The first step was to get Hut and his crew out of the picture.
Chapter Eleven
LOLA
It had been three days since I’d seen Brody. Three days since his lips were pressed against mine. Three days since he finally relented and gave in to what we wanted.
I’d heard him in the house but resisted going down and seeing him. I didn’t know what we were doing or where we were going. The only thing I did know was that I had to finish my assignment. And after several all-nighters and hundreds of pages of research, I’d completed it with an hour to spare.
Now I was ready to crash and sleep for several days, but the sounds of a party were echoing off the walls, terminating that idea. I wanted peace and quiet, but there was no way I’d be getting that in this house, so I dragged my ass off my bed and slammed my laptop closed. The thing had been my savior these last couple of days, but I didn’t want to have to look at the screen ever again—at least, not until I had to anyway.
My hair was a greaseball pulled into a bun on the top of my head, and my skin was crawling. A shower was the first port of call, but as I stepped into the bathroom and tried to turn it on, nothing happened. I cursed and closed my eyes. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
I stomped back to my bedroom, slipped on my slides, and pulled a hoodie over my comfy shorts and tank. There were times where I kept my mouth shut and did what everyone said. I was the good girl—the dependable one. But not when I needed a shower. I had my limits, and this was one of them.
The music blasted louder as I jogged down the stairs. The living room was half full of people, smoke misting in the air, but Hut was nowhere to be seen. I moved into the kitchen, spotting several more people milling about as well as Jace and Ted. They were sitting around the kitchen table, splitting a block of cocaine into baggies, ready to sell to dealers who’d pick them up throughout the night. They didn’t care one bit that they were doing it out in the open.
“Where’s Hut?” I asked, halting next to the table.
Jace flicked his dark-blue eyes up to me and shrugged. “Out.”
My nostrils flared, and I gripped on to the back of one of the chairs. “Out where?”
“How the fuck am I meant to know?” he fumed, throwing a baggie on the table and standing up. “Do I look like his fuckboy Ford?”
I raised a brow and looked up at him. He may have towered over me in height, but that meant nothing to me. He was just another crew member. They’d come and gone over the years because nothing was permanent when it came to Hut. “Does Ford know that you call him Hut’s fuckboy?” I tilted my head and smirked. “I’m guessing he doesn’t because you wouldn’t be walking if you did, huh?”
“You little bitch.” Jace grabbed my arm, and I gritted my teeth from the force. “Ain’t no one here to save you. You think you’re hot fuckin' shit, but you ain’t.” I cringed as each word sprayed spittle in my face.
“Let go of me, Jace.”
“Why?” He stepped closer to me, his eyes wild. “Is Hut the only one allowed to touch you?”
I took a deep breath and placed my hands on Jace’s chest, pushing as much as I could, but the force behind it wasn’t enough to break him off me. “I’m fuckin' warning you, Jace. Let. Go.”
He pushed his face closer to mine. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll break your fuckin' hand,” a deep voice threatened.
I flicked my gaze over Jace’s shoulder, my heart speeding and pulse spiking at Brody’s fierce face.
“Fuck off, Brody,” Jace ground out. “Go back to being the watch boy and leave the grown-up things to the real men.”
“Real men?” Brody asked, his fists clenched at his sides. “Real men don’t manhandle a woman.” He stepped closer to us. “Real men let go when a woman asks.”
“What the fuck ever.” Jace let me go, but put more force into it than necessary, and I stumbled to the side. Brody’s arms clasped around my waist as he righted me.
“You’re a dick,” I spat at Jace who just shrugged and sat back down, snorting a line of coke and bagging up more of the white power. I pushed out of Brody’s hold and moved back into the living room and up the stairs. Home shouldn’t be a place you want to escape from, but that was what it had become.
“Lola?” I ignored Brody and walked down the hallway, intent on locking myself in my room again. “Lola.”
“What?” I spun around. “What do you want, Brody?”
His gaze flicked over my face and down to my arm. “You okay?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m good.” I huffed out a breath. “I just need a shower and my bed. I’ve been working nonstop on my assignment.”
His lips quirked on one side. “Is that where you’ve been then?”
“Erm...yeah?”
“So you haven’t been avoiding me?” He leaned his shoulder against the wall and pushed his hands into the front pockets of his dark-blue jeans.
“What?” I could feel the burn of my cheeks. “No, I…I just have a lot of stuff going on.”
“Maybe sometime you’ll tell me this stuff.”
I worried my bottom lip and looked down at my painted toenails. “Maybe.”
The silence stretched between us, and I refused to look back up. I hadn’t showered in days, and I was sure he’d be able to smell me if I got any closer.
“I’ll leave you to shower then,” his deep voice announced.
“Kind of hard to do without water,” I blurted out.
“Huh?”
I looked up as Brody frowned at me. “The water has been switched off again, which means Hut hasn’t paid the bill. That’s why I was looking for him downstairs.”
Brody blinked, his gaze moving off my face and over my shoulder. I turned to see what he was staring at, but all I was greeted with was an off-white wall of nothingness.
