Running On Empty_Crows MC

by Cassandra Bloom

  “You’re not so bad. You know, for being a narc,” I said, deciding that, overlooking the little girl crush I was feeling, I genuinely liked him.

  He smirked at that and shrugged, “And you’re quite charming. You know, for a hooker.”

  I bit my lip at that and looked down. “You don’t think that makes me a bad person, do you?”

  His grinning face sobered at that and he shook his head. “What? No. Not at all. It’s just a job, after all—I could just as easily say that you’re quite charming for a waitress or a gas station attendant or the queen of France.”

  “Would be difficult,” I interjected, “since France has a president.”

  “Spoken very much not like a hooker. Besides, you’re not working right now, right? Only a few people continue being what they do for a living when they’re off the clock—writers, painters, and killers, to name a few—so I’m not going to think of you as that right now. Besides, me and my crew don’t—”

  “‘—my crew and I,’” I corrected.

  “Huh?” he looked up and then nodded, blushing. “Oh, right. Right. Anyway, I was raised to show manners to everyone, even the janitors and garbage men, because you never know who’s going to choose to stab you in the back and who might be there to take the knife for you. My dad did a lot of work with prostitutes when he was first starting the Crows, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to have a few over for dinner—used to sit right next to my mom and my brother and across the table from me—while they discussed business.”

  I stared at him, shocked. “And your mother never minded?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Why should she? Nobody at the table was paying them for their services. She’d just say, ‘out there you’re working girls; in here you’re friends.’” He smiled at his own memory and nodded, “I mean, if my old man was trying to get with them then Mom would’ve beaten him silly—the hookers, too; they liked my mom too much to let my dad do that to her—but even then she wouldn’t have blamed the girls. You don’t blame the guy who sells a man the pack of cigarettes when he swears he’s gonna quit.”

  I smirked at that reasoning and nodded, deciding that there was sound logic. I also appreciated the prior comment. I’d always had a hard time even with myself of not feeling like a whore off the clock just as much as I had on the clock. Differentiating was a difficult task that I’d still been working to perfect.

  Jace was about to reach for another nacho when the server came around with our burgers. She set them down, looking like she wanted to say something to Jace, her face all tight and braced for what I was certain was a rehearsed speech. Jace, either not noticing, not caring, or both, ignored her and, after guiding a steaming fry into his mouth and cooling it with a hit from his Coke, snatched up his burger and took a huge, dripping bite.

  The sight of the juices and various add-ons plopping down from the burger, which was almost too big for him to hold, was enough to deter the waitress.

  Not wanting to have her linger around us any longer I offered my best shark smile and said, “Thanks so much.” The finality in my words seemed enough to make her hovering too awkward for her to maintain, and she hurried off.

  “Thank you,” Jace said once she was gone. “She’s been annoying me since we got here.”

  I blushed at that, realizing that he had been noticing. “No problem,” I offered.

  With a strange—if not totally deserved—sense of satisfaction, I dug into my own burger.

  Though I knew it couldn’t be true, I was thoroughly convinced at that moment that it was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

  “What? You’re not too full for that?” I teased as Jace reached for the dessert menu after he’d finished off the lonely fry on his otherwise cleaned plate.

  “Not even close,” he chuckled, beginning to scan the colorful pictures of treats. “So,” he said absently, seeming to be preparing another of his “just getting to know you”-questions, “what led you down this path?”

  I blushed at the question. It was a great deal more complex than my favorite color, but I supposed it was still, in its own way, a “just getting to know you”-question. Reminding myself that he’d already proven that he didn’t see prostitution as a shameful job—telling myself that it wasn’t any different than him asking what might’ve gotten me into selling keychains off a table on the side of the street—I decided to get as close to the truth as I was willing to go without hurting my own feelings.

  “My brother,” I finally said.

  Jace frowned at that. “Your brother got you into this work?” he asked.

