One More Step

by Colleen Hoover

  “Cancer’s a jerk. But I can beat it. When are you coming back?”

  “I’ve got to do some things for your dad, but I should be back soon. I love you and I’m so proud of you.” I waited until I heard the click of the phone. That was good. When my brother called back not even one minute later, I sent him to voicemail. I didn’t have any news for him and I also didn’t want to be sitting here yapping on the phone instead of waiting like I was supposed to be.

  I looked around nervously. I began tapping my fingers on my phone. There was going to be a man soon. At least that’s what the last text said. Sit on the beach, wait. As Paul, of course.

  Minutes felt like hours.

  THREE

  Her

  I WAS TRYING to pretend I hadn't heard the young voice on the other end of the phone, but I had. Crystal clear. Proclaiming that she was going to beat cancer. I put it together quickly. Jumpy American tourist man was here because he must have borrowed money from the Syndicate. They would act like the amount was a big problem. That’s how they hooked people in for life. How I got involved so long ago, too.

  But the Syndicate had money to burn. A million was nothing. Chump change. They would light a fire with it. They moved in billions of dollars. Sometimes trillions.

  I’d made peace with my death, and now this ripped nerd was sucking me into his drama. Or maybe I was getting sucked into it willingly.

  “Who are you supposed to meet?” I slid my sunglasses down my nose.

  “Deal? I guess a guy named Deal? Or are we supposed to do a deal?” He swung his legs around and set them between our lounge chairs, flinging sand on my torso in the process.

  He reached over and brushed it off quickly, his fingertips dancing on my skin. It was pointless because the sand stuck to the lotion.

  “I’m sorry. I’m touching you. I should stop touching you.” He held up his hands like I had a gun on him.

  “It’s okay.” I knew he wasn’t being a creeper. He was just frazzled as hell.

  “Thanks.” His head was on a swivel.

  “Sit back.” I leaned up and pushed on his chest with my hand.

  “Is it you? Are you Deal?”

  He had one of those sharp jaws and a dimple that got deeper when he talked. His deep brown eyes were fringed by thick black lashes. He had a scratchy looking five o'clock shadow.

  I moved quickly because I needed to see behind us. “No. I’m not Deal, but I know who he is. Just go with me here.”

  I straddled his lap and eased myself slowly onto him. I leaned close to his ear, and my breasts touched his satiny bike jersey.

  Someone watching would assume I was whispering sweet nothings into my lover’s ear. Instead, I was taking stock. How many we had on us. No Deal yet. He was impossible to miss, all six feet and nine inches of him. I spotted a few undercover agents, one on top of the hotel roof with a sniper rifle.

  “You’re very nice and everything. Honestly, I’m very flattered, but I’m here to try to save my brother and, in turn, my niece. She has—”

  I interrupted him and put my hands on his neck.

  “She’s beating cancer. I heard.”

  I didn’t say that his niece and his very predicament were a message from my dead sister.

  She and I were all we had. We grew up in a foster home that was fairly industrial. We weren’t allowed to have details on our parents until we were at least eighteen. Losing her took my will to live until I became a fighter to find her. But she would send me the most obvious sign in the world that I wasn’t supposed to go down as easy as target practice on a beach: my sister’s name was Lexa, too.

  “We owe this group so much money and we can’t pay it. I think they might kill me. I’m going to try to offer them something…anything. Lexa’s going to make it.” His words came out as a flood, drenching his worries to a complete stranger straddling him topless.

  Then I saw Deal come out of the door closest to the fire exit. He was packing heat, though he could’ve gotten a gun from any of the places they were tucked in around the property.

  I put my attention on the man underneath me. “Do as I say and you’ll live.”

  “Okay. One hundred percent.” He nodded with his eager words.

  A breeze slipped across the beach. A white scrap of fabric came free from the beach bar and twirled in the air. I grabbed it as it flew in front of me. I snatched out of the air and gave it a sniff. Vanilla and orange Creamsicles. I almost rolled my eyes. After all these years, all this silence as I’d begged for a sign that she was still alive, today, right now, I get pummeled with her name and her scent. I let the fabric fly free.