“Get your shit, let’s go.” He spun around and ambled down the hallway.
“What?”
“Get the shit you need to take a shower.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell was going on, but he was moving down the stairs and was out of sight before I got the chance. I stood there for several seconds, wondering what the hell had just happened.
“Lola! Let’s go,” he shouted up the stairs, and that got my ass moving.
I pushed into my room, grabbed my backpack, and stuffed some clothes inside, along with my wallet and laptop—just in case.
Making sure my door was shut behind us, I took one last look at the warped wood and moved away from it. Brody was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his keys in the palm of his hand, and his lips spread into a grim line.
“Ready,” I announced.
He nodded and walked through the crowd in the living room that had become bigger since I was upstairs. I didn’t say a word as I followed him out and into his car that was parked outside.
“Where are we going?” I asked, clicking my belt in place as he switched the engine on.
“Somewhere you’ll be safe for starters,” he growled out.
I chuckled. “Yeah, that hasn’t happened in years.” I hadn’t meant to divulge that, but it had escaped nonetheless. I didn’t thrive on showcasing my life and the way I had been brought up. I was a private person, and never, not once, wanted sympathy.
“Think it’s about time that you have it,” Brody said, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He maneuvered the car effortlessly and halted at the stop sign at the end of our street.
The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but it was low in the sky, leaving behind a natural artwork painted there. The colors mingled together effortlessly and shone across the neighborhood, bringing with it false promises of a beautiful day ahead.
It wouldn’t happen though, at least not for the people living here. Each day was a fight to get through, a war to wage, just to make it to the next night. People didn’t understand the hardship and devastation in a poor area, not unless they’d come from it themse
lves.
Brody turned to face me, his eyes crinkled at the corners as he watched me silently. He was trying to gauge something, search for an unspoken sentence, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted.
Things had changed between us, but I hadn’t followed after him or gone searching for him. I’d kept my distance, and not just because I didn’t want to seem like an immature girl, but because I needed to stay on plan. I’d let myself veer off it now and again, but the end goal would always remain the same: get the hell out of that house and away from Hut.
Brody shook his head and focused back on the road ahead of us, taking off when the coast was clear. He didn’t say another word as he drove to the edge of the neighborhood. If I had been with anyone else, I’d have bugged them to know where we were going, but the fact that I hadn’t meant I trusted Brody. But how could I trust someone when I didn’t know more than his name and occupation? Maybe it was instinct, and that had never been wrong before. I always knew when I was in danger. I just didn’t seem to be able to get away from it fast enough.
Brody pulled into a lot in front of an apartment building and into the farthest space from the door. The engine turned off, leaving us in complete silence, but neither of us made a move to get out of the car.
“Where are we?”
“My place,” Brody answered, his gaze focused entirely on the front doors. “None of the guys have been here, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
I frowned but nodded anyway. “Your secret is safe with me.”
He whipped his head around to face me. “And our secret?”
“What about it?” I shrugged and leaned down to get my bag. “There’s nothing to tell, is there?” I pushed open the door and stepped out, shivering from the wind that chilled my bare legs.
The echo of Brody’s boots rang out as he sauntered toward me, his face half shadowed from the lowering sun. “I don’t know, Lola. Is there something to tell?”
I tilted my head back and raised a brow, waiting for him to say something else. I desperately wanted to tell him to kiss me again, to touch me in the way he did a few days ago. I craved to tell him that I could still feel the grasp of his hand on the side of my neck and the burn of his fingers against my thighs as he picked me up. But I said none of that. I played it cool and kept silent.
“Do you want there to be something?”
He flicked his gaze between my eyes and stepped closer, not one part of his body touching mine and yet I felt alight with sensations. “Fuck yeah, I do.”
My breath stuttered out of me, catching in the back of my throat. He’d never said anything like that without ending on some statement about how it was wrong.
People had such clear definitions of what was right and wrong, but that was a lie. There was a murky ground of gray in the middle. A place where we all hovered at least once in our life. No one was perfect, least of all him and me, but finding that perfectness inside of something bad was what we all waited for—what we searched for.
“I do too,” I whispered.
He took another step forward, closing the distance between us, and a shiver rolled through me at his nearness. I’d remembered vividly what his hand had felt like against my body, but I still gasped as he grasped my hip.
I stared up at him, the tension increasing as neither of us looked away, and finally, he dipped his head. The soft caress of his lips wasn’t what I was expecting, but it made my body light on fire. Goose bumps spread over every inch of my skin, and I pushed closer, pressing my chest against his and loving the friction it caused against my nipples.
His gentle kisses turned harder, hungrier. His strong arms came around me, encasing me in his safety net, and promising not to let me go. I could feel the hardness of his erection against my stomach, and it spurred me on. I sought out more and stroked my tongue against his lips, but a horn honking had us pulling apart.
I blinked and stared at his rapidly moving chest, knowing my breaths were coming out just as fast. He had a way of making me forget who I was and completely consuming me.