  I bit my lip and shrugged. “I mean, not directly. It’s not like he meant for it to come to this. In fact, I’m not sure if he even knows. But he got into some trouble with the Carrion Crew, racked up a bunch of debt or something, and I guess I…” I stopped myself there, realizing that Jace had enough on his plate with his own gang going up against the Carrion Crew without worrying about their methods—kidnapping me, beating me, practically holding me hostage with threats to my family—and decided to offer him a slightly happier version of things: “And I guess I took the easiest means of paying them back,” I finished with a shrug.

  Jace scowled at that and shook his head. “Sounds like a bunch of bullshit. It shouldn’t be your responsibility.”

  I shrugged, trying to hide just how much I appreciated him showing outrage to the situation. No one seemed to understand just how awful the situation had been for me. Sure, Candy had been sympathetic, but she’d been working for them a lot longer than I’d started. I took a deep breath and looked down, not wanting to sound as pitiful as I felt at that moment.

  “I know, but… well, my brother got arrested—he’s in jail now—and it’s not like he can do anything to pay it off. I was between jobs—just out of college and not really sure what to do next, actually—and this gave me a chance to help out my brother while getting a roof over my head and such. Yeah, it’s a shit deal, but it is what it is,” I finally coughed out.

  He bit his lip at my comment and I could see that he didn’t quite agree. However, seeming to believe that I was content with the way things were, he didn’t push to know more or try to convince me that I’d made the wrong choice. Once again, I found myself appreciating his character, even if I could feel a part of me thrashing around inside my chest, demanding to be free of this life. Not wanting to disgust him or, worse yet, have him pity me, I refused to let that part of me be heard by him. He was being too good to me for me to go dumping on the evening with my crazy sob-story.

  Jace sighed, though it seemed to be more inward, directed at himself rather than at me, and he said, “You don’t have to answer if this upsets you. I didn’t mean to pry. I guess I was just curious and it sort of spiraled into this…”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said and then actually smiled. “Yeah, it’s not the happiest of subjects, but maybe it’ll be good for me to talk about this. It’s not like I’ve really had a chance to talk about it much.” I took in a deep breath and nodded again, “Yes, my brother’s fuckup led to me being a whore. No, I’m not particularly thrilled about it, but, like I said, it keeps me housed and fed and its helping my brother for when he’s out of jail. I’m not sure why I’m helping him, it’s not like we were necessarily close—no more close than any other siblings, I suppose—but I guess I always believed that when family was in trouble you stepped in to help them, especially when the sort of trouble they’re in is…”

  “Carrion Crew trouble?” Jace contributed.

  I nodded, forcing a thankful smile. “It’s just weird, you know? Because when I was about fourteen, I’d decided to never trust my brother again. There was this old house near where we lived, an old couple had lived there for some time before it was abandoned. Anyway, there was a cellar that the old man had always kept locked and it’d gotten a bit of a reputation with the local kids about what could be locked down there. And, somewhere along the line, I got it into my head that I’d be something of a legend around to
wn if I was the one to finally solve the mystery. My brother agreed, seeming just as curious as I was—though I think he just wanted an excuse to sneak off with his girlfriend—and he brought a pair of bolt cutters with us this one night that we decided to sneak out. I’m not sure if it was his plan all along or not, but when we finally got the lock off the cellar door and I started to head down, he decided it’d be funny to lock me down there in the dark and go upstairs to make-out with his girlfriend. While it scared the shit out of me, I knew there was a hatch in the basement that locked from the inside.” I shrugged at the memory, “I figured I’d just have to suffer a few seconds—maybe a minute or two—in that dark place. Then I’d find the hatch, unlock it, and go home. Maybe even tattle on my brother to my parents that he was in the abandoned house with beer and girls. Simple as that… well, I thought so, at least.”

  “Uh-oh,” Jace hummed, catching on to my grim foreshadowing. “So what happened?”

