjoy the feel of luxury leather beneath him.
“Where are we going?”
“The pool hall was where I would have looked first. I was there when you called, but he wasn’t.”
“Still?” she asked, turning the key in the ignition. The car didn’t roar like old ones did. It purred. It was a monster slowly waking up. Was there anything better than a hot woman with a sexy car?
“I was helping clean up.”
“Isn’t that a prospect’s job?” She pulled out of the space, and her skirt rode up a few inches as she positioned herself in the driver’s seat. His eyes fastened on the scant few inches of pale skin. “Buckle up.”
He saw the way her fingers flexed along the wheel and decided it would probably be in his best interest to listen to what she said. He clicked the belt into place. “What do you know about prospects?”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “It would behoove you to understand there is plenty you don’t know about me.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Like your criminal record.”
She didn’t quite wince, but it was pretty close. “Gee, how many drinks did you get into Wes to get him to tell you about that?”
“Not very many at all. But I’d still like to hear it from you.”
She threw the car into reverse with enough force to have him slapping against the leather seat. Her gaze was firmly on the road as she put it into drive and hauled out into the street. “I was young and stupid. There isn’t a whole lot else to tell you.”
For a minute, he didn’t know what to say. If she had been a ditsy coed, he might have flirted with her until she fessed up to her dirty little secret. But if she had been a coed he would have had her back at the pool hall. What was it Speed had said? Honesty? Yeah, he could try that.
“I don’t believe you. But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s your prerogative.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m surprised you know the word ‘prerogative.’”
He tossed her words back at her. “It would behoove you to understand there is plenty you don’t know about me.”
She laughed. He wasn’t sure who was more surprised, her or him. It was a good laugh. Not the giggling of a girl, but the ripe, full sound of a woman. It was the kind of sound that could have turned heads inside a crowded bar. He promised himself to get her to laugh more often.
“Fair,” she said. “Now tell me where we are supposed to go.”
There were a few places on his list, and Finn played navigator to her pilot. There was something sensual about watching her control that sleek car. Even so, after the first two places turned up empty, Finn found himself getting worried, too. It wasn’t like Oliver to disappear. Sure, the kid wasn’t perfect, but he was usually good about picking up his phone when Finn called. When Finn called for the seventh time and still got no answer, he had to fight back his own feelings.
“Why are you friends with my brother?” she asked.
“What?”
“What is a grown man doing hanging out with a kid?” she asked again. “You told me yourself, first time we met, you are thirty-two years old. Why are you hanging out with him? Are you grooming him for some criminal life?”
Finn shook his head. “Oliver is stubborn enough that he is going to do whatever he wants with his life.”
“That’s perceptive.”
“I happen to know a thing or two about being so damn stubborn that you make stupid decisions just to keep from doing what someone tells you to do.”
“So, what? You see a younger version of yourself?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Maybe. I never sat down and tried to figure it out. I just went with my impulse. I saw a kid who needed someone to count on.”
“And you decided you were the best option?”
“You weren’t here.”
Tense silence filled the car. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing he could have said to her. Maybe he could have framed it with pretty words and niceness, but he didn’t think it would work where Cora Anderson was concerned.
“Sorry,” he said after a moment. “That was a shitty thing for me to say.”
“It was,” she said in response. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. I did leave. I didn’t think about Oliver when I ran off to go live my life somewhere else. I don’t know why I didn’t. I could say I was too young and self-involved. It might even be true. But I haven’t been young in a long time.”
“What about self-involved?”
Her lips curled into a little smile that was anything but happy. “I learned a long time ago to put myself first.”
“Bullshit,” he said, shifting in his seat as he directed her to take a left off Main Street, toward the older part of town. He never liked coming out this way. The buildings here were crumbling in disrepair, and trash cluttered the edge of the road. “If you really felt that way, you wouldn’t be out here at three in the morning to find your brother.”
“That’s not true. I posted the bail. If he doesn’t make it to his court date, I’m out a fairly decent amount of money.”
“You’ve got money to spare.”
She snorted. “I only stay that way if I’m careful with it.”
“Park over here,” he said. “We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”
“Oh goody. I get to park my baby in the shitty part of town.”
She did it anyway, pulling the car into a parking space in front of a building with signs so faded the company name was impossible to read. Only a cartoon caricature of a dollar bill with a handful of smaller bills clinging to the locked double doors depicted what the business was at all. The tall sign out front was marked with spray paint, tagging the lot as belonging to a group that called themselves Stingrays.
Finn found himself frowning. Stingrays was a name he was only passingly familiar with. As far as he knew, it was a bunch of high school kids who liked to skip school and smoke a lot of pot. Harmless, really. Still, he’d never seen their tag on anything. Everyone knew the Violent Spawn was the force to be reckoned with in town, and when there were more pizza parlors than stoplights around here it wasn’t like there was a whole lot of town for crime.
“What’s wrong?” Cora asked.
