Hired

by Zoey Castile

  It’s time that’s being compacted, used well. It’s time I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

  He lingers in front of a Tarot shop. Voodoo Emporium.

  “Have you ever had a card reading?” I ask.

  He smiles that smile I love. “Actually, my friend Fallon’s girl was at one of these places earlier today.”

  “They’re in town?”

  “Yeah, maybe you can meet them.”

  I bite my bottom lip because I want that very much. “Want to go in?”

  “A nice Catholic boy like me?” he asks, but he’s already tugging my hand in the direction of the shop. “When in Rome. If Rome had drinks this good.”

  The Tarot shop looks kitschy at first, but when we get to the second room, the altar they have dedicated to Yemaya is no joke. A man with heavy eyeliner, a sagging middle, and a long black ponytail comes out of the back. He dusts his hands of the scent of Chinese food that lingers in the air.

  “What have we here?” he asks.

  “Just some tourists in the Quarter,” I say.

  The man points a finger at me. “You, my dear, are no tourist.”

  I wink at him. I’ve never met the man before, but I like him already. He has a good vibe. Calm but strong at the same time.

  “How much are readings?” I ask.

  “Thirty each,” he says.

  I look at Aiden. “After you.”

  “I’m Harry,” he tells us. “Do you want to both be in the room at the same time?”

  Aiden and I look at each other and say, “Yes.”

  Harry smirks his thin, pink lips to reveal a soft dimple. He shuffles a set of cards with lush paintings of goddesses and knights and pages. Moons and stars are dotted in bright gold.

  “Ladies first,” Aiden says.

  “Now, honey, do you have a specific question or are we thinking more of a general one?”

  “What do people usually ask?”

  Aiden sits beside me. The circular table is covered in a purple velvet cloth, and tiny white quartz crystals are dotted throughout, looking like tiny blinking eyes.

  Harry sets the deck in front of me. “You’re not usual people, honey. What do you want to know about? Job security? Family?” His deep-brown eyes flick to Aiden. “Love.”

  I do everything I possibly can to avoid looking at Aiden’s eyes in this moment. The only thing I can’t stop is the tickle right under my ribcage. Though that could also be heartburn.

  “Just a general future reading is fine,” I say.

  Harry winks, not at me, but at Aiden. “Let the cards reveal themselves to you. Shuffle them. Break them into threes. Oh, I see it’s not your first time around a set of cards.”

  “You would have done very well in Vegas,” Aiden says, though a playful glare from Harry silences him.

  I break the cards, favoring the middle. The last time I got my cards read was during a street fair last year. One of my college friends was doing it as a summer job and she had a deck her grandmama gave her. Though her grandmama was the real deal, Jolie not so much. She told me I was going to marry an actor and have four kids. I might as well have played a game of MASH.

  Harry flips each card with a certain panache. There’s a flair to his wrist, and each turn is accompanied by a very surprised little gasp. “Oh my, my, my. Very interesting indeed.”

  “What’s very interesting?” I ask, though I’m trying not to laugh at his drama.

  “Your cards are incomplete.”

  “What do you mean, ‘incomplete’?”

  “Well, you see this here is you. The Queen of Pentacles. And this here is the Seven of Wands. It crosses you. It means that your journey hasn’t been easy. It’s a classic line from work to the payoff. Here is the Queen of Swords. She’s a strong character. It could be a mother figure, a boss, or someone with a feminine energy. It could be you as well.”

  “So I’m in the way of myself.”

  Harry purses his lips, but his humor is now focused. “That is a possibility. My mother always told me that the only way to move past an obstacle was to climb over it. But you can’t climb over something when you’re weighed down, bogged down. Whatever is holding you back, you have to: Let. It. Go.”

  I chuckle. “So then, what’s incomplete?”

  “See right here. This is the Ten of Pentacles. This is the bliss card. Utmost and total happiness. But it isn’t in your ending, it’s in your possibility.”

  “Okay, so I have to let my baggage with a mother figure go,” I say, a little too dryly.