  I nodded that, yes, he should be braced for a bad ending. “Well, I began to go down the rest of the steps into the cellar, and that’s when the smell hit me.”

  “Smell?” Jace sneered. “Oh fuck…”

  “Exactly. Oh fuck!” I nodded again, “Anyway, long story short: the old couple didn’t just up-and-abandon the place. Turns out the old man actually killed his wife. He must have figured that stashing the body away in a locked basement and vanishing overnight would let him get away with it. And, for all I know, he did. Everyone just thought they’d gone away for an extended vacation for a while. By the time the neighborhood kids realized it was abandoned he’d already been long-gone, and by that point everyone was using it as a hang-out; didn’t even know what was behind the locked door. Not until my brother and I… well, not until I went down there and found the wife’s body.”

  “Holy fuck!” Jace gasped, slapping the table. “Oh god, what’d you do?”

  I laughed morbidly and shrugged. “What any kid would do: I screamed my ass off and high-tailed it out of there. Found the hatch that led outside after only a few seconds, then went screaming down the road. A couple from one of the neighboring houses was out walking their dog. They saw me screaming and managed to calm me down. Cops were called. It was a big deal for a while, and then it just stopped being a thing. Just a source for urban legends and scary stories shared between school kids now.” I wiped my face, which had started to grow damp with droplets of sweat from the memory. “So that was when I’d decided never to trust my brother ever again. Especially since he didn’t seem to care what had happened to me; he was just upset that my screaming and getting the cops called had ruined his make-out session.”

  Jace frowned, “Sounds like he was quite the charmer. And you’re still doing all this for him?”

  I shrugged and looked away. “Like I said: he’s family.”

  I could feel his eyes studying me for a long moment. He said, “Well, I think, for being such a great sister despite him being such a fuck-nugget, you should be rewarded with the biggest, baddest sundae Denny’s can make.”

  Laughing, I looked over at him, shaking my head. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? You show me all this kindness and sympathy and understanding, and even after I tell you a story like that you’re still willing to buy a whore an ice cream?”

  He sighed, nodded, and then said, “I feel like there’s a lesson I’m trying to teach that you’re just not learning.”

  “No,” I admitted, still smiling, “I suppose I’m not learning it at all. But I will take that ice cream.”

  I stared at him a long moment, finding myself growing more and more curious as the subject of my family was discussed. I had any number of questions, but what wound up coming up—word vomit—was, “So is there a wife or girlfriend who will be upset to know you were out spending all this money on feeding a whore?”

  He gave me that “still not learning the lesson”-look, but only shook his head. “No,” he said simply.

  The simplicity felt almost too simple. Like there was a lot more than what it implied.

  “Jace?” I pressed.

  He tensed at his name, looked away, and sighed. “I don’t really have anyone now, actually. The gang-life took my immediate family. And, I mean—yeah—I was married once and… and I guess we were considering doing the whole family-thing, but…”

  I bit my lip, feeling like there was an “oh fuck”-moment of his own coming up, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

  He shook his head, grabbed his Coke—draining it with a long pull from the straw—and finally said, “But it didn’t work out. You know how families these days work: one day they’re there and the next—” he mimed footsteps with his fingers as they “walked” across the table.

  I could feel how abrupt the shift in him was. Whatever had happened to him was fresh enough that he didn’t want to discuss it. Remembering the moments he had offered same, I chose not to push the topic, deciding that somethings were better not discussed. Thinking back on the old house and the body of the old woman, I bit my lip. I thought talking about it would make it better, but a part of me wondered if maybe I’d done the opposite in bringing back old memories. The waitress made her way back to the table, taking another eyeful of Jace as she asked if we needed anything else.

  “Yeah, I’ll take a hot fudge sundae,” Jace smiled and then looked over at me. “And I want you to hook the lady up with the craziest ice cream monster-beast-thing you can create.”