He shook his head before he had even decided he was going to answer. “I don’t think so.”
She followed his gaze up and up until it fell on the same ragged patch of red paint. Cora was a clever woman; he knew that from the beginning. He watched her mist-colored eyes puzzle out the symbol, and then she frowned. “Who are the Stingrays?”
“Some local kids. They like to break windows and pull five-finger discounts.” He kept his voice light.
“What would Oliver be doing around here?”
He started walking, and he didn’t bother answering until he heard the steady click of her heels as she caught up with him. “There’s a girl.”
“Of course there is.” Cora crossed her arms over her chest. Her legs were long enough that she didn’t struggle to keep up with him, even in those girlie shoes. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know much about her. Her name is Britt, and she only moved here a few months ago. She’s got a brother Oliver talks shit about, and blue-collar parents who both work sixty hours a week to make ends meet. He bought her a teddy bear for her birthday last month.”
“A teddy bear? Must be serious.”
He smiled. “In the way of high school love.”
She was quieter when she said, “Pretty damn serious.”
Finn didn’t think of himself as book smart. School had never been his favorite thing. That didn’t mean he was stupid. He could hear there was a lot more to those words than Oliver’s girlfriend. He wondered if being stupid in love was what made her go bad before. Maybe that’s what was keeping her from getting wild now.
“I went stupid over a girl once,” he said.
She gave him a look of melodramatic shock. “Only once?”
He laughed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, all right. I can be a little bit on the crazy-for-ladies side. But can you blame me? Women are just…nice.”
“All women?”
He shrugged and found himself wondering how honest he was supposed to be with this woman. Sure, Speed knew her. Well, he had known her once upon a time. Did that matter now? She was talking more now than she had been back at the bar. Something was working. “Most women, if we are being up-front and honest about it. I like women. Sweet or sassy, skinny or thick. All of them have a certain kind of something that makes me want to see more.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll just bet.”
“Some more than others,” he said, bumping his shoulder against hers. “They are like cars.”
“Women aren’t cars,” she interrupted.
He nodded. “I know that. That’s why I said they are like them. It’s a metaphor or something. Just hear me out. Women are like cars. Some of them are all flash with no substance, nothing under the hood. Some might not seem like much at first, but they are real powerhouses. Then there are some that are a little of both.”
“Is that supposed to be some kind of compliment, Mr. Marks?”
He stroked his hand down his chin. “I mean, if you want to take it that way, Ms. Anderson.”
They reached a street corner and came to a stop. Unexpectedly, she turned toward him. “All right. I can’t figure you out.”
Finn wasn’t sure there was anything else she could have said that would have surprised him more. “What?”
“I can’t figure you out,” she repeated, throwing her hands up in the air. “I mean, if you were an absolute creep you wouldn’t be here now, trying to help find Oliver. If you were just interested in getting into my pants—”
“You’re wearing a skirt.”
She frowned at him. “Fine. If you were just interested in getting under my skirt, you would have tried to get me to stay at the hotel with you and wait for my brother to come home. Maybe you would have come up with some line about taking my mind off things.”
“Well.” He smirked and stepped forward, closing the small amount of distance between them. “If you want me to take your mind off things…”
“Stop trying to be funny. It’s not working.”
“Oh, ouch.”
She poked a finger into his chest. “The truth is a painful thing. So how about you tell me what you want here.”
She turned her head up until the glow from the overhead streetlight filled her face. For a moment, he was struck stupid. Her features looked sleek and catlike. Her eyes were long and slightly tilted near the corners, her nose and chin both ending in points. If she had pointed ears she would have looked like one of those elven babes in those sword-and-shield movies. He had never seen the appeal until this moment.
“All right,” he said. He snaked his arms around her middle and hauled her close. Her eyes went wide and then narrowed. “I will,” he promised, “but I need you to pay attention because I am only going to say this once. You want to know what I’m about? It’s simple. I like your brother because he is the smartest little idiot I know. I want him safe and happy and all that shit you normally want for family. You? I just want you. I want to see that skin of yours get pink and sweaty with wild sex. I want to kiss you until you want to make nothing but bad decisions.”
“I stopped making bad decisions a long time ago.”
Her lips were so close to his that he could almost taste her breath. The scent of peppermint swept over him. It wasn’t the sharp scent of toothpaste, but it was close.
“Well, that sucks.”
He dipped his head at the same moment she lifted hers. Her lips crushed against his with a wild fervor he hadn’t expected, but was willing to drown in. Her hands came around his shoulders and cupped the back of his head, pulling him harder against her. She smoldered in his arms, like some kind of living flame. Her tongue was quick and clever as it dove into his mouth in expAmytion, retreated and dove again.
He trailed his hands down her back to palm the curve of her backside. Finn struggled to remember a woman who had ever been so soft and warm in his arms. Desperately, he tried to think of a place where he could get her naked. He was just beginning to wonder if there was a counter inside the bank that he could plop her down on when she yanked her mouth away from his.
