Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
“Yea?”
“This job might be done.”
He doesn’t answer. It’s not what he wants to hear, but he knows I’m right. We both do. I hang up.
Shit.
I post Danny’s bail at eight-fifteen. Ten thousand in cash. Someone else’s name on the bondsman’s form. Danny walks out of the courthouse with swollen fists and a cut over his eyebrow.
He spots my car and walks over with an embarrassed look on his face like a kid who knows he screwed up.
“The hell happened?” I ask as he gets in.
“Poker game in Chula Vista. Some punk accused me of cheating, and I just—look, he came at me first.”
“You broke his jaw,” I say, my voice tight. “This could blow up big on us.”
He sighs and stares at his feet. “Chris, look—”
“Two days, Danny. Two fucking days away from the biggest score of our lives, and you’re in a goddamn holding cell because you can’t keep your ass away from the tables.”
He scrubs his face with his palms. “I know, Chris. It was stupid.”
“It was reckless. Now we’ve got a Charger with government plates parked a block from the warehouse.”
Danny goes still, looking at me with serious concern. “Since when?”
“Showed up today. Could be a coincidence. Could be the start of something. Either way, this job is looking compromised.”
He stays quiet for a long time, working his jaw, tapping his fingers on his knee. “We can push it,” he says, grabbing for a way out of the shit he’s gotten us into. “Two weeks. Let the heat die down, change the staging area.”
“Or we abort completely.”
His eyes narrow. He looks at me like I’m fucking crazy. “Abort? Chris, it’s three million. I’m talking Lisa’s new house. Marco’s bakery. Whatever the hell you spend your money on!” He studies me closely. Danny reads people the way I read alarm systems, and right now, he’s reading something I don’t want him to see. “What’s going on with you, anyway?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Fine? Bullshit,” he scoffs. “You’ve been different since the last meet. Distracted. I called your regular phone twice and you didn’t pick up.”
Did he really? Shit. I didn’t even realize.
“I was busy.”
“Busy? In that empty house of yours with no furniture, no TV—” he stops, and I watch a flicker of understanding wash over his face. “No fucking way. There’s a woman.”
I want to protest, but how can I? He’s got me dead to rights.
“You? Mister No Attachments? We’re two days away from a job that could set us up for life and you’re busy playing house with some chick?” He shakes his head. My muscles tighten. My fingers ball into fists. “This is how people get caught, Chris. Get killed. You fall for someone and you lose your edge—”
“You wanna lecture me?” I snap. If he was anyone else, I would have hit him. “I just bailed your ass out of jail for a fistfight that jeopardized the entire score!”
Danny opens his mouth. Closes it again. Stares out the window at the courthouse where a woman is leading two small children up the steps. His expression softens.
“Lisa wants kids,” he mutters, almost to himself. “Been asking for a year. I keep on saying after the next job. I need this, Chris.”
He stares silently out the window. I can see his brain working, churning over the reality of our situation. Of his.
I don’t answer.
He wants me to come through for him. Salvage the bank job.
But is that even possible?
I need to see her. After what just went down at the courthouse, my body, my soul, all of me is yearning for her.
She mentioned earlier wanting to go by her apartment to pick up a few things, so I take a detour on my way home and go by.
Maybe it’s the Charger, or maybe it’s just my habits, but I scan every inch of her block before getting out of the car. Once I’m satisfied it’s clear, I take the steps to her door.
She opens a few seconds after my knock and immediately throws herself into my arms and kisses me—which I love, but it feels foreign. Public display of affection? Never in my life.
But I could learn to love it.
Her apartment is the opposite of my house. Photographs—ones she’s taken, I assume—hang on every wall. Her and Jules at the beach, with her folks at a barbeque, a dog she must have grown up with.
There are art books stacked on the floor, filling every shelf. The kitchen is a cute mess, and the sink is overflowing with dirty dishes. There’s a couch with vintage throw pillows and a blanket draped over one arm.
A real, lived-in home. Everything I’ve spent eleven years avoiding.
Avery is barefoot with her hair in a loose knot, wearing an oversized T-shirt that hangs mid-thigh. She can make absolutely anything adorable.
I catch the back of her neck and pull her in, kissing her again. Deeper, longer. She tastes of something sweet.