Adler

by Jessica Gadziala

  They could sympathize, sure, pity, of course, but they could never comprehend it.

  The last thing I wanted was sympathy, pity. It was why I kept everything so under wraps, hidden like a wine stain on a carpet covered by a dresser.

  I had a feeling that Adler was the same way.

  He didn't want me to see his past and think differently about him.

  It was hard to accept that someone could feel compassion for what we had endured earlier in life, but not think it changed who we were as people, would not alter what lens they viewed us through.

  But all that was going to happen.

  He'd made it clear.

  I had agreed to it.

  We were going to show all our parts, no matter what the consequence.

  The idea was equally terrifying and liberating.

  I hadn't known how nice it could be not to do everything myself, and I was starting to wonder if maybe it would be just as nice not to be the sole holder of all my secrets. To share that burden. To have someone to talk it over with, a luxury I had never been afforded.

  I wanted to give it a try.

  Even if it was scary.

  The best parts of life often were.

  So when I knew Adler was out for the day, I grabbed Linny, and walked out of my apartment, leaving a note on the door.

  Catch me if you can.

  The thing was, I had no intention of running. Not really. Just give him the impression of running, get him to go searching, as I sat home eating Chinese takeout, hanging out with Linny, waiting for him to figure out that I hadn't gone anywhere at all.

  - Lenny: He still hasn't figured it out yet?

  - Peyton: Maybe he doesn't deserve pussy after all.

  The two had apparently added their numbers to my phone, being the only people outside of work and takeout in my contacts.

  I wasn't entirely convinced they liked me for me, unable to shake the thought that maybe they were just interested in Adler's interest in me, in his uncharacteristic attention.

  - It's only been three days.

  - Lenny: When was the last time it took you three days to at least get eyes on a skip?

  She had me there. Even if I couldn't catch them, I had least honed in on a location, spotted them, breathed the same air as them.

  But in Adler's defense, he had nothing to go on.

  I had no known contacts aside from people from work.

  We hadn't even exchanged last names, though I was pretty sure Adler was actually his last name to begin with.

  He had nothing to go on.

  He had less than I ever had on a case.

  I wouldn't be surprised if he took a full week, and simply gave up, came home, and came upon me by happenstance.

  - Peyton: Girl's night?

  I honestly wasn't even completely sure what a girls night entailed. I couldn't claim to know how normal friendships worked. Especially with women. Were we going to do face masks and watch 90s rom-coms?

  Because, quite frankly, I would rather be getting my ass kicked by a skip.

  - Lenny: Don't be scared. Peyton's idea of a girls night involves drinking too much, watching scary movies, and discussing the best vibrators on the market.

  - I don't know if I can trust myself around you two and booze. My hangover was hellish last time.

  - Peyton: Quit bitching. Bring dessert. Lenny is bringing the booze. I'm ordering the pizza. And I think Rey is bringing something green.

  With that, I was forced into my first girls night.

  It took place at Peyton's home, an apartment that put mine to absolute shame. But, then again, whose apartment didn't.

  I was the last to arrive, hearing raised voices from within, having to bang hard to get anyone's attention.

  "Well finally," Peyton declared, meeting me at the door in a white crop top with a caution tape design right across her tits and a black miniskirt with lemon-printed leggings underneath, her mermaid hair pulled up into two buns on her head, braids leading up to them.

  "Neat, right? Space Buns with double Dutch braids. I'd say I could do this for you, but this magic was done by gay fingers, the only fingers that can do trendy hairstyles correctly, I swear. Come on. Meet everyone," she invited, moving aside to let me walk in, stealing the tray of brownies I had thrown together. "You know Lenny," she said, waving a hand to the woman in question who toasted me with her beer. "And this adorable salad-dealer is Rey. Whose dogs I believe you know. Annnnnd... this is Savvy. Savea, technically," she told me, waving to a girl with the shiniest black hair I had ever seen, bright eyes, and a slight build. "And Jamie," she finished, throwing an arm around a woman in a purple and yellow plaid shirt with short cropped hair. "Guys, this is Adler's girl Lou."