  My Lexa had never been a subtle one.

  Deal stopped to speak to the undercover agent who was pretending to drink at the bar. We made eye contact and a slow smile slid across his face.

  He had a scar from his eyebrow to the center of his chest. I put it there. Our history thrummed between us. Deal was the one they’d sent out to kill me, of that I was sure. They couldn’t trust me. And I bet me showing up in the lobby had rung every alarm bell they had. Because it couldn’t be this simple, could it? The most wanted woman in the world strolling into the very headquarters that demanded her head on a pike? I would assume an ambush if I were them.

  Deal seemed to get impossibly taller as he blocked the sun for my scared dude friend and me.

  “You’ve got a great big set of balls.”

  “I always have had a bigger set than you.”

  His sharp bark of laughter had emotion in it if you knew him. And I knew him better than anyone.

  “I heard you tore up some guys in Spain.”

  “I heard you like to wear women’s panties at night.”

  Deal’s eyes narrowed while my muscle-bound nerd breathed heavily between my boobs.

  “So how do you know Paul here?” Deal shifted his weight and let his shirt mold to his firearm. It was an unnecessary threat. I knew he was armed.

  And he assumed I would be armed, even if I was a tiny bit suicidal.

  “I meet people all the time, baby.” I bit my tongue after my words. To swing from sitting and waiting for it all to end to having hope that I might have something to fight for was dizzying. But I dealt in the sudden. I adapted. That’s how I’d gotten here anyway. Not sure if it was right or healthy, but it was where I was.

  Uncle Case put his hands in the air. “You guys know each other? I mean, I’m not hitting on her. I know that’s how it looks right now, but—”

  I covered his mouth with my hand. “Shh. You’ll make it worse.”

  Deal reached out and touched my cheek. I leaned into his hand. “Still so beautiful. And unpredictable.”

  “They sent you out here to do it? They’re setting you up for something. Testing you. With me.”

  Deal had sunglasses on, but I watched his jaw tighten, realizing I was right.

  “It’s not just me. They brought an army down when they saw you on the camera.” He tilted his head in the direction of the snipers that I’d already spotted.

  “I’m half-naked on a beach with no cover. What the hell will they do with me after they eliminate me?” I leaned back and felt Uncle Case’s body tighten as he registered my words.

  “I’m supposed to trust you and they’re getting ready to kill you?” Case’s hands were still in the air.

  “Am I dead yet?” I changed my full attention to the man between my legs.

  “No?” His answer was hesitant.

  “Then trust me until I’m dead. Then trust him.” I looked back at Deal.

  Deal put it together immediately. “No. You’re not cashing that favor in now. I mean, you can do it now, but I’m not putting him before you.”

  Deal owed me. I had a favor I could cash in. Even if I was dead, he would grant me the one thing I asked for. I’d never intended to use it. I was going to let that enormous debt he owed me expire with my last breath, showing him that I’d helped him years ago out of the kindness of my heart.

  “
He makes it out alive, no matter what.” I laid the demand in the sand.

  “Shit. Dammit, Eight. Why? Of all places? This is impossible. Goddamn impossible.” He rubbed his forehead, squeezing the skin there until it was red.

  “I’m still very confused.” Uncle Case tried to see Deal, but I kept his hips pinned with my thighs.

  “Just do as I say. And then do as Deal says. You’re going to reap the benefits of an ancient favor I did for Deal when we were just pups.” I caught the scruffy jaw of the nervous man in my hand.

  “I would tip a government into power or out of it for you. You can have anything.” Deal wasn’t kidding. He could do those things, and would if I asked.

  “I found my sister.” The sentence I longed to hear myself say aloud was in the exact opposite tone it should have been. An obituary announcement instead of a party invitation.

  “I’m so, so sorry.” Deal’s voice cracked. He looked at his feet and fisted one hand. “I wanted it to be different.”