  I blushed at that, but when the waitress shot me a “you don’t deserve him”-glare I decided to punch back. “Aww,” I cooed over at him, “Thanks so much, baby! You’re so good to me!”

  With the “he’s with me and not with you”-blade twisted in her side, the waitress huffed loud enough for both of us to hear and stormed off to punch in our orders.

  Jace was holding back a bout of laughter as she did. “That was mean,” he whispered once she was out of earshot, then held up a hand for me to high-five him. “Good for you!”

  I gave him the high-five and grinned, shrugging. “I do what I can.”

  “Then you can do great!” he said with a wink.

  “Thank you again for this,” I finally said after another long-yet-relaxing silence. “I really needed this.”

  He looked to me then and nodded. “Same here.”

  I could hear both honesty and surprise in his voice, and I had to admit that I wasn’t expecting this night to go this way either. I hadn’t expected to find someone like him and certainly didn’t see myself growing to like someone so quickly. I wondered for a moment if he had ordered dessert just not to have to night end and I admittedly appreciated it either way. The waitress returned faster this time with the desserts and I was both excited (I DID love my sweets) and sad that it meant the night would be coming to a close that much sooner.

  “This really has been an unusual night, hasn’t it?” Jace said softly.

  “It really has,” I admitted, glancing over at him and offered a smile. “Not necessarily bad in the end, though.”

  He smiled and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.” Then, clearing his throat, he said, “Would you maybe like to get together again tomorrow? I can get you earlier in the afternoon so that you’ve still got the night free.”

  I looked up at that and smiled, not bothering to hold back the giddiness I felt as his question. “I’d love to!” I exclaimed, pausing to take a look at the time and realizing I had enough time to catch the next bus home. Grabbing a piece of paper and a pen from my purse, I jotted down the address to Candy’s and my apartment. “Look, you’ve already done so much for me and I don’t want to take up anymore of your night, so I’m gonna catch the bus back home. Here’s my address aaaand…” I drawled as I added my cell phone number below that, “my number. Meet me outside there—my roommate’s edgy about having guests over, so don’t worry about coming up, okay? What time should I expect you tomorrow?”

  Jace glanced down at the paper, seeming pleased to see a real-looking address
and phone number there. It occurred to me that he seemed just as surprised by how well things were going as I was. “Would three be okay?” he asked.

  “Sounds perfect,” I smiled. “Thanks again for the meal.”

  “Thanks again for saving my ass,” he grinned, then asked, “You sure you don’t want me to give you a lift back to your place? It’d be no problem.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No, thanks. The offer’s honestly enough,” I explained. “Besides, I’m still not wearing… you know, and I’d rather flash just the people riding the bus than the entire town.”

  “That’s fair, I guess,” Jace said with a chuckle.

  Smiling at the sound of his gentle laughter, I paused, remembering his coat, and moved to take it off.

  “Keep it,” he said, holding up a hand. “The thing looked awful on me, anyway.” Then added, “Until tomorrow, Mia.”

  “Until then,” I agreed

  “You get laid or something?” Candy asked when she got back from the mansion.

  I had waited for her, relaxing in the living room and the reading my vampire novel. I looked over when she stepped in, trying to hide the giddiness I felt for tomorrow and from the night I’d just had.

  “That’s a stupid question to ask,” I chuckled. “When do I not get laid?”

  “You know I didn’t mean that kind of laid,” Candy scoffed. “You look like you just got laid-laid. Like, Prince-fucking-Charming just turned your pussy to pure gold atop his well-hung and noble stallion. As in, the sort of toe-curling goodness that you would pay him for.”

  “Well then, no, I didn’t,” I said, feeling myself go hot with a full-body blush. “But I did… uh…”

  “Oh sweet titty-fucking Christ on a cracker, girl,” Candy gasped and dropped her bags by the door, hurrying in to sit beside me. “‘But’ what? Don’t you go word-shy on me now, bitch; not you! No! Start talking! Spill the beans, girl!”