by Emilia Finn
He barks out a loud laugh and stops backing away. “Dudes come into this place every damn day and try to make your mom smile. Even now, even with a ring on her finger, and two grown-ass sons to watch her back, they still try. Back when we were new, she was slinging drinks inside a nightclub. You don’t think they tried to make her smile?”
“Well, what did you do about it?”
Ironically, he smiles, then shrugs. “Mostly, nothing. It was dicey at first, because I was young and foolish. Much like you,” he smarts. “But once we were in it together, once we’d decided, I knew it wasn’t my job to wipe away every prick’s smile. That would be an impossible mission. Instead, it was your mom’s job to come home to me, to smile for me, to stay faithful to me. And I knew she would, so it stopped bothering me.
“This isn’t about who smiles for Ally, son. This is about your insecurities, and that’s something only you can work on. And just so you know, that’s what pissed Ally off this morning. Your jealousy was you putting your insecurities into her hands, and telling her to take care of them. That ain’t her job.”
My heart thuds with the truth bomb my dad just tossed into my lap, and as he walks away – to mack on my mom – I consider what he just told me.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been insecure in my life. About anything, about anyone. So now I’m working on feelings I’ve never felt before, while being slammed with insecurities I’ve never before had.
Fuck.
“He’s right, ya know?” My client pours half of his water over his head, so it rains through his shirt and drops onto the floor. “It isn’t her job to soothe your ego.”
“Fuck you!” I toss a clean towel at his face, and turn to walk away. “Clean up that mess, then pay your account. I’m taking a girl out to dinner tonight, and I’m using the bills you hand over to cover it.”
“Asshole,” he calls out on a laugh as I walk toward the hall. “You owe me twenty minutes. Your girly chat fucked with my workout.”
“Suck my dick.”
Thankfully, my mom is busy with my dad, and my aunts are busy doing their own thing, because such a statement inside this gym would normally end with a smack on the back of my head. Instead, I make it to the hall without being hit, then into the locker room without having to talk to anyone.
Five minutes and a couple of text messages later, I walk out again and head toward the octagon. I have an hour to kill before my next client arrives, and after that, I’m heading to the lake to put time in on that damn pier that I was practically raised on.
I’ve spent twenty-one summers at that lake. A thousand dive bombs in an effort to splash as many people as I possibly could. Hundreds of weekends spent with Rob and whichever girls we’d chosen for that day. Hundreds more weekends spent with our family, our cousins…
Emma.
I owe her a massive fucking apology too, for throwing random girls at my brother when, if only I’d stopped being so unbelievably self-absorbed, I might have noticed she long ago made claim.
Shaking my head, I lift my shirt off and toss it to the floor outside the cage, and waiting by the door for the timer to end on Ben and Will’s fight – yeah, Will the cop – I push my mouthguard into place and bounce on the balls of my feet.
I have a tournament to prepare for, a family name to make proud, and a reputation to maintain.
Then later, I have a whole lot of pride to swallow, a genuine apology to make, and then a dinner to enjoy.
I feel giddy and nervous, because tonight, I go on my first date.
Ally
Fake or Break
Luke: I’m about to walk into the octagon and have my ass handed to me just for the sake of having a little fun. It hurts so good… like when I smack you in bed. Think of me, and I’ll think of you. Then at dinner, we can talk about this weekend – it might involve your bikini and a whole lot of nothing else.
Setting my phone back in my bag, and dropping my bag between Sonia’s desk and the filing cabinet beside it, I turn back to my great-grandmother with an iced coffee chilling one hand, and a smile stretching my face as I drop down in the chair opposite hers. “We did it.”
Sonia sits in one of her wingback chairs and reads a report, while a cup of tea balances precariously on the arm of the chair. She looks as beautiful as always, pressed and perfect and giving me hope that I can one day look so polished. “You did what?”
“Well…” My face burns warmer. “Lots of things. But we got Chester back home.”