  "I'm not really..."

  "He's spent every day of the past week with you. You're his girl," Lenny cut me off. "Accept it."

  "Oh, Peyton. I really like these pillows," Rey interjected, seeming like she was trying to lighten the mood. "The flowers are so... oh," she cut off suddenly, cheeks going pink.

  "You can say it," Peyton encouraged. "They're pussies. And there are cock flowers on the chair."

  "Peyt has the fashion sense of a horny fifteen-year-old boy," Jamie declared affectionately.

  "She has a collection of butt plugs on her bookshelf like bookends," Lenny added.

  "What else was I supposed to do with them?" Peyton asked, moving into her kitchen to pop the top on a bottle of rosé.

  "Not display them like decorations?" Savea suggested, again, with affection, making it clear that while they all seemed eager to pick at her, they all loved her. And, quite frankly, when someone was as unique as she was, you kind of had to give her all your respect.

  "Some of them are cute! That gold glitter one? Who would dare relegate such a work of art to a naughty box in the closet or under the bed?"

  "Her sister owns Phallus-opy," Lenny explained. "So if you ever need a good bullet or rabbit, you know who to come to for a recommendation."

  "So who is ready?" Peyton asked a few moments later after we all got a chance to talk to each other, get to know basic facts.

  Like Rey had a mismatch of jobs from dog-sitting and walking to making her own herbal remedies. And Savea worked at a local pet store. Jamie was a mechanic working for someone named Colton King whose very name made all the girls fan themselves dramatically.

  "I think my car is due for an oil change," I decided, never having met the man in question.

  "Get it done while you can," Lenny insisted.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Repo is a mechanic. He gets butthurt if any of us go to a shop when we could use him. Goes on rants about the price of labor and... honestly, I don't even know. I kinda glaze over when words like catalytic and pistons come up."

  "So, ah, do you girls belong to Henchmen too?" I asked, realizing how little I knew about how everyone interconnected in this incestuous little town of ours.

  "Well, Rey is with Reeve, as you know. But Savvy is moon-eyeing a certain Rivers brother."

  "I am not! I moon-eye them all equally."

  "Bullshit," Peyton called her bluff. "You eyefuck Kingston so hard that it makes me blush."

  "Who are the Rivers brothers?"

  "Oh, you sweet, naive girl," Peyton said, moving to sit next to me, patting my head like an ignorant child. "So, we have the Mallicks, right?"

  "Who own Chaz's as a front for their loansharking," I supplied.

  "Precisely. Well, my sister is married to Eli Mallick. And his brother Mark is married to a woman named Scotti. Scotti's brothers are the Rivers. Kingston, Nixon, Atlas, and Rush."

  "Nice names," I decided, nodding.

  "Right? I swear their mom planned for them to be like reality stars or something. Anyway. They're all hot. Tall, dark, dark-eyed, gorgeous manmeat. And Savea pretends that she has a crush on them all when we all really know it is King's meatstick she wants in her ladycave."

  "Oh, dear God," Savvy whimpered, ducking her head so her
hair fell forward to hide her face that must have been a brutal shade of red right then.

  You'd think that by being a friend to someone such as Peyton, she'd be used to the blunt and over-the-top comments by now, but maybe it was different when it was your 'ladycave' being discussed in front of a crowd.

  "She wants his babies. And then we'd finally be technically family in a very roundabout way."

  "So... what were we supposed to be 'ready' for?" Jamie asked. "Not another of those fucking slasher flicks of yours, right, babe?"

  "I learned my lesson last girls night," Peyton declared, rolling her eyes. "How was I supposed to know Dusty would go green and puke?"

  "Because she's a human being?" Lenny suggested. "And that movie had people being hacked to death with machetes in brutally realistic detail for such a campy C-film."

  "Seriously, where do you find that shit?" Jamie asked, shaking her head.