  Harry places his hand over mine. “It sounds easy, but believe me, I know it isn’t. And that’s not to say that it guarantees you that happily ever after everyone raves about.” He widens his eyes, almost comically. “Love is in these cards. I see four children.”

  I nearly choke on my own spit. “Excuse you.”

  Harry flips his thin black hair over his shoulder. “You dealt the cards, honey, I’m just the messenger.

  “See this right here? With the exception of one wands and swords you have all pentacles. I see a man. A very fine, sexy, sculpted man.” Harry is clearly looking at Aiden, who is visibly shrinking back to the edge of his seat. “Oh, here is the Knight of Pentacles. Very sexy, very dangerous. Be careful who you trust that little heart of yours with. Make sure they are deserving of that love. So many threes. That’s a good number for you.”

  Harry is lost staring at the cards. I look up to see if Aiden finds this as hilarious as I do, but he’s just as enraptured with the cards in front of me.

  “The moon begins waning this Friday. It’s going to be a time to shed all kinds of masks. Here, Justice symbolizes removing all the charlatans from your life. After that, once you LET. IT. GO you have a shot at this very fertile future.”

  I let go of a long sigh. “Whoo. Wow. Thank you.”

  “Do you have any questions for the cards?”

  I look at them. I can’t help but look at that final one. A couple under a rainbow and the knight. The thought that it could be Aiden makes that tickle in my ribcage grow. Maybe coming here was a mistake, even if it’s supposed to be just for fun.

  “I’m good, thank you, Harry.”

  I swap seats with Aiden, and he repeats the same movements as I did. Though his shuffling skills are not as good as mine.

  “When’s your birthday, hon?” Harry asks Aiden.

  “October 26.”

  “I love Scorpios.” Harry winks at me. “I love it. Now what do we have here? What do we have . . . here.”

  The last card he flips is the Death card.

  “Now, don’t be alarmed,” Harry says. “It doesn’t mean literal death. Out of all the cards, this one is my favorite.”

  Aiden has an elbow on his thigh, his hand toying with his perfect chin. “Why’s that?”

  “Because it means that all of this mess right here doesn’t define you. I see a great loss from an early age. Recklessness. You haven’t really had the opportunity to let go of the things holding you back. There’s a great deal of wealth.”

  “That’s not so bad,” Aiden says, though his body is still tense from the first thing that Harry said to him.

  “Maybe not, but there isn’t any joy. But, ah, look at what we have here. The Ten of Pentacles. Everything in your life is leading up to this moment.”

  My heart gives a little tug. It’s a feeling that I still reject. I want to reject it. Is it really that simple? Do I meet a gorgeous man at a bar and then, boom, the Ten of Pentacles? We get our happy ending. That’s the thing about these places. They’re designed to make you see what you want to see.

  “What about family?” Aiden asks.

  Harry nods seriously. “There’s a break here. Something so deep that you carry it with you. You heard what I said about the waning moon? I want you to take a long, long salt bath. Do you like bath bombs? Don’t knock it until you try it. Soak in a salt bath on Friday and then when you wake up the next day get ready to LET. IT. GO.”

  “
All right,” Aiden says, clapping his hands together. “Thanks, man.”

  “The answer to your other question is yes,” Harry says.

  Aiden’s clear brown eyes flick up. “What other question?”

  He points to the four cards that each have three symbols. “The cards show four kids in your future. Now, cash or credit?”

  13

  La Tortura

  AIDEN

  We come out of the Tarot shop a little dazed, but I still hold her hand in mine, even if we avoid each other’s eyes.

  “That was,” I say, searching for the right word, but settling on, “interesting. Four kids. Damn. I didn’t even think I’d get one.”

  “This is the second time I got the same reading,” Faith admits, looking down at the floor. There’s something cute and shy about the way she pushes her hair away from her face. “I guess no matter how hard I try I’m going to do what my mother always wanted.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in silly things like fate and Tarot cards,” I remind her.

