by Ace Gray
“It will be,” I answered a little sharper than I needed to.
“Good.” He nodded. “So far, I have no reason not to trust you.” He turned for the hallway. “Don’t give me one,” he added over his shoulder as he walked away.
“Aaarrrrrggghhhhh,” I growled again, this time at my boss as he walked casually down the hall.
That rat bastard didn’t know what it was like to code and develop apps. And he sure as fuck didn’t know what it was like to wrap up his work one day, sure everything was perfect, only to have it be all jacked the next day.
I was sure I had tested everything last night and it had worked. Hadn’t it? I dropped my chair back down onto all fours and tried to remember my afternoon. I’d intended on micro-dosing acid after lunch like all the most successful tech boys but instead of one paper, I took three. All in the name of open-mindedness and surrender to the creativity and whatnot. With three, things had gotten a little…loose.
But I swore I’d tested it.
I pulled the lines of code back up and searched for what was broken. Over and over until my head throbbed.
“You actually look like you give a damn.” I would know Diego’s voice anywhere.
“You wouldn’t know giving a damn if it bit you on the ass.” I shot him a look over the top of my computer screen.
“Jobs are for fucking losers.”
“You’re saying that because you got fired.”
He threw a tantrum in the airport because Mercy didn’t come to say goodbye, in front of sponsors, fellow competitors. Considering what I’d interrupted the night before, I didn’t blame her. Apparently, it had gotten worse from there. It made me wonder if I’d end up Diego’s alibi in Mercy’s death. Another body was too messy, but I couldn’t be around all the time. Not with my own fucking problems.
“I quit.” Bullshit. “She’s my reason for living.”
I rolled my eyes but said nothing. There was nothing to say that I hadn’t already.
“Come on, let’s get drinks.” He jerked his chin toward the hall.
“I need to fix this.” I started scanning again.
“You know who you sound like…?”
“Fuck you, I’m nothing like that goodie two shoes.”
He just laughed. “You’re right, he wouldn't have fucked the code up in the first place.”
I stood and puffed my chest out automatically.
“Knock that shit off, Danger. You know you can’t scare me.” Each of his words were coated in a chuckle. “You can’t ruin me. I know your secrets, remember?”
“I can pummel your ass.” I leaned over my desk, my arms outstretched, my hands splayed on the smooth woodgrain where they held up my frame, adding to my menace.
“As long as you stay away from my money maker and my baby maker.”
“God help us if you ever procreate.” I laughed first this time, and when Diego rolled his eyes and started to laugh along, I slumped back into my chair.
“Mercy and I will have beautiful babies.” Diego plopped into the chair opposite me and leaned back, propping his bare and somehow sandy feet up on my desk. I arched an eyebrow at his cracked heels, but I’d given up on chastising him about it years ago. “Seriously, D, if you can’t fix this in five minutes and you need your boss on your side, just invite him for drinks,” Diego scoffed. “Get him wasted. Win him over.” He made a wild hand gesture. “Maybe dig up a little dirt.” He wagged his eyebrows at me and then that mischievous smirk of his curled up.
I cocked my head as I let my pointer finger and thumb rub on my chin. And my smile spread.
“When you put it like that…”
Diego clapped and jumped up, sliding into his flip-flops as he hooted and hollered toward the door. I looked over the code with one fleeting glance then shut down and followed him.
“Bert! Let’s go.” Diego was harassing him as he braided back his hair, leaning on Bert’s cubicle.
“I was gonna ask Jordan—”
“Nope. Dicks only.” I sidled up beside him.
“Mercy’s not coming?” Bert asked only for Diego’s face to darken.
“Don’t talk about her,” he snapped as he turned, likely suffering from tunnel vision as he barreled toward the door.
I laughed as Bert stood, and we both watched Diego shove out of the double doors and into the lobby just in front of our boss.
“What did you say?” Row chuckled despite almost being steamrolled by the significantly smaller Diego. “Takes a lot to storm out in flip-flops.”
