by Mary Martel
“I need to know that you hear me, Riley,” Chance said, cutting into my distracted thoughts. His dark brown serious eyes bore into mine from across the table. “You can’t fuck with these people. You do and they try to hit you back, Dad’s going to be forced to reta—”
His words choked off and came to a stuttering halt as his eyes moved over my shoulder, his back shooting straight. Immediately, he went on alert and he removed his hands from the table, taking them out of sight. Probably reaching for his piece I knew he carried around with him at all times.
“Be careful with your words, my brother,” Chance mumbled under his breath with his mouth barely moving. In his own way, he also let me know the person approaching was close enough to overhear our conversation. “Very careful.”
Fuck.
Our guest put Chance on edge, and my boy wasn’t an easily intimidated dude. He grew up rough in his father’s business and learned from a very young age to hold his own and easily could. All that muscle wasn’t just for show. He fought in his father’s underground ring whenever he felt like beating the fuck out of someone and had since he was fifteen.
In my spare time, I worked out with him in their gym, and he’d been trying to get me into the ring for a while now because he thought I could make some easy cash that way. Fighting for sport wasn’t my thing, so I’d declined every invitation so far, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t hold my own, too, because I damn sure could. Just because I didn’t like to fight for sport didn’t mean I’d never had to use my fists before.
I’d been out and about with Chance before when people had tried to come for him, and we’d ended up brawling. We always came out bloody but victorious. It was one of the reasons I didn’t go out with him as much anymore. Going home bruised and bloody always set my mom off in a bad way that did nothing good for me and filled me with guilt, so I tried to avoid putting myself in situations that would bring me more than that.
“A phone call before you walked up in here would have been nice,” Chance said to the person standing over my shoulder. “This disrespect doesn’t sit right with me, and you gotta know that.”
I wanted so badly to turn my head to the side and see who stood beside me so I could assess the threat, but I refused to take my eyes off of Chance. If he so much as twitched, I’d be out of my seat in no time.
“This isn’t about disrespect and you know it. You also know I’m not even here to see you. I need to have a word with your little friend here, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to do that in private without you.”
Uh, say what? That caught my attention, and against my better judgment, I took my eyes off of Chance and looked to the side. And almost came out of my seat.
“Move over,” the bodyguard friend ordered me while staring me down from cold, hard eyes. “You and I have a few things we need to get straight. If you send your guard dog away, I’ll switch sides and give you some space to breathe, but right now I don’t want to slide in the booth beside him when he’s got that piece in his lap.” He arched an arrogant eyebrow as he smirked down at me. “You’re not by chance packing heat, are you?”
Before I could answer, Chance snorted, and the douche bag bodyguard shoved me in the shoulder. I reluctantly slid over, because I didn’t want to make a scene at my place of business and cause problems for Chance.
“I didn’t think so,” he murmured quietly as he slid into the booth.
Since the booth was a half circle, I slid over all the way to the middle even though I was now boxed in with the wall behind me it was better than sitting up close and personal with that fucking guy who didn’t mind sitting across from a man with a gun, but he just didn’t want to sit next to it.
They could point their pieces at each other, and I knew Gem’s buddy was packing by the bulge under his arm.
Chance waved his hand that had magically appeared above the table again between the bodyguard and myself. “Franklin, meet Riley. Riley, meet Franklin.”
Introductions made, I sat back and waited for this fucking Franklin guy to speak. Obviously, he had something to say to me or he wouldn’t be here.
The fucker was dressed in a long-sleeved, crisp white button up. The shirt was tucked in and he had on a black, two button blazer over it that tried to hide the bulge his gun gave off. He looked well put together with his fancy clothes and studious looking glasses, but the belt buckle threw me a little because it didn’t match what he looked like he was going for. The buckle was oval in shape with a laughing, dancing skeleton who had eyes that looked like real diamonds and probably were. The skeleton was smoking a fat cigar with a burning tip while shooting off a gun.