He grasped my hand, his long fingers curling around my palm. “Let’s get inside.”
We’d kissed…again. Once could be passed off as heat of the moment, but a second time put us in new territory.
I let him lead me inside the building and stared at each of his movements. He swiped a card on the front door and made for the stairs. The walls were a stark white, but the halls stunk of dead things. Music blasted out of several apartments, and there was a drunk guy on the walkway of the third set of stairs. Brody simply stepped over him, so I followed suit.
Once we’d walked up five flights, he pulled me toward the left and to the third door down. The numbers on the door read 509, and the marks on the bottom of the door told me it had been kicked in at least once.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked, turning my head left and right to take everything in as I squeezed his hand tighter. It wasn’t that it was any worse than what I lived in. It was just different.
“About four months now.” He pushed his key in the door and pushed it open, flicking on the light switch as he stepped inside. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
I moved inside and past him, my gaze soaking everything in as the door shut behind me, and several locks clicked into place. I turned back around to look at Brody. We’d been alone several nights ago, but it had been my territory. Now we were in his, and the nerves were running rampant. What if he didn’t really like me and this was a plan all along for him to hurt me? But one look into his dark-brown eyes as he sauntered toward me told me he’d never harm me. I felt the safest I ever had when he was in a room. I couldn’t deny that.
“Let me give you a tour.” He moved past me and swiped my bag from my hand. “This is the bathroom.” He opened up a door to the left and then one opposite. “This is the bedroom.” He closed that one and walked ahead, bringing us into an open-plan living room and kitchen. “And this is the living room slash kitchen.”
It was bare bones, as if he slept here but didn’t actually live in the space.
“It’s…” I was trying to think of the right word to describe it but was coming up empty. My palms started to sweat the longer he stared. Why the hell was I so nervous? Because you’re in his place, dummy.
“It’s a shithole, but it serves its purpose,” he said, placing my bag on the small sofa. His arms were tense, his body screaming of something I couldn’t quite place, but as quick as it was there, it was gone.
“I’ve seen worse,” I told him, shuffling on the spot and thinking of all the drug dens I’d been in while I’d looked for my dad and stepmom. There was nothing quite like the stench that hung in the air in one of the houses or apartments that were being squatted in by a bunch of people who found solace in a needle.
His eyes narrowed and his lips pursed, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he stepped past me and toward the small hallway we’d just come in through. I spun in a slow circle, taking everything in but I honestly could have been anywhere. There wasn’t one picture on any wall or surface, nothing to tell me who this man was outside of Hut and his crew. My house was the same—unless you were in my bedroom.
“I put a fresh towel on the rail in the bathroom and switched the shower on for you,” his deep timbre announced from behind me.
I nodded and walked toward him, my voice low as I said, “Thank you.”
“Anytime, kid.”
My head snapped up at his words, but the grin spreading over his face told me he was messing around. “Whatever, old man.” I stepped past him, my stomach dipping like I was on a roller coaster when his laughed echoed around us. It was carefree, like he didn’t have a single worry in the world, and I couldn’t help but glance back at him.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that nothing would be the same after Brody. He was bringing a light into a part of my life that had been basked in darkness for so long I’d forgotten what it was like to see clearly.
I turned back around, heading
for the bathroom, and promising myself I wouldn't get too close to him.
Maybe it was already too late?
BRODY
The sounds of running water drifted throughout the apartment I currently called home.
I could sense the hesitation rolling off Lola as we walked into the building and up the five flights of stairs. Something inside begged me to tell her this wasn’t really home. Home was where she could be safe, where nothing could touch her—especially Hut.
But I couldn’t say a word.
I knew she’d noticed the apartment was bare. She wasn’t stupid—she was one of the most observant people I’d met. She had this way of looking around and cataloging everything, sensing where she was and the way to act. I’d watched her do it around Hut and the crew before, but never with me. There seemed to be zero calculation when it came to me, or maybe that was me being wishful.
I scrubbed my hand over my face and through my short hair, blowing out a breath as I sat down. I shouldn’t have brought her here, but the moment her sad face had stared at me, I knew I couldn’t let her stay in that house—not tonight at least. I was overstepping and about to enter murky waters, but I couldn’t stop myself. The tide was washing me out to sea, and no matter how fast I moved my arms, nothing could halt it.
Stretching my legs out in front of me, I stared at the wall and waited until the shower turned off and the door to the bathroom opened. I didn’t make a move as her footsteps bounded closer, didn’t look up as she sat on the other side of the sofa, and didn’t say a word when she cleared her throat.
Having her in this space—my space—was tearing me up inside. I didn’t regret the kisses we had, but I knew that it shouldn’t happen again. Shouldn’t being the operative word, because damn if I could stop myself. She had me wound so tight I wasn’t sure I could undo a single thread she’d weaved. But it didn’t matter, did it? I was on a job, and as soon as Hut was taken care of, I’d go back to my life.
Fallen Duet: Brody & Lola: Free Fall & Down Fall (Easton Family Duet Boxsets Book 1) Page 12