  “You’re right,” she says, smiling. “I don’t. So I won’t worry and will go about my days.”

  But that’s the thing. I do believe in silly things like the Universe and Tarot cards, and above all, fate. I’m superstitious. Can’t help it. Grew up that way. But the thing the psychic said about my mother—if that’s who he was talking about, it’s going to keep getting to me if I don’t stop my thoughts from cycling.

  I don’t want to think about those things with Faith.

  I don’t want to think about that reading anymore. Let it go.

  He was talking about so many things. What do I begin to let go of? The memory of an anger so deep I haven’t called my old man in years? The weight of my feelings for Faith? Faith herself. I have to let her go.

  In turn, she has to let me go before she can have her happy ending.

  But I’m weak. I’m selfish, and I can’t let her slip away. I can’t tell her the truth.

  Not just yet.

  Instead, I say, “I have to find a souvenir for my tía Ceci. Everywhere I go I get her a shot glass. I think at this point she has enough to have everyone at Christmas do a shot at the same time.”

  Faith blesses me with a smile. “Come, I think I know just the place.”

  She leads me down Dumaine Street, makes a right on Chartres, and then we’re in Jackson Square, wading against the late-night traffic searching for bars or dark corners to make out. Inside a small shop with all kinds of trinkets and postcards. I can’t decide between the glittery, gaudy tiny glasses, so I buy three. When we come out of the shop, Faith walks ahead of me. I reach for her hand to pull her back to me. Whatever our futures hold, I can’t help but feel that in this moment, our hands should be entwined. She glances back, her eyes alight with something that tugs on a part of me I thought I’d hidden.

  Then, there’s a flash.

  “A memory for the lovers?” an older woman asks us. She’s got an old model Polaroid. It hasn’t developed yet, but I can’t imagine walking away without it.

  I pay an exorbitant amount for the Polaroid, and we sit on a bench to watch the melee of people around us. A band of four people who look so different from each other but sound like they’ve played together their whole lives, dozens of small fortunetellers with glittering tablecloths and tiny tea lights set over cards and around crystal balls. Artists painting on blank canvas, as if waiting for the moonlight for inspiration. Tour groups, mule-drawn carriages, and even a guy swirling batons on fire.

  “This isn’t a very good business model,” I say, flapping the Polaroid in my hand.

  “Don’t do that,” she says, and takes the white square from my hand. She puts it in a pocket of her purse. “The ink will run and make it blurry. And yes, usually they wait for you to say yes or no. But sometimes they just want to take a chance.”

  I stretch my arm around her shoulder, and she rests against me. She smells floral from her perfume and sweet with sweat. Some of the Tarot shop’s incense clings to her clothes.

  “I’m glad she did,” I tell Faith. The square is better lit than other parts of the Quarter this late at night, and the soft yellow light makes her skin glow.

  “So this is what you do. Travel the world with your boys and buy trinkets for your aunt.”

  “Well, you’ve got one part down,” I say. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been holding other stuff back, but I say, “I haven’t spoken to my boys in a few weeks.”

  “Because of the mess you mentioned?”

  I shouldn’t be surprised that she remembers.

  “So talk,” she says.

  I laugh. “It sounds so easy.”

  “It can be. I feel like we complicate things by keeping quiet and holding back. Have you apologized?”

  “Don’t you want to hear what I did first before you suggest I apologize?”

  “Unless it’s murder,” she says. “And even then. If they’re your brothers, your boys, you should at least try. Promise me you’ll try.”

  And when she looks at me like that, I can’t deny her anything. She could ask me for my still-beating heart and I’d find a way to rip it out of my chest. “I promise.”

  She sighs, glances around the square, and says, “It’s getting late.”

  I nod automatically and take her hand. She takes a few steps, but I freeze.

  Being in her presence fills me with so much of everything. It’s like fucking sunshine and rainbows and all of that bubbly love crap that Fallon warned me about. I know I should say more. The thing that I was supposed to end the night with. But here we are, at the end of the night, and I can’t bring myself to do the right thing, to be a good man.

