CHAPTER ONE

 

He wasn’t sure about me. 

I could see the truth in the way he rocked back in his chair and tapped two fingers against a knee as his blue eyes examined my face for signs of weakness or bad intentions. 

My instincts told me this was a man who would be too honest to toss out some bullshit excuse about why I wouldn’t be a good fit. I’d have to give him a reason to think otherwise.  I gazed directly back at him without flinching.

Eventually Cord Gentry must have seen enough for his satisfaction because he nodded once and asked, “So when can you start?”

I stifled a sigh of relief and grinned.  “Tomorrow.” 

He stared at me for a heartbeat and then grinned back.  “Good.” 

Cord produced some paperwork and told me that before my hiring was official I’d need to make an appointment to go piss in a cup.  He raised an eyebrow, maybe trying to gauge by my reaction if that was going to be a problem.  It wasn’t. I’d never been a drug user. I didn’t ask if the piss test was standard for all new employees or only for former gangbangers.  Either way I wasn’t going to raise an objection.  I understood I was only getting my foot in the door here because the other owner of Scratch used to be buddies with my old man.  I owed Deck Gentry a huge debt of gratitude. 

“Deck wanted to be here today,” Cord Gentry said as if he was reading my thoughts.  “But priorities got reshuffled. His daughter’s getting an award at her school and Deck never misses a parental obligation.”

“Of course,” I said, trying to match the image of a devoted family man to the hell raiser my father used to tell stories about.  Not that I was in any position to sit in judgment.  Perhaps there was nothing unusual about a man reformatting his life, only leaving rumors and stories in his wake.  The idea gave me hope. 

Cord was watching me but he seemed to have relaxed a notch since I walked through the door fifteen minutes ago.  “Deck says he hasn’t seen you since you were a kid but he remembers you well.” 

“I remember him too,” I said, sorting through old pictures in my head and stopping at one where Deck Gentry was rocking back on the legs of an old lawn chair in my folks’ barren backyard while he and my dad laughed over their ancient antics at Emblem High.  Deck was never one to come roaring in on his bike empty handed. After giving my old man a friendly slap on the back he would crouch down to my level and unload his leather jacket pockets.  They’d be full of small drugstore plastic toys and candy he’d brought for my brothers and me.

Until my recent move to the Phoenix area, the last time I had seen Deck Gentry was at my father’s funeral ten years ago. I was twelve at the time.  Even though he hadn’t been around, he’d still kept tabs on my family, sending envelopes filled with cash to my mother now and then.  I’d known he was up here in the valley but I didn’t want him to feel obligated so I hesitated to seek him out until I couldn’t think of anything else. 

Deck’s cousin, Cord, had started talking again so I had to shake off thoughts of the past.  Cord reminded me that I was being hired on a trial basis and during that time I’d be expected to work hard and keep my nose clean. I was also expected to take the training seriously.  I’d done some body piercing on the side but that was over three years ago and it just was a backroom operation in a seedy bar outside Emblem. 

This place, Scratch, was famous for their ink artists but piercing was a steady sideline from what Cord had said. Plus they were trying to get their merchandise line off the ground and the daily work of that task would primarily fall to me. To start out, when I wasn’t actively training I’d be printing logos on t-shirts and coffee mugs, plus helping with cleanup or whatever else was needed. The deal sounded much better than shoveling heavy objects beneath the desert sun for a notch above minimum wage so I was happy to do whatever chores Cord Gentry felt like assigning. 

My new boss shook my hand before I left and as I walked out of his office I felt pretty damn good, better than I had in a long while.  If someone would have told me two years ago I’d be this satisfied to land a taxpaying civilian job that would barely pay the rent and keep groceries in the fridge I would have told them to go kick rocks.  Back then it hadn’t occurred to me that all choices had unexpected consequences.  Now I knew differently. 

The lobby was full of customers and no one glanced twice at me as I passed through the glass doors out to the street.  After I checked my watch I looked at the address on the drug screening paperwork Cord had given me and figured I ought to get that chore knocked out today.  Folding the paper in half, I stowed it under my arm and headed to the parking lot. 

Two seconds later I felt a flash of irritation when I saw my decrepit old car had some company.  The girl was squinting at her phone and leaning against the driver’s side door like she’d found a piece of public furniture and not some poor guy’s only possession of value.  She made a laughing comment to a friend who was standing nearby beside a Toyota that was packed to the roof with the typical flotsam of college girl life; quilts and beanbag chairs and shit.  The university was only a mile down the road and these two had the oblivious look of privileged college girls, especially the blonde, who tapped her phone screen with pink manicured nails. 

Not that she wasn’t hot. 

I would have a damn good time pushing those cutoff shorts down her suntanned legs. In another time and place that might have been an option.  But right now I was just annoyed that she was using the hood of my car as a coaster for her Circle K cup. Anyway, she wouldn’t be my sort of girl.  She looked like the type who would blow an entire paycheck on a handbag and answer every question with an emoticon.

“Excuse me,” I said and the girl’s head whipped up at the sound of my voice.

There was surprise in her wide blue eyes and she didn’t move aside right away even though I was standing two feet away.  Now that she was looking right at me I could really appreciate just how pretty she was. That changed nothing. I wasn’t on the hunt for distractions right now. 

I shook my keys.  “That’s my car,” I explained because she was still just staring at me like I was a talking dog.  “You want to get your damn cup off it?” 

The girl flinched and swiveled her head to discover that yes, the thing she was propping herself up with was actually someone else’s car. Her pouty rosebud lips made an ‘o’ shape as she took a small step away.

“Sorry,” she said and with a toss of her golden hair flashed a smile that was probably used to winning any prize it wanted. 

I could feel their eyes on me, the blonde and her friend, as I unlocked the door the old fashioned way.  The old Ford had nearly as many years on this planet as I did and there was no magic button to press.  They were probably sizing me up, the ink on my neck, the faded look of my clothes, the crappy condition of my vehicle. Maybe they were waiting for me to say something or smile back but I didn’t feel like making the effort. 

Before I ducked into the car I noticed that the blonde had failed to remove her cup from my hood.  I plucked it off and tossed the thing into a nearby trashcan.  I didn’t wait around to see if the college girls had anything to say about it.  I had shit to do.