by Avery Flynn
“I ended up back in Miami on a fluke—or at least I thought it was,” she continued. “Turned out my mom had been collecting money from Paul for years to raise his darling secret babies. She took the money, but she’d never let him see us. She told him it would just confuse us. But after we graduated high school, Paul must have figured all bets were off. He managed to track my brother Copper and I down, but didn’t make a move to meet us. Instead, he worked some back channels to get me accepted to art school here. Copper ended up at a university with the best engineering program in the country. For me, getting that acceptance letter to art school with a full scholarship was like winning the lottery.”
She still had that letter in the back of a filing cabinet in her office at Daring Ink. The scholarship had been a lie, she’d found out later. Paul had paid for it all and arranged for her application to end up on the top of the pile. He may have gotten her in, but she’d been the one to earn her degree.
“I didn’t know a thing about Paul until after I graduated and started Daring Ink. He just showed up on my doorstep one day and told me who he was, and what he’d done. He said he didn’t want to pressure me into a relationship but he had hope I would someday. Then he said I had the Dare head for business and that if I ever needed anything, all I had to do was call. After he left, I confronted my mom on the phone. It wasn’t pretty.” Now that was the understatement of the year. Sawyer pointed right. She made the turn into a neighborhood of bungalows familiar enough to give her deja vu. “She admitted to everything and that’s how I learned the lesson that even the people you love the most—the ones you trust the most—will lie to you without flinching. Now if that can’t turn a girl into an untrusting commitment-phobe, I don’t know what will.”
“I’m sorry.” He laid his hand on her thigh and gave her a quick squeeze. “But maybe I can help change your mind about boyfriends.”
The underlying buzz of attraction was there, but it was the warm comfort of having someone beside her that flooded through her. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it until that moment. After finding out about her mom’s lies, she’d pushed everyone away and focused only on Daring Ink because work never betrayed her. But now, with Sawyer, things felt different…better…hopeful.
She put her hand on top of his. “Maybe you already have.”
“Best news I’ve heard all day.” His phone beeped and he looked down at the glowing screen. “We’re close.”
The windows in the bungalows lining the street were dark—except for one. Penny’s stomach sank. She knew that house. Knew its chipped paint on the front porch and the bucket of sand stuffed with cigarette butts near the front door. She’d only been here once, when Chase had needed a ride home late one night.
She slowed down and parked in front of his house. Anger, hurt and disappointment beat against her with hurricane-wind strength.
Sawyer looked up. “How did you know we were here?”
“Your gut was right.” She shoved back the emotions whirling around inside of her. None of it would help. The only way to get through this was not to care at all. She opened her door. “It’s Chase’s house. Come on, let’s get this over with.”
The short walk to the front door felt like a mile and each step up the front porch was a mountain. God she hated this. She hated herself for getting hurt, yet again, because she’d misplaced her trust. When would she learn?
Chase opened the door before she even had a chance to knock.
“Hey boss, what’s up?” His voice was cheerful but his gaze darted all over the place, never landing on her.
“Cut the crap. I know.” She crossed her arms. “Give me the portfolio.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The jittery body language intensified as he rocked on his heels and he fidgeted with his hands.
“Yes, you do,” she snapped. “You’ve been inking my designs on other people. Sawyer’s cop instinct led him right to you but I never thought it would be true.”
A flush ate its way up Chase’s face and he puffed out his chest. “He’s full of shit.”
The lies, the denials, the bullshit, she’d had enough. In a heartbeat she was just done with it all. She wasn’t mad or sad or bitter. Those emotions would come flooding back no doubt, but for now she was just numb. “We put a GPS tracker in the portfolio. We know it’s here. Just go get it.”
All pretense melted from his face, revealing the insecure, desperate boy behind it. “Let me explain, Penny.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You lied. You stole. You pretended to be something you’re not.”
His shoulders drooped and he sighed. “Hold on.” He disappeared from the doorway.
Sawyer put his hand on the butt of the gun holstered to his thigh.
But when Chase reappeared all he had was her portfolio. He handed it over without a word.
Penny took it and turned, needing to get to the safe darkness of her car’s interior before the numbness melted, exposing her raw emotions. Dozer, she would have expected. Even Savannah had her days, but Chase? He just wanted to learn, he swept the floors after closing and calmed down nervous first timers. She’d never expected it to be him, not in a million years.
Sawyer’s hand on the small of her back as they walked to her car comforted, but the betrayal stung too deep for his touch to ease it completely.
“Penny,” Chase called from the porch. “I’m sorry.”
Her fingers paused on the door handle. “Sorry doesn’t always cut it. You’re banished from the studio, don’t let me see you there again.”
She got into the car and started it up, needing more than anything to get home and crawl back into her bed and fall asleep with Sawyer’s arms around her.
*****
Sawyer couldn’t think of anything to say on the way home that didn’t sound like it came out of some stupid soup for the soul book. Before he knew it, they were in the condo elevator headed back up to their floor.
“Hold the elevator,” someone shouted.