  “Faith,” I say.

  She whirls around. “Aiden.”

  Her smile makes my knees want to buckle, makes me want to fall at her feet for a chance to taste the sweet, hot wetness between her legs. She answers my inability to form words with a kiss. The pressure of her mouth against mine makes something in my heart explode, and my dick expands instantly. This woman is so fucking hot, she makes me forget with a single kiss, a touch, the barest fucking glance. It’s like she sees right through me—not just a body, not just a good time.

  I want to say more, but the wires in my brain are fried. “Can I walk you home?”

  “I drove, remember?” she says. She takes a step closer to me. She knows exactly what her body does to mine. “Unless you want a nightcap.”

  Yes. A thousand times yes. I’m about to say as much, when there’s a scream in the middle of the square. One of the fortunetelling tables has gone up in flames. At the center is a single flaming baton.

  “Aiden, stop!” Faith calls me back.

  But everyone has gathered, and the woman is in so much shock at seeing her cards scorched by fire that she isn’t moving. It’s going to catch on her clothes. I pull her back. Take off my jacket and use it to smother the flames. But whatever is in that fire only leaps up. I raise my arms to cover my face, but I feel the heat try to grab at me. I stomp on the jacket and table.

  “Let it go, child,” the older woman tells me. “Leave it.”

  My heart is drilling into the back of my ribs, when someone runs out of the restaurant across the street with a bag of salt. He covers the flames with it, and then there is only smoke. He slaps my back, asks if I’m fine.

  But only Faith’s relieved face matters. She takes my hand and pulls me out of the throng of people before we’re trapped there.

  “Bad luck is just following me,” I say.

  “Not luck,” she tells me, reaching for my face with her gentle touch. “But you could have been hurt. Let me take a look at that.”

  I wince, but we stop on a dark street of closed shops. “Don’t worry, I’ve had worse.”

  “You’ve had worse burns?” she asks, her thumb the only balm I need right now.

  “I broke my wrist playing soccer once. My mom didn’t even want me on the team because I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet. Ow
, that hurt.”

  Her laugh soothes the sting of the small burn. She gets on her toes to kiss the spot just below it. “Better?”

  “I’ve been told I’m too pretty for my own good so this might be a good way to make me look rough.”

  Her dark eyes bore into mine. “You don’t need to be rough, Aiden. You’re already—”

  “Perfect?”

  “I was going to say wonderful. But, yeah.” Her voice lowers, like we’re whispering secrets that we don’t want anyone else to hear. That magnetic feeling returns when we’re this close. Drawing closer and closer together until we’re pressed against each other. She tilts her head up to me, her mouth seeking mine.

  My heart races when she presses a kiss to that spot on my neck that makes me hard as diamonds. I touch her chin to guide her lips to mine. Her plush mouth is soft, so soft that we glide against each other. I meet her wanting tongue. Press my palms against her back and trace down that luscious spine of hers. Her ass was made to be worshiped, and I round out my hands along her thighs. I walk her backward, into a grate that rattles when I hit it. Voices and sirens ring out in the distance, music that doesn’t seem to stop, and then there’s the rapid, manic beat of my heart as she lifts her knee up and rests it against my hip. When I rake my fingers along her inner thigh, she sighs. When I drag my finger up to discover that she’s wet for me, she gasps against my mouth, exposing her neck to me.

  I kiss the tender spot. Sucking my way down to her collarbone.

  “Do you see how much I want you, Aiden?” she whispers.

  I want her, too. I want her more than I can admit. But this is supposed to be my great moment of honesty. My chance to tell her who I am. That I was Ginny Thomas’s—Virginia Moreaux’s—sugar baby.

  All of those things are there on the tip of my tongue.

  Just tell her.

  But when she pulls away, her eyes full of adoration and passion, I’m too weak to tell her. Too weak to tell the truth, because I’m not strong. I’m not a good man.

  There’s a salacious whistle as a group of kids strolls past us. When I’m with her, I forget that we’re not alone. That we’re out in public.