“Nothing a drink won’t fix.” I shoved my hands into my suit pockets and walked casually toward Row. “Wanna join?”
He looked at me first, evaluating, calculating even. Then at Bert and back the way Diego had stormed. For a second there was something icy in his look, and it almost made me shudder, but then he softened and a warm smile grew behind that thick beard.
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Sounds like it could get interesting.”
“You suck, man,” I laughed as I clapped Row on his shoulder. The dart he’d thrown stuck into the wall about six inches to the left of where it should have gone.
“What can I say, I surf. Hand eye coordination was never my thing.”
“Besides surfing, what is your thing?”
“Not a lot.” He shrugged. “My folks ran an insurance agency. I had a head for the numbers and the secretaries—”
“Yeah ya did.” I elbowed him, finding myself enjoying his company more than I would have thought. More than I wanted to, for damn sure.
He chuckled at my joke, and if I wasn’t mistaken, flashed back to one or two romps between the sheets. A man like him, tall and big and brawny, women likely climbed him like a jungle gym. With the right drug cocktail, I could climb him too.
“So how’d you end up here?” I asked as I walked toward the dartboard and collected my darts and his strays.
“My folks passed away a few years ago—”
“Sorry man.”
He shrugged and something about that shrug…
“It’s okay. They left me a lot of money and the business, which I sold for more money. Money I proceeded to spend on booze as I surfed my way through Mexico.”
“Lucky bastard.” I threw my first dart.
“You say that, but it bought me a staph infection and a one way ticket home from Puerto Escondido.”
We both chuckled.
“You should come with us sometime,” I offered as Row threw a dart and managed to hit the board. “I mean, I know that’s how you met Bert and found this company, but Diego and I…” He whistled. “Even our buddy Rousse. We can surf, man.”
“After you finish that project, we’ll blow off work and do just that.”
“I will figure it out,” I snarled without meaning to.
“No worries man.” He held his hands up in defense. “Just wanted an incentive on the table.”
“Sorry. I’m just frustrated.” I sighed and tossed three darts in quick succession.
“We don’t want that.” He tried to copy me and failed, even more miserable then before. One even clattered to the floor.
“Well then do me a favor and don’t bring Jordan when we go surfing.”
“No Jordan?” His voice turned up, and I sensed some protectiveness there.
“She’s hot, man.” I elbowed him again. “And if she comes, Diego brings Mercy, and then there’s just tits and ass everywhere…”
He flinched and I couldn’t quite decipher it. If I hadn’t been watching him closely, I wouldn’t have even noticed. Was he into guys? Maybe we could do those filthy drugged up things after all. Or was it something else, part of that I just can’t put my finger on it stuff.
But before I could figure it out, he schooled his features and simply asked, “Who is Mercy?”
I almost lost it all on her name. The years, the money, the hate…All of it almost floated away on one, two, three, four, five letters.
Reality snapped against my insides and I collec
ted myself and my face before Danger noticed, but I was off kilter. I’d been trying to suck too long at darts and smile too easy in his presence.
“Mercy is Diego’s girl.”
My heart became something feral, clawing at the cage where I’d kept it locked. She wasn’t his. She never could be. Mercy was mine. Once my absolution, now my destruction and desecration, but mine all the same. And to hear Danger even dare to say she was someone else’s, that she was Diego’s…
“Whatcha guys talking about?”
I knew the voice just as much as I knew the faint smell of gasoline and engine oil that hung on Rousse’s skin.
“Who is this?” He pointed at me and smiled, reaching out his hand before anyone even answered.
“I’m Row, Danger and Bert’s boss.” I extended my hand and smiled even though each time it gutted me. He had been the one that cared the most…
“Nice to meet you. Heard a lot about you.”
“That’s not really reassuring.” I forced a laugh.