  “Did you? Did you really?” I slid back to Uncle Case’s aka Paul’s thighs.

  Suspicion, then guilt, had an ombre effect on Deal’s facial features.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find out you were involved? That you at least knew some of it?” My years of research and clandestine hunting for my Lexa had never hinted Deal was in on what happened to her.

  “I didn’t know it was her. Not for sure. I was just a wheelman. You know how that goes.”

  “You should’ve said something. Just a hint of something was all I needed.” I slowly got to my feet, standing between the chairs. My feet sank into the white sand. Soothing, even though everything about this moment was wrong.

  “Can you blame me? Eight, you’re here, ready to die because you lost her? Why would I hasten that moment in your life? I want to keep you alive, okay? So hate me for that if you have to. I was selfish enough to want you to live.” He ripped his sunglasses off his face. His deep brown eyes were tortured. “I still want you to live.”

  Uncle Case tried to stand up.

  “Listen, I’m just here to work a deal out—maybe a payment system with the company? I can do contract work for them if anyone’s kid is having trouble with math or anything.”

  I put up a hand and prevented him from moving.

  Deal reached over and pressed his fingers into Case’s shoulder. “Math tutoring isn’t going to get you out of this, pretty boy.”

  Despite our intense conversation, I covered my smile. This whole scenario was bonkers.

  “Let me save you. You know I can get us both out of this.” Deal reached for my wrist with his other hand. I glanced at the snipers. They were refocusing their scopes.

  “Him. Not me.” I pulled my hand away from Case when he seemed to be staying put.

  “I love you.” Deal gently brought my wrist to his mouth and kissed my pulse there.

  “You don’t. But thanks for the gesture.” I lifted an eyebrow.

  I watched the bombs of rejection explode in his eyes.

  “I’m getting him off this beach. You're going to fix his family’s debt.” I stepped into Deal’s personal space, pressing my chest against his, tipping up my face to look at him.

  “You’re impossible. And your instincts are shit.” He let out a deep sigh, but I knew he was resigning himself to the idea of what we were about to unleash. “Do you want a shirt or something there?” He pointed at my boobs with his index finger and pinkie, pointedly looking over my shoulder.

  “Nope. I’m letting them run free for my last job. They’re distracting.” I shook my shoulders, letting them do a little dance.

  “You’re wrong about a lot of things. That this man is worth saving. That those tits are going to be enough to save you. That I don’t love you. But we’ll do this anyway.”

  “Thanks, Deal.” I went to my tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. I held out my hand to Case. “Stand up. We’re going to make them think we’re gonna have a threesome.”

  I watched Case’s eyes go wide. “What the fu—?”

  I leaned forward and kissed Case on the lips mid-curse. Deal put his hand on my hip and kissed the top of my head. Case mostly stood there until I told him to kiss my neck. Deal and I had pretended to be into one another on so many jobs, his moves were super familiar. I watched as the snipers eased back from their guns, turning their heads to talk to each other.

  I grabbed Deal’s and Case’s hands, pulling them behind me toward the bar. The bartender/hitman had a surprised look on his face.

  When Deal got to the bar, he opened with, “One last roll, you know?” And then he winked.

  I ordered three more margaritas and then leaned into Case, whispering, “When he places the drinks onto the coasters here, you’re going to hop over the bar. No matter what. Got it?”

  I waited to see if he comprehended how important this was, if he could keep up. I wasn’t sure a teacher could keep up with the subtleties of the dangerous maneuver we were about to pull.

  FOUR

  Him

  WELL, THESE TWO were crazy. Deal was insane and in love with Eight here. And her name was really Eight? And he killed her sister but was still going to do her a solid and save my family? I read third grade creative essays about dragons that made more sense than these two, who were trying to rub their random logic together.

  And now I was clearly involved in a Netflix original story about a threesome. Because none of this made sense. If Lexa’s cancer wasn’t as real as the day is long, I’d think this was an elaborate joke. I waited and glanced around me as the bartender mixed our drinks. Eight took my hand and put it on her leg. Her skin was hot and had a touch of sand on it. Deal and Eight barely said anything to each other, but I watched as they gave each other hand signals.