Slowly, Sonia lowers the report she’s reading and looks to me with an arched brow. “Are you sure?”
“Am I… what? Am I sure what?”
“Chester.” Smiling, though I can’t say it’s entirely genuine, Sonia studies me. “The news this morning indicates our favorite mascot is still on the loose.”
“What?” I thrust up again and dive for my handbag.
I catch a fast glimpse of another text from Luke: Enjoy your day. I kinda already miss you. But I leave it unopened and instead hurriedly swipe to my internet browser, and typing in this town’s name, followed by ‘Chester’, ‘ice cream’, and ‘news’, I pull up a news station and groan as I hit play and am forced to wait out the buffering phase.
‘We’re on day two of Statue Watch, Elizabeth, and with the sizable reward the owner herself is offering for the return of her property, this piece is making news far and wide. Where is the llama? And why would anyone be so cruel as to take it when the world already knows about the first missing statue?’
“I’m not sure the world knows about the first statue,” Sonia murmurs and goes back to reading. “But everyone in this town knows. Miss Dixie is making a lot of noise, Allyson. Noise I had hoped would be avoided once you returned the statue last night.”
“We did return him!” My heart hammers against the inside of my chest. “Oh my god. Gigi, we returned him, I swear. We walked that stupid thing along Main Street and left him where he—” My heart stops. My eyes widen.
Sonia grins. “What?”
“We may have played a game of poker beforehand, with Luke’s brother and friend.”
She watches me, but says nothing.
“The kind of poker where you take a shot if you lose. Or, well, you take a shot because you’re thirsty.”
“And how thirsty did you get last night, Allyson?”
“Oh god.” I drop down onto the chair opposite hers and press my face to my hands. “We took him, like, eighty-five percent of the way home. We got really close to putting him back.”
“And then you, what? Abandoned him in the middle of the street?”
“Well, on the sidewalk, but still. Everyone knows where he belongs, so whoever found him would have known to keep walking him the rest of the way.”
“So you’re saying it’s someone else’s job to undo your crimes?” She tilts her head. “Really, Allyson?”
“No! I’m just saying…” My breath comes faster, like I’m running a marathon, and not merely sitting. “I just meant any good citizen who found him would have known where he belonged.”
“Yes, well…” She sits her file on the table between us, and sighs. “I guess someone else wanted in on the statue shenanigans, because now Chester is really missing, and we have no clue where he is.”
“I don’t… I’m not…” I swallow down my nerves, my worries, and the niggling thoughts in the back of my mind. I was halfway to drunk last night, and then I ended my evening in Luke’s bed. I can’t promise I was making good choices all night long. “I’m sorry, Gigi. I swear we intended to return him, but then we got distracted, and we—”
“Distracted?” That grabs her attention the way a scurrying mouse might grab a tomcat’s. “By what?”
“Um…”
“A minute ago, when I asked you what you did last night, your face burned red, and you said, ‘lots of things’.”
“Gigi—”
“What things, Allyson?”
“Gigi!”
She leans toward her cup of
tea and brings it up so it sits just inches beneath her nose. “What. Things?”
“Luke and I—”
“Got distracted?” She snickers under her breath, but tries to hide it by taking a sip of her tea. “I see.”
“No! It’s not…” I swallow my words. Because I can’t lie. Not to her, and especially not to her face. “Yes. Luke and I… and I tried to stop it. A million times in the last couple weeks, I’ve brushed him off and said I can’t.”
“Why?”
My brain is tumbling, my heart, my thoughts and emotions and feelings. On the outside, I appear as unruffled as always, but my insides are caught in a storm of turmoil. “Why what?”
“Why’d you brush him off? Why didn’t you want to be with Luke?”
“I did want to be with him, which is why I had to be careful. He’s cute, and funny, and silly, and wild, and crazy, and—”
“So why did you deny yourself?”
“For a million reasons.”
“Give me just one.”