“No, no. All good, man.” He came in and bro hugged me with a clap on my back. I had to force my body to keep moving. “Can I get you a drink?”
“A Corona,” I answered automatically, all too easily falling into the pattern between Rousse and me.
He shook his head, but I saw the way his eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. A flicker of familiarity flared behind his bright blue eyes but then he turned for the bar.
“What’s his story?” I asked Danger when Rousse was out of earshot.
“He’s a good guy. Probably better than the rest of us.” Danger could never quite bring himself to smile when it came to Rousse. “He’s rich. He owns the place we live in, and he dabbles in different things. His one true love is muscles cars. I don’t even know if he likes chicks.”
“Fuck off,” Rousse smarted as he rolled his eyes and handed me a bottle.
“If it came to cars or pussy, I’d pick pussy.” He sounded sure, but just like Danger, I knew that was half-hearted. Rousse might very well pick tail pipe over tail when it came to where he’d stick his dick.
“Nothing wrong with a big, burly, snarling engine,” I said with that smile that made my cheeks ache in place.
“Right?” He shoved at my chest. “Your big, burly, snarling boss gets it.” He shot Danger a look.
“I think you just hit on him, Rousse.” Danger chuckled.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
Nothing had changed between them. They still volleyed insults, and I still wondered if Danger even gave a damn about Rousse. A small part of me wanted to ask Rousse about it, question who they were to each other now that years had passed, but I’d already toed the line too many times today.
“You and Diego are always against me,” Rousse complained. “If I didn’t have Mercy, I’d be all alone.”
My heart seized again, but this time I kept my features schooled. Tight. Judgmental even.
“You don’t have Mercy any more than Diego does,” Danger muttered into his glass, and my heart slammed against my chest, an automatic reaction to his contradiction.
“What-the-fuck-ever.” Rousse rolled his eyes and turned to walk away. He stopped next to me, “It was nice to meet you, Row. If you ever wanna talk cars instead of tools,” he shot Danger a look over his shoulder, “let me know.”
“Thought you had Mercy for that,” Danger volleyed back. Rousse raised a middle finger in response.
“Were you talking about me?” Her dove song voice only preceded her soft feather light steps by a singular heartbeat. And though she came up softly, barely rustling fabric and shallow breaths, her body almost screamed beside mine.
“Mercy, I didn’t know you were coming. This is my boss, Row.” Danger gestured to me, and I sucked in a breath, hoping the tightness would help contain the beast within. “Row, this is Mercy.”
I hauled a smile into place knowing I’d have to face her—I couldn’t turn to face her! I smiled and made it freeze. The world tilted when I turned.
She was there. All five foot nine inches of her beautiful body. Her golden hair and pale pink lips. Her dusted freckles.
But then she wasn’t, too.
The stardust that had whirled in her eyes had settled into nothing. The sun didn’t shine from her soul like usual. She still swallowed all the beauty in the room, to be sure, but the more that had always defined her was gone.
I wanted to gather her in my arms and breathe that life back into her.
“Row, was it?” She held her hand out, her eyes downcast, waiting for my hand.
“Anyone ever say have Mercy?” I exaggerated my voice as I walked the tightrope that was this woman. This beautiful and tragically sad woman.
Her eyes flew to mine and she narrowed her gaze. I felt myself teeter on my precarious perch as she titled her head, her fingertips tightened infinitesimally against my skin. Hope welled up in her eyes and I felt myself rising from the darkness with it.
“Someone I used to know said that.” As quickly as she’d risen up, she plummeted back into the well I’d first found her in. “I’d really rather you didn’t.”
She pulled her hand back as if I’d stung her and slunk away, her shoulders up around her ears.
“Noted,” I answered as coldly as the frost creeping all crystalline back along my heart.
“Hey, Starfish.” Diego crashed in like a wave and scooped up the pieces of her I’d let float away. He circled around her waist and leaned in to kiss her neck. “Missed you.”
My hands clenched at my sides.