  As the bartender walked the margaritas carefully over, I tensed. Was this the worst move possible? Was siding with these lunatics really the right way to save my niece? They knew where my brother’s house was. Who he was. How far could I really get, realistically? I was wearing bike clothes.

  I watched as the drink intended for me sweated a cool drop that landed on the napkin the bartender had slid underneath.

  I had to make a choice. And maybe I was influenced by the free-bouncing boobs, but I was going with Eight.

  The second the drink touched the paper napkin, I let go of Eight’s leg and used my upper body to launch myself over the top of the bar. As I hit the freezer, I knew I had pushed too hard. I knocked the wind right out of my lungs and slid the rest of the way to the floor like a boneless pile.

  The cacophony of limbs and violence were proof that Eight and Deal had also jumped behind the bar. From my crumpled ball position, I watched as Deal knifed the bartender. Well, I hadn’t even known what had taken the burly man down until I saw the blade glisten in the sun, blood giving it a thin stain of red.

  Eight rolled under the bar and sat up enough so she could yank a machine gun free from where it was mounted.

  We made eye contact.

  She half-smiled in a way I think she assumed was comforting. “They have guns everywhere here. Very unsafe.”

  I didn’t get a second to process before the freezer above me began pinging and vibrating. Eight motioned for me to stay low and crawl toward her. I had to twist my torso so I was shaped like an actual person again, and then I began my crawl. She pulled me in close, her fun bags touching my arm, chest, and at times my neck. This was a great way to die. I mean, I wasn’t advocating for that to happen, but I loved boobs so much. These in particular were real showstoppers.

  I didn’t see how we could get out of this. The snipers on top of the hotel had a far superior position. I’d played enough first-person shooter video games to know we were done. The place was surrounded by all kinds of staff who I was guessing were experts with the type of gun that Eight had freed from under the bar. It was disarming to smell the ocean and suntan lotion—hallmarks of vacation—and be scared for my life.

  Deal was busy concocting so
mething under the bar. I didn't think now was the time to take a 101 class in cocktail makings, but okay. Eight was heedless to her nudity, eyes darting from one place to another. She seemed to be tracking something. She glanced at me and offered an explanation, “Tracking the trajectory and watching their reflection in the freezer.”

  Hot damn.

  Now was not the time to introduce my private general to a life of violence. He needed to stand down.

  Deal turned, holding a crazy looking bottle with napkins sticking out of it. It felt like a surreal dream. I had no idea what he was planning until he grabbed a lighter from the glass station.

  “I want you to run the second he throws it, okay? Head behind the bar—it’s round and jump over the backside and find the first cover you can. Don’t move until I grab you.”

  I had a list of questions that should have been met with multiple part answers and maybe a diagram, but then Eight and Deal locked eyes while nodding.

  I watched Deal light the fuse and cock his arm back. My lovely boob safehouse gave me a swift push toward the freezer. I ducked low out of instinct and shimmied around the equipment that cluttered the center of the round beach bar. Everything turned orange as a huge bang shook the ground.

  What happened next was a hail of gunfire and then me being dragged by my arm by Eight. She was a machine. The way she scanned the environment and pulled us from one cover to another. By the time we made it to the road, I was sure I had been hit by bullets at least five times. As I did a self-assessment, the only issues I seemed to have were a very increased heart rate and what had to be the makings of my first panic attack.

  Eight looked in my eyes and slapped me in the face. “Not now. Focus. Deal will be here in just a moment. Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

  “I used to do target practice with my air soft on pumpkins in the backyard.” I’d never seen someone’s expression disregard something so quickly as I did on her face at that moment.

  “Here we go.” She held my bicep and tipped her chin toward the huge bus careening at us.

  Deal was driving with one hand and holding a pistol with another. Behind us, running feet and gunfire increased.