  "They're all killjoys," Peyton told me, shaking her head. "But I get it, you all have weak stomachs. So I picked something tamer. Let me introduce you to a sexy, badass little assassin by the name of Nikita."

  The next three hours were full of food, jokes, a few drinks - less for me since I was the only one driving home - and a new show I decided I needed to binge watch.

  But then Rey declared that Reeve was on his way to get her, giggling herself to tears when Peyton made some lewd comment about fucking her, proof that she had enjoyed far too much of that rosè Peyton kept her plied with since she walked in the door.

  Savea excused herself to bed in the spare room because she apparently got up early to open the pet shop.

  And then Lenny decided to have Edison come to get her as well, everything seeming to wind down.

  Then Sugar was at the door, eye-fucking his woman, a clear sign it was time for me to shuffle out as well.

  "Do you need a ride?" I asked Jamie as she moved out with me.

  "Thanks, but I am gonna walk. It was nice getting to know you, Lou. I hope you hang around."

  And, well, I hoped I would as well.

  For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to have friends, to socialize.

  And I found I liked it.

  More than I could have expected.

  I unlocked my apartment, still smiling to myself over some of the shit that was said between friends, openly inviting me into the fold with them to laugh at Peyton's antics or Rey's babcia, or Lenny's interactions with the first class clientele at Meryl's.

  "Got ya."

  I stopped short, finding Adler sitting on my counter, a coffee cup cradled in his hand, shooting me a sly smile.

  "Oh, I call bullshit," I told him, closing and leaning back against the door.

  "How so?"

  "I don't think you got me. I think you had no leads, gave up, came home, and heard Linny moving around in here. Then figured it all out."

  "Me? Givin' up? Goes to show how much ya got to learn about me, duchess."

  "Where have you been for the past few days then?"

  "Went to Geoff first, asked some questions of him and the guys, tried to get something on you. Even a last name to go by. Got dick. Geoff might be a bastard, but he runs a tight ship. No one would give you up."

  "Honestly," I said, shrugging. "They have nothing to give up. They don't know my last name either."

  And since I was a cash-only employee, there was no reason to insist on one.

  "So then I decided to go with one thing I do know about ya."

  "Which is?"

  "Ya come from the Bronx. That accent is slight, but tellin'."

  "The Bronx is a big borough."

  "And not the best fuckin' vacation spot to visit, so I think ya owe me something just for that."

  I couldn't argue with that.

  "I have some leftover brownies in the oven," I told him, watching as he eagerly jumped down.

  "That'll do it," he agreed, fetching the foil-covered plate only to resume his spot on the counter, making me realize I needed to invest in some stools. Or, you know, a proper dining set.

  "So what did you do there? Besides come up with nothing, that is?"

  "I flashed around yer picture and..."

  "Wait," I cut him off, holding up a hand. "What picture?"

  "The one I snapped of ya when I joined ya on our first job."

  "When you forced your way into my job."

  "Eh, semantics," he brushed that off. "The proprietor of the New Mexico Bodega sends his compliments on the way yer face came together."

  "How kind of him," I drawled. "So you got nowhere."

  "I'm a relentless fuck," he went on, making me stiffen. That sure sounded a lot like he had found something out. "I came across a man at an apartment building, said he lived there for somethin' like twenty years. He thought ya looked like the spittin' image of a woman named Estella that lived there a good fifteen years ago. Said he remembered because one day, the whole family was gone."

  Crap.

  Crapcrapcrapcrap.

  "Don't worry, Lou. I didn't press."

  "Why not?"

  "Because we have a deal, ya and me. We will tell each other when we are ready. I am not gonna go snooping. He clearly had no idea where ya were now, so he was useless to me. And it was right about then that I remembered somethin' that had slipped my notice before."

  He paused dramatically then, clearly waiting for me to beg for more information. "And that was?"

  "Linny had her vet visit yesterday," he informed me, making my mouth fall slightly open.

  She did.