Page 11 of Ricochet
Hell, no. I shook my head. “Too dangerous.”
“You think this is … making this easier?” Her voice cracked and her eyebrows pinched. “What if you die? What if something happens to you, and I’ll never know!”
I reached for the hands she’d balled into fists on the tabletop but hesitated, choosing to keep mine at a distance. “You got your shit together now. You’re gonna go to college—”
“I don’t know that!” She looked around as her voice bounced off the walls, drawing Hannah’s attention. “What if I don’t? What if I’m not accepted, huh?”
“You’re gonna be accepted. You’re fucking brilliant, Lauren.” I huffed. “I told you, I’ll be around. Who knows, maybe I’ll pop in on you and your girlfriend sometime. But no coming around my place anymore, hear? No asking about me. Promise me.”
That seemed to bring some relief, because she slumped back into her seat and crossed her arms a moment before reaching out to pet Blue. “Will you bring him to see me?”
“We’ll see.” No promises. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d follow through to visit her. Why pick at the sting?
Her lip twisted like she chewed on the inside of her cheek, as she often did in thought. “Okay. I promise.” She wiped tears from her cheek. “Damn, Nick, why you gotta make me cry in public?”
Only on occasions that I made her feel uncomfortable, or pissed her off, did she lose her usually articulate manner of talking.
“I’m sorry. I don’t like seeing you cry at all. What d’you get outta this, anyway, meeting up every Wednesday? Old people do that shit.”
As planned, my comment tugged a laugh from her. “Someone’s gotta take care of your ass. Not like you found yourself a woman.” Her lips kicked up to a half smile. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were gay, too.”
I raised a brow and sat back, throwing my arm across the seat, and goddamn if that wasn’t the precise moment Hannah chose to walk up—as if the two of them had planned something.
“Hannah?” Lauren’s eyes shot to mine and back to the waitress. “Nick’s a good lookin’ guy, right? Would you fuck him?”
I choked on my coffee, leaning forward to catch the fallen drops on the tabletop. “What the fu—”
As she filled our coffee cups, Hannah pursed her lips, then her gaze locked on mine. “Hell, yes, I would.” She winked and sashayed back toward the kitchen, tossing another wily grin over her shoulder as she went.
“You see? It’s not like it ain’t practically falling in your lap. And by it, I mean clean, straight pussy. Lots of it.”
I ignored her comment. “Few weeks, I’m going to transfer some cash into your account.”
“You don’t have to keep doing this.”
“Someone’s gotta look out for your ass.” I took in the weight of her smile, the sadness, as if she couldn’t let go. “Hey, who guards the flock?”
She rolled her eyes. “The shepherd.”
“And who’s the shepherd?”
“My brother.”
“Don’t forget that.” I hooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her gaze to mine. “No matter what shit I got going on, I will always watch out for you. Got it?”
She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “For a sadistic, loveless bastard, you got a heart of gold, Nick.”
CHAPTER 4
Nick
It wasn’t hard to identify a trap house. Any joint on the block a bastard would’ve ordinarily stayed the fuck away from, and he’d have stumbled upon a crack whore’s dream. Chipped bricks lay half tumbled from the front porch, where posts from what must’ve been a banister in its heyday stuck up from broken concrete steps.
The rancid smell of shit stung my nose as I climbed the steps. The porch was littered with liquor bottles, shitty diapers, bicycle tires, a shopping cart, a white bucket filled with a thick black liquid, garbage bags—the kind of random objects that didn’t make sense when piled together.
Plywood coated in graffiti covered the front door and windows. I gave three knocks to the wood, and a voice inside told me to go to the alley.
Tugging my Glock from the holster and sliding it just inside my coat, I headed along the side of the house toward the back.