“Well, he’s a client, for starters. And that’s pretty much the only reason I need.”
Smiling, Sonia refolds her ankles and goes into therapist mode. She thinks she’s slick, she thinks she can switch hats and no one notices, but I’ve watched her work for weeks now. I know when I’m speaking to Great-Grandmother, and when I’m speaking to Therapist.
“Luke isn’t like our typical client, Ally. First of all, it was court-ordered, and all three of us know he’s here because a judge said so. Not because he needs help. He might be one of the most well-adjusted people I know. And I know that because I know the foundation he was built on.”
“He has a rap sheet, and a reputation around town.”
“And do you think he’s the person people say he is?”
“Well…” I hesitate. “No. I don’t know.”
She smiles. “Furthermore, court orders aside, he is not your client. He is mine. You’re merely here on work experience. A shadow. Not a doctor.”
“Ouch.”
She breathes out a soft laugh. “No offense intended. So that’s two strikes against your cons. Any more?”
“He’s a womanizer.”
“Obviously not a very good one, considering you’re a woman, and you’re calling him out on it.”
“Or maybe he’s a pro, because I’m calling him out on it, and yet I was in his bed last night.”
Her eyes pop wide, and right after that, color warms her cheeks. “Oh dear.”
“Don’t say oh dear!” I explode. “I know what it means when you say that. I’ve been your shadow, remember? I’ve seen you in session, and the times certain men come in here, the really good-looking ones, you say oh dear, and it basically means something rude.”
Sonia’s chest bounces with quiet laughter. “You caught me.”
“You enjoy it when those Bishops come in here, because you get to look and pretend it’s work.”
“It is work.”
“Yes, but it comes with a view! So then you’re all, ‘oh dear’, and now you’re saying oh dear to me, which means you’re probably imagining me in bed with Luke, and it’s freaking me out.”
“What’s freaking you out? The fact I may or may not be imagining you in bed, or the fact you were in bed with him?”
“Both! Neither. I don’t know!”
“Did you know Luke and his brother are essentially carbon copies of their father? The same hair, the same eyes, the same wideset mouth. All three are very handsome.”
“Stop thinking about them in bed!”
She bursts out in laughter that almost topples her tea. “I’m not imagining them in bed. Well…” She coughs to clear her throat. “I wasn’t. But now you said it, so it’s in my head. Did you have a nice time?”
“In bed? Yes!” I throw one hand up, and toss my phone from the other until it drops down on the table with a muted thud. “Yes, I had an amazing time, because he’s really cute and funny and silly. But he’s also really commanding when…” My heart flutters. “And demanding when… and he knows how to…” I sit back with a slump, and sigh. “Oh dear.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” she snickers. “I don’t know Luke the way I know his parents, but I know without a shadow of doubt that he comes from a good home, a good, loving family. I know that his mother would never tolerate any toxic behavior from him, except, perhaps, his hunger for chaos. But his chaos would never hurt innocent people.”
“So who does he hurt?”
“Mostly himself,” she jests. “And his brother, when he wants to tag along for the ride.”
“Which is…?”
“Almost every single time.”
“Ugh.” A grunt I never intended still manages to roll through my chest and out of my mouth. I sit with no posture, my stomach unclenched, my back arching the wrong way. “He’s charming as hell, Gigi. Luke is just… and he asked me out to dinner tonight.”
“Did you accept?”
“Of course I did. He’s too frickin’ charismatic for me to deny. Which means, if we’re being realistic, I’m probably going to be in his bed again afterwards, because he’s really good at… that. And when he touches me, I feel—”
The phone on Sonia’s desk trills just once, then her receptionist’s voice cuts through the room. “Your nine-thirty is here, Sonia.”
Sonia’s eyes remain glued to mine, her smile, her racing thoughts that I can almost see. “Thank you, Calla. Give us just two minutes, then you can send him in.”