“What is it?” he asked, looking around. “What’s wrong?”
“This.” She motioned between them with one hand. The other was plastered on his chest, keeping him at arm’s length. “I can’t do this.”
“Sure felt like you were doing it just fine.”
“Mr. Marks, I am aware that you are accustomed to women who give in to the minimum level of your charms at the slightest provocation. I’m not one of them.”
Feeling a little stupid, he dropped his arms back to his sides. “All right.”
She blinked, surprise making her flushed features go pale all over again. Clearly, she had expected him to put up some kind of fight. “All right?”
He dragged a hand over his mouth, trying to clear his senses of her. “Yeah. Listen, I’m not going to lie. I want you. I think we’d be pretty fun together. But I’m not exactly turned on by a woman telling me no.”
Her smile was small and embarrassed. “I didn’t mean—”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got bigger things to worry about right this moment.”
“Oliver,” she said as if she’d just remembered what they were doing out here. She pulled her phone out of a pocket he hadn’t even felt despite how up close and personal they had gotten. “Goddammit. It’s nearly three in the morning. Where is he?”
He looked past her, out into the night and toward the old bypass that was just shy of being considered abandoned. As his thoughts came away from the fuzzy images of seeing Cora naked and purring, he could make out a few kids lounging between the cement columns. “I think he’s over there.”
Her head whipped around so fast her hair nearly smacked him in the face. The locks hadn’t even settled into place before she was moving, making a beeline for the overpass. He followed in the wake of her movements. As the pair of them grew closer, he made out the dark blue hoodie Oliver favored. He wasn’t lounging with the others; he was hanging from one of the beams like a monkey, a can of spray paint in one hand.
“Oliver!” she barked.
Everyone’s attention whipped in Cora’s direction. There were only three kids there, one girl and two boys. All of them were regular faces at the pool hall.
“Cora?” Oliver asked. A moment after that: “Finn? What are you two doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question.” Cora put her hands on her hips. “Get down here, now.”
“Oooooo,” one of the teens sang, his laughter filled with amusement. “Somebody’s in trouble.”
“Shut up, Niko,” Oliver snapped out as he slowly climbed down. His head hung down low, and his shoulders were hunched. He looked like a recently kicked puppy. Oliver shoved his hands into the large pocket of his hoodie after shoving the paint can into his backpack. “Cora, I—”
She held up one hand. “Don’t bother. We will talk in the car. Go.”
When Oliver hesitated, she snapped it out a second time. Oliver muttered something under his breath but stomped off to the car. Finn watched him go.
“Should I cling to the roof?” Finn smirked, already putting his hand in his pocket and wondering if Speed or Titan would be better to call.
She whirled on him. “How about you stay the hell away from Oliver?”
He blinked. “Wait, what? I don’t understand. I thought…”
“You thought what? That a single kiss in the middle of the underfunded part of town would mean you could get away with this?”
Finn had, on occasion, seen women get angry. It was bound to happen when he enjoyed their company as often as he did. He had been slapped, had a drink or two poured in his lap, and been called some pretty inventive names. One woman threatened to set him on fire and throw him off a bridge. None of that compared to the cold fury burning out of Cora’s pretty face.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She jabbed a finger into his chest hard enough that he wondered if there would be a bruise. He took a step back and held up his hands in surrender. “I can’t tell if you’re playing dumb because you think I am that stupid, or if you really are that stupid. Honestly, I’m leaning toward the latter.”
“Cora, seriously, what the hell is wrong?”
She used the same finger to gesture to the spot where Oliver had been painting. He followed the line she made in the air until he saw it. It was a tiger. Okay, it was half of a tiger, tearing its way out of the concrete. It was the same symbol plastered on Finn’s jacket and the jacket of every Jungle Brawler in the area.
“I am not an idiot. You aren’t just Oliver’s wannabe surrogate brother. You are trying to pull him into your little motorcycle club. You want to make him into a criminal.”
Finn didn’t know what to say, partially because she was right. When Oliver grew up a little more he’d probably make a great member of the club. It wasn’t like Finn had asked the kid to go out and do something stupid. Apparently, Oliver had done that on his own initiative.
“I didn’t ask him to do this,” Finn defended.
“Do you have any idea what would happen if a cop had caught him doing this? Breaking the law while he is out on bail?”
“I—”
She didn’t let him finish. Her clipped and cool voice plowed over his response as if she could not care less what he was about to say. “He’s sixteen. He’s old enough that a judge could waive the ability to try him as a youth. This stupid stunt could carry over into adulthood. Do you know how hard it is for convicts, even of nonviolent crimes, to get a job that pays anything but minimum wage?”
“Yeah,” he snapped back, finally getting angry, “I have a little bit of an idea.”
It was apparently the exact wrong thing to say. She clapped her mouth shut and turned on her heel. He got the bleak pleasure of watching her walk away before she casually tossed over her shoulder, “I’ll just bet you do.”