Sawyer stepped forward and slid his hand between the closing doors, triggering them to open back up. It wasn’t until he saw D’Andre sprinting across the lobby that he’d wished, he’d pretended not to hear. His gut twisted. This wasn’t going to end well. He loved his friend like a brother, but he was about as subtle off the field as he was when he was sacking quarterbacks on it.
“Hey man,” D’Andre hustled into the elevator. “How’s it going with the hot redhead?”
Penny stiffened behind him.
Shit. This was going to be an epic disaster. Sawyer shot his friend a death glare that said shut-the-fuck-up in screaming silence.
“What’s your deal?” D’Andre looked over and must have noticed Penny because his eyes grew wide.
Sawyer could practically see the wheels turning in his friend’s head. It was after midnight. He and Penny were in the elevator. The smell of sex still clung to them both. It had been years since he’d executed a perfect tackle, but he was ready to revisit old times if it would shut up D’Andre.
“Damn, man.” His friend whistled. “Looks like I’ll be paying up on that bet, I never thought you’d win because she totally out classes your sorry ass.”
Penny zipped around him, anger pouring off her in waves. “What bet?”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Hand on the small of her back, Sawyer practically pushed her out of the elevator before D’Andre could enlighten her. Brain going ninety miles an hour, he tried to come up with an explanation that wouldn’t piss her off more as they quick-stepped it down the hall. He had to tell her something—anything—or he’d lose her for good. She’d banish him from her life just as quickly as she’d dismissed Chase.
They made it about three doors down the hallway before she dug in her heels and jerked to a stop. “What bet was he talking about?”
The rims around her eyes had gone red, along with the tip of her nose, but he couldn’t blame this on her betraying employee. No. Th
is was all his fault. He should have told her everything before he’d slept with her—hell, before she’d given him a tattoo. Really, he should have never taken that bet.
“It was just a dumb bet.” Wanting more than anything to reach out to her and draw her closer, but knowing she’d probably knee him in the nuts if he did, he shoved his fingers through his hair. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“What, that you’d sleep with me?” She laughed in his face. It was a cold, brittle sound, so unlike her laughter in the tattoo studio earlier today. “Was that what this was all about? Is this why you volunteered out of the blue to help me?” She paused and smacked her palm to her forehead. “It was! I should have known but I was blinded by charm and abs. What a fucking idiot am I.”
Shame. Pure, burning cold shame rushed through his veins infecting every part of his body until he dripped in it. “It wasn’t that I’d sleep with you, only that we’d go out on a date.”
She glared at him and then turned on her heel and stormed down the corridor to her front door. Not knowing what to say but knowing he had to stop her, he ran after her.
“Please, you’ve got to listen. You’ve got to know how sorry I am.” He was begging and he didn’t care. This thing, this connection, between them was new and fragile. He didn’t know where it was leading but he had to protect it, and the only way to do that was with the truth. “That stupid bet was the reason why I initially offered to help, but after we talked and I saw how much catching the thief meant to you, there was no way I could walk away.”
“Really?” She didn’t bother to look at him as she shoved her key in the lock of her front door. “I find that hard to believe.”
He grabbed her chin and tilted her face up so she had to look at him. She had to see how this was tearing him apart. “Why?”
“Because I have no problem walking away from you.” She shook off his hand, unlocked her door and stepped inside. “Try not to make so much noise with one of your club girls tomorrow night. Some of us need our sleep.”
Before he could say another word, she slammed the door in his face. As a series of thumps sounded, one for each lock, he watched the peephole. If it stayed dark, that meant she was just on the other side of the door. He still had a chance to talk to her, to plead his case.
“Penny.” Her name left his lips, half in prayer, and then a light appeared, singing through her peephole and he knew she was gone.
He’d lost her before he ever really had her.
Chapter Eight
The next night, Sawyer sat on his bed with his ear pressed to the wall that separated his bedroom from Penny’s, listening for any hint that she was home. It was fucking pathetic, but he couldn’t think of another way to get through to her than by talking.
“Honey, are you there?” he asked.
Silence that punched him right in the gut.
He tapped on the wall.
Nothing.
“Please. I know you’re there. I heard you earlier.” He thunked his forehead on the wall. This isn’t creepy at all. I’d totally want to date me right now. “I’m sorry. None of this is coming out right. Penny, just give me a second chance. You won’t regret it.”
Nada.
He settled back into bed and flicked off the light. “Goodnight,” he said to the wall. “Hope to talk to you in the morning.”
*****
Alone in her dark bedroom, Penny barely dared to breathe, which made the whole crying sniffling thing a lot harder on her. But she wouldn’t answer him and she refused to answer him or let him hear her cry. God, she was crying. She didn’t cry when she found out her mom had been lying, she got mad. She didn’t cry when she found out the whole scholarship to art school had been a lie, she’d done her best to prove she was supposed to be there. She didn’t cry when she realized that someone she trusted at Daring Ink had been stealing her designs, she’d set her mind to figuring out who it was.
But now she was crying. For him. For a man she barely knew.
According to logic, Sawyer’s betrayal should have hurt the least. The fact that she was fully dressed, laying in bed with a pillow over her head to muffle her tears didn’t make one bit of sense, so she did what she always did at times like these: She went to work.