When the call cuts out, Sonia leans forward and collects the file she’d been reading when I walked in. “I think it’s lovely that you’ve found a man who scares you out of your comfort zone. And it’s not bothering me one bit that he’s Jon Hart’s son. I love that family like I love you, Ally. I watched those boys grow from a dream that Jon and Casey so desperately wished for, into these men… who end up on my couch under court order,” she snickers.
“Additionally, Luke lives here, in this town, and I don’t see him leaving any time soon, so if you happen to like him enough that you stay, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings. I’ve made no secret about how I feel about you and your mom. I want to know you both. I want to spend time with you both. So if Miranda’s only daughter happens to fall in love and stay here…” She gives a dainty little shrug that I’m certain she means to look innocent, but really, it’s anything but.
She’s the devil, but her evil plans never actually hurt anyone.
“You speak of love and relocation like they’re simple decisions.” And those decisions, those words, are completely unacceptable to me. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself. We haven’t even had our first date yet, so I think maybe you should pump the brakes a little, and—” I trail off at the gentle knock on the door.
It’s time to put my professional face on. Time to act like I know what the hell I’m doing.
“We’ll continue this later,” Sonia murmurs. “Dinner in my home tomorrow night.”
“But—”
“Or the next night. Or the night after that. Whenever Luke stops asking you out for a meal, I’ll take that slot. Regardless, young lady, I assure you, we will continue this discussion.” She pauses for a moment, schools her face, then pushing to her feet and setting her tea down, she tosses the file to me, and makes her way to the door.
I get only a second to scan the front page of the file. Jason Donnerson. Thirty-seven years old. Six feet, three inches tall, two hundred pounds neat. Light brown hair, green eyes.
And then Sonia opens the door and welcomes her new client in. “Hello. You must be Jason. It’s so nice to meet you.”
She extends a hand, and though Jason takes it, his eyes remain on mine. “Likewise.” His voice is deep and provocative, charged and playful. He breaks eye contact when I glance away, and looking back to her, he pumps her hand just once. “I’ve heard wonderful things about the ladies of Rivera offices. You come highly recommended from the guys down at work, so I figured I’d come on in and see how w
e could mesh.”
“Well, welcome. Ally, have you—” For the first time perhaps ever, I think Sonia might be the least in-touch person in the room. But it only takes her a second. A single second to catch up. “Do you know each other?”
“No, it’s not—” I push to my feet, but stumble a little when Jason swings his hand around and takes mine. My new bracelet jingles on my wrist; a silly unicorn, a child’s bracelet from a vending machine, but quite possibly the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received.
“We met just this morning.” Jason speaks to Sonia, but peers deep into my eyes and shakes my hand. “We’re staying at the same hotel, so I saw her as I was coming out of the building.”
“Oh, well…” Sonia frowns and watches as our hands part. I refuse to wipe mine on my thigh. I refuse to acknowledge the electrical current that runs beneath my skin from his touch. “Are we… Is everything… Hmm.”
“Everything is absolutely fine.” I force a smile until it ceases to be forced, and instead becomes real. “I’m sorry. I was just taken aback for a second. It’s good to see you again, Jason. Welcome. Can I offer you a glass of water or something while Sonia and you speak over the formalities?”
“Oh… uh… sure.” He does what I refused to do; he wipes his hand on his pants, then clears his throat as he sits on the two-seater when I point that way. “Water would be great. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be just a moment.”
I rush out of the office and into reception, but I make sure to snatch my phone as I pass the table. I’m certain Sonia saw my hands, but I doubt Jason did too. And really, who cares if he did? It’s a phone, not a damn explosive.
I rush past Calla’s desk, and hit dial on the run. The very second the call connects, I blurt out, “Mom?”
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“Nothing. I just…” My breath is coming faster. Harder. Like I’ve been running a race. “Nothing. I’m at work, and I spent the night with Luke, and—”
“Allyson!” Mom focuses on the one thing I’ve kind of already moved past. “You slept with the cute twin?”