Franklin smirked across the table at Chance before dismissing him entirely and turning to me. It took either a great deal of stupidity or a seriously heavy set of balls to turn away from someone who you knew had a gun turned on you.
“We need to discuss Gem,” he informed me, and I nodded, wholeheartedly agreeing with him. Gem was my new favorite subject. “I want to know what your intentions are toward her and why you even want anything to do with her in the first place. You were friends with her sister, who’s dead, and from what I’ve seen, you don’t know shit about my girl. And I’m gonna be honest with you right now when I say if it were up to me, I’d keep it that way. But she, for some dumbass reason, isn’t willing to forget about your lame ass.”
I couldn’t help myself, I grinned at him. Hearing him talk about Gin had made me want to put my fist in his face, but his last statement had filled me with an unexpected joy.
Gem could try to hide it around me, but she clearly wasn’t hiding anything from her bodyguard. My smile got even wider. I probably looked like a fucking lunatic, but I didn’t give the first fuck.
“Does she talk about me a lot?” I couldn’t help but ask. I had to get my digs in where I could, because you best believe I didn’t forget the creep had tried to run me over after my best friend’s funeral.
I thought he’d get pissed and maybe snarl at me. I was completely wrong.
Unpredictable people could make life fun or turn it into a huge fucking mess. This dude might appear to have his shit tight, but I had a feeling he could easily do messy, and his version of messy likely involved violence and blood.
Franklin inclined his head slightly. “Indeed, she does talk about you, but until recently, nothing she said had been very kind. Which, I’m going to tell you but you won’t repeat it to her, she is regretting very much right about now. She feels like shit and doesn’t know how to make something right with you when she can’t understand that she’s done absolutely nothing wrong in the first place. I’m going to need you to fix it then go the fuck away. Please and thank you very much.”
I didn’t understand half the shit that came out of his mouth, but what I did understand I didn’t like.
“I have no idea what the hell half that shit means, but I’m curious about one thing,” I told him as I leaned forward and placed my forearms on the table. My hands steepled together as my palms pressed flat against one another in a prayer position. “What is it that she feels so badly about? I’ve noticed she can be a little... chilly toward me, and I’ve no idea as to why. I chalked it up to her being angry and upset over her sister dying unexpectedly. Care to fill me in on what that’s all about?”
His eyes darted from my face to my hands, and the corner of his lips curled up as if he found something greatly amusing, and that something was me. Since I’d done nothing I found amusing, I figured the dick was just trying to get under my skin. And I was letting it work, damn it. I hoped it didn’t show on my face.
“Hey, Chance, Riley,” said a pretty blonde who’d sauntered up to our table. She wore tiny black spandex shorts, and a tight sparkly bralette top that showed off her heaving cleavage and her flat, toned stomach. Her feet were encased in dangerously high heels, and she wore far too much makeup on her pretty face for my liking, but it didn’t make her any less pretty.
She had on more clothing than the girls o
n the stage currently had on, but by now I was immune to it and barely even noticed them. Not that it would ever matter now anyway, my dick was dead for all but one girl, and she certainly wasn’t a stripper.
“Chantelle,” Chance quietly murmured back.
“Can I get either of you guys or your friend here something to drink?” Chantelle looked at Franklin with a cocky little smile on her face and hunger in her eyes. She flirted with anything with a dick, and she had absolutely no standards.
Clearly, she’d set her sights on fresh meat and was looking for someone to bang one out with in the bathroom. The regulars were smart enough not to go there with her, they knew better. There was a reason she didn’t dance on the stage or give private dances anymore, it was a punishment of a sort because she made more money dancing than she did waitressing. Especially because she liked to take things a little too far and she charged a pretty penny for it every time.
Some people thought strippers were dirty, but I wasn’t one of them. A whore was an entirely different matter. And I didn’t give that first fuck how judgmental that made me. Paying for sex wasn’t something I’d ever even consider doing. If I wanted to get my rocks off that badly, I could always just use my hand.
If it were up to me, Chantelle would have gotten her ass canned, but that was the thing with Chance’s dad. He was a sucker for a pretty woman, and if she was in need, then all the better for him. Like with my mother. I didn’t know what his deal with women was and it wasn’t my business, so I’d never asked, but it was something I was thankful for.
I didn’t know if Chantelle was either thankful or grateful, but I did know she absolutely had not learned her lesson. Luckily for her, she had little kids to support and a deadbeat boyfriend at home, so she desperately needed her job here. Therefore, she’d likely never get fired.
I hoped Franklin took the bait and hit that. I would gain some perverse sense of pleasure from it, because surely if he was sleeping with Gem, he wouldn’t be going around sticking his dick in other people. I knew I sure as fuck wouldn’t.
“Vodka. Rocks,” Franklin spoke without even so much as looking in her direction.
Chantelle, who absolutely was not used to being ignored, clearly didn’t like this. She put her hands on her slim hips and her lips curled up in a predatory smile that did not bode well for any of us.
“You got ID, sugar?” she purred in a deceptively sweet voice that tried to hide her venom.
At this, Franklin finally turned his head to look up at the pretty waitress. His face that had not been friendly two seconds ago grew downright hostile, and the air around the booth grew incredibly chilly.
Chantelle very wisely took a step back.
“Riley and I will each have a beer, Chan,” Chance interjected, wading into the thick tension surrounding the four of us. “And get the man his fucking vodka, for fuck’s sake.”
She turned to Chance and her face immediately morphed into a pout. “But Riley’s on the clock.”
You notice she didn’t say shit about me being underaged. And nobody around here really gave a fuck if you had a drink while you were on the clock. I saw other people drinking all the time. She was just being a pain in the ass because she didn’t like the way Franklin had dismissed her and then looked at her.
Petty bitch.
“Chantelle,” Chance said in a bored voice I knew he had to fake because this situation was far from boring. “If you don’t get the fuck away from this table and do what you’re paid to do, then you can take your ass home for the night. You can come back tomorrow, but you won’t be getting any tips from tonight, and we all know you could use the money. You gotta be able to afford more booze and blow for that fat loser you’ve got waiting for you at home.”
Chantelle should have known better. It wasn’t like she’d never been on the receiving end of one of Chance’s shitty moods before and been a victim to his sharp tongue. Chance didn’t allow disrespect from anyone and always got his back in whatever way he possibly could. He’d be a dick to Chantelle for the rest of the night, maybe even the rest of the week, depending on how long he felt this particular lesson deserved to be taught.
“Do you think she’ll still bring us our drinks after that?” Franklin asked, sounding vastly amused. He wore a tiny smirk on his face as he watched the waitress sidle up to the bar.
Impatient and tired of this nonsense, I snapped, “Fuck the drinks. Tell me about Gem. That’s why you’re here, so get on with it. I need to get back to work.”
I actually didn’t need to get back to work. The middle of the week could get slow, and tonight was one of those nights. Chances were I’d be going home within the next hour or so because there wasn’t anything for me to do here tonight.
Maybe Chance would let me go when Franklin left so I could follow him.
Shit, now I was plotting stalking the bodyguard too. I’d really lost my shit here.
“Did you ever date her sister?” he asked me, and I had the sudden urge to vomit.
“No,” I gritted out through a clenched jaw. I didn’t like where this conversation seemed to be heading. Just the thought of dating Gin left a bad taste in my mouth as if I’d inhaled something sour and spoiled.
Did he not know Gin had been entirely gay? That made the sour taste even worse. I’d known she’d kept things a secret at school for Belinda’s sake, but the rest of the people in her life outside of me didn’t seem to know shit about who she really had been either.
Everything about my girl made me sad now. How did she live under the burden of all these secrets?
Fuck, but I hated that for my beautiful friend.
“Because she was a lesbian and dating that Belinda bitch from the funeral?” Franklin asked the question, but since he’d asked in the first place, I knew he must have already known the answer.
So why ask in the first place? Curious, I countered, “If you knew all that, then why’d you ask me if I was dating Gin? And what does this have to do with Gem?”
Chantelle came back with our drinks and was stupid enough to slam them down on the table. Alcohol sloshed over the rim of the glass with vodka and ice in it, splattering over the table.
Chance sighed unhappily and his eyes came to me. “I think you’re good here without me, brother. This little meet and greet doesn’t seem to be about disrespect or doing any kind of damage. More like gathering and exchanging information.”
I dipped my head, silently letting him know I was in agreement and felt fine with him leaving me to face the arrogant bodyguard on my own. It wasn’t like he was going to pull out his gun and shoot my ass right here at the table. I know I said it was dead in here, but there were still a few people hanging around, and I’d never shot anyone before, nor did I have plans to, but if I ever did, I hoped I’d be smart enough to not do it in front of a bunch of witnesses.
Chance rapped his knuckles on top of the table and slid out of the booth. His gun was miraculously nowhere to be seen. He grabbed ahold of Chantelle by her bicep and carefully dragged her across the room and toward the hallway that led back to the offices and the employees’ only room.
Chantelle was about to get an earful before her ass got sent home like a naughty schoolgirl. For Chance’s sake, I hoped she didn’t cry to his dad about it later, but sometimes bitches got what they deserved.
Franklin picked up his drink and sipped from it before setting it back down on the table. He made a face of displeasure before muttering under his breath, “Of course she gave me the cheap, bottom shelf shit. Some people are just assholes.”
I didn’t bother touching my beer and left it where it was. I didn’t drink at work no matter that no one cared if I did or not. I never drank anything alcoholic and got behind the wheel of a vehicle. Drinking and driving wasn’t something to fuck around with, and even though one beer wouldn’t really do anything for me, I still wasn’t about to go there.
“Did you know Gin kept diaries?” he asked me, and I shook my head. I hadn’t known, but I wasn’t
exactly surprised at hearing this knowledge. “Well, Gemmy found them in her bedroom after the funeral and took them with her so their mother wouldn’t read through them, and what she’s reading is breaking her heart.”
Jesus, fuck. What could be written in those diaries that would make Gem feel like that while reading them? I didn’t think I honestly wanted to know. Gin was dead and there wasn’t anything I could do to change her written words at this point. There was no eraser able to wipe away those wounds.
“Gin told her sister that the two of you were dating... for years. She also told Gem she caught you cheating on her with her best friend Belinda. Not to mention she claimed that when you took her virginity it was not good for her in the slightest and you hadn’t cared about that. Gem obviously felt some type of way about all of that. Which is why she hated your ass on sight. But it gets worse, Riley, and I fucking hate giving this to you, because I know my girl is going to want to give it to you herself so she can throw herself down onto her own damn sword since she lied to her twin that much. Even after everything she found out.”
My chest burned.
My guts churned.
I felt fucking sick to my stomach, and I wanted to hate him for his words. I wanted to distrust him and call him a liar.
I couldn’t do that though, because he seemed so goddamn sincere and so very concerned on Gem’s behalf.
I didn’t want to believe my crazy sweet friend could have said those things about me, and as much as I wanted to rage on this motherfucker and lash out at him, I had to face facts.
Gin would have done anything for Belinda, and she lied to cover her girlfriend so often it had long since ceased bothering me.
But this shit was a whole new level of shady as fuck, and it wasn’t just about lying to cover up her girlfriend. We were friends, best fucking friends, and I kept her secrets for her without judgment and I was the kind of friend who would gladly take those secrets to the grave. Even after hearing all of this I would still do that for her because I wasn’t that type of person to shit all over the people I loved.