By the time the lunchtime lookie-lous started coming into Daring Ink, the tattoo studio was blindingly clean. The metal sparkled. The leather gleamed. The glass appeared nonexistent.
“Oh my God, did you have to cover up a murder? This place reeks of bleach.” Staci ambled into the studio and tossed her purse down on the formerly pristine display case. “And you look like hell. Do we have Mr. Tall, Blonde and Buff to thank or to punch for this?”
“Punch.” At least then they’d be even because she felt like shit after no sleep, a bucket full of tears and a gallon of Clorox.
Staci looked at the three men wandering around the studio looking at the flash. They all had on expensive shoes and cheap, ill-fitting pants. They were the kind that window-shopped but never bought.
“You three.” She pointed a long canary yellow fingernail at them. “Vamoose. Come back when you have balls enough to get decorated properly.”
As soon as they crossed the threshold she flipped over the Open sign and locked the door. “No one else comes in for another hour. Tell me everything and leave nothing out.”
So she did. She poured it all out, including the screaming orgasms and the weird but sweet way he’d told her goodnight through the wall last night. By the time she got done, Staci was on her second soda and her third piece of gum.
“I see two options.” Staci held up two fingers in a V. “You can kill him or I can. I know people, and this is Miami, so there are a ton of ways to dispose of the body without anyone knowing a thing.”
“I don’t want to kill him.” She may have thought about it, but she didn’t actually want to off him and Staci really did know people.
“I have a cousin who’d break his leg, a compound fracture at the very least.”
Penny shook her head, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “I’m not going to jail because my heart’s broken.”
As soon as she said the words she realized they were the truth. Somehow, between slipping shut-up-already notes under Sawyer’s door and right up until that elevator ride from hell last night, she’d let him in. Was it love? Not yet, but it was something that would have grown into it. She knew it as well as she knew that anyone who got a lover’s name tattooed on their forehead had exponentially upped their chances of breakup in the near future.
“Look.” Staci sat down next to Penny on one of the tattoo tables and put her arm around her shoulders. “You’re my best friend and I love you, but twenty-five is plenty old enough to learn that a fuck is a fuck and a great fuck is totally amazing, but neither is love.”
“Tell that to my heart.” The one so broken that shards of it were poking into her lungs and making it hard to breathe.
Staci cocked her head to the side and gave her a considering look. She brushed a stringy strand of hair out of Penny’s face, which, Penny knew after she’d made the mistake of looking in a mirror earlier, gave Staci an unencumbered view of the dark circles under her eyes and the bright red coloring on the tip of her nose.
“Oh hell.” Staci leaned her head against Penny’s. “You got it fast and hard—and I’m not talking about the banging.”
Penny let out a chuckle that turned into a sniffle that morphed into a quiet wail. “What do I do now?”
Her best friend—the woman who could fix a busted pipe, balance a ledger and call in muscle to rough someone up—shrugged her shoulders. “That is something only you can figure out for you. But if you decide to go with the leg-breaking thing, let me know and I’ll get you the family discount.”
*****
As Sawyer’s granddad always used to say, desperate times called for desperate measures. Looking around his bedroom a week after the disastrous elevator ride and he figured this stunt would either get Penny’s atten
tion long enough that she’d finally talk to him, or he’d get kicked out of the building.
His bedroom looked like an electronics store. Speakers. Subwoofers. Sound bars. He had it all stacked up on top of each other facing the wall dividing his bedroom from hers.
“You have officially lost your mind, man.” D’Andre surveyed the room with a mix of awe and fear. “She is either going to report your ass to the cops or the mental health professionals. My vote’s for the psych ward.”
Sawyer flipped his friend off. “Please, you’ve known me for ten years. I’m crazy but I’m not that kinda crazy.”
“You’ve never tried to blow a hole through your wall with sound before.”
He adjusted one of the speakers that looked like it was about to tip over. “I’m not going to do that, I just can’t think of anything else. She won’t talk to me because of your big ass mouth.”
“Is that not why I hauled all of my very expensive, top of the line and formerly perfectly calibrated equipment down from the penthouse floor for you?” D’Andre asked. “I admit it when I’m wrong.”
“So do I, but she won’t listen. I’ve sent flowers that she trashed, balloons she left in the hall until they deflated like a drunk dick, and I’ve gone to her studio.” The past week had been hell. He’d gone from never wanting the same girl twice to never wanting anyone but Penny. She’d taken over so much space in his brain that he almost got kicked out of the grocery store last night for standing around and smelling the peaches too long. Obviously, he had lost his mind and was at a breaking point. “None of it has worked. If she’d just listen, I’d tell her I’d do whatever it took to get her to forgive me.”
D’Andre lifted an eyebrow. “And you think busting her eardrums is the way to make that happen?”
“I think it’s a way to get her attention.” Maybe. Hopefully. He was a man of action without options here, so he was making his own.
“All this for some girl you’ve known for what, a week?” D’Andre shook his head, sending his dreadlocks swinging.