But then she tensed in his arms and tried to shove away from his Casanova lips reaching for her skin. Fear flashed in her eyes and anger blotched her skin crimson. My insides were likewise assaulted.
We were in a bar. Every fiber of her being was saying no. “Stop, Diego.” Her words echoed her body as she wiggled a little more.
I wanted to fold her back into me, back into my soul. I wanted to rescue her from the villain but then I remembered, I’d become just as bad, just as wicked. And come to think of it, so had she.
Something about Row was magnetic. I had to touch him, to stare into the deep pools of his eyes edged by all that hair.
And I didn’t know why.
He wasn’t my type. No one who wasn’t Dantè Rogue was, but I usually liked guys like Dantè. Slender but sculpted with a hint of soft in their eyes. Guys that had a smile that hung on their lips and sunshine on their face. Clean cut and a hint of cute. The man I’d met was anything but. Rough and dangerous, all trussed up in a trimmed suit that barely contained a massive cut physique, he inspired something in the pit of my stomach that had lain dormant for years.
Row’s appraising gaze made Diego’s hold all the more uncomfortable. I tried to shove at his hands but couldn’t make him budge.
“Stop, Diego.” My words crumbled to dust in Row’s presence, and I wanted to choke.
I closed my eyes, my humiliation hot on my cheeks. I wanted to shove Diego’s attention away with every ounce of my being, but today, with those deep mysterious eyes on mine, I felt shame in the salt of my very bones.
“It was nice to meet you.” Row’s deep rumbling voice strummed the same tightly wound cords that the man himself did. “All of you.”
I wanted him to reach out again. I wanted to touch him with a yearning I didn’t know I still possessed. There would be something there, between us, I was sure of it. Some sort of jitter or jolt, something that would remind me I wasn’t a total shell.
But he turned and faded into the dark of the bar, and not too long after, he disappeared from my sight. The door opened in the distance and the faint light from the streetlights momentarily illuminated the far side of the bar. The odd tether between us pulled me after him, but Diego’s arms were still holding me back.
“Get off me, Diego,” I said harshly as I bucked against him.
“He likes it when you struggle.” Danger lifted his eyebrow and the corner of his smirk.
“T
hat’s you, Danger.” I heard the warning in Diego’s voice, like he didn’t want me to think less of him. As if I wasn’t already sure of the type of man he was.
“It’s you too.” I elbowed him hard enough that he let me go, and I stumbled out of his grip.
“Hey, you okay?” Bert grabbed me and steadied me on my feet, his big smile met mine; and the knot in my chest unwound.
“She’s fine,” Diego snapped.
“Okay,” Bert answered with a smile. “Want a drink, Mercy?” He offered me his elbow like an old-fashioned gentleman and my smile slipped across my lips as I took it.
I felt Diego reach for me but he let me go and my smile grew.
“I know I’m the new guy but…” Bert started as he slid onto a stool and signaled to the bartender. “It doesn’t always seem like things are…good between you two.”
I slid onto the stool next to him and tucked my dress carefully underneath me, considering his words as a beer appeared before me. Bert had been with us for a few months now, trying to fit into a puzzle he didn’t know the look of, and he did try. With the surfing and staying up all night during those shitty EDM parties, when I knew he’d rather be reading in the sand or taking Jordan to a movie. He was good to her in a way I missed. He was good to us in a way we didn’t deserve.
“Things aren’t always good between us, Bert.” I sighed and took a sip. “We have this stupid long history together and it gets a little murky sometimes.”
“Why do I get the feeling it’s not your history.” He emphasized the word in just the right way.
“Because you like to read.” I smiled and nudged his shoulder. “Readers always see between the lines.”
He smiled and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his shy grin twisting his lips as he likewise twisted away from me.
“I always thought I was more Clark Kent than Harry Potter.” His chuckle was warm and breathy.
“Aren’t they both kind of the same?” I nudged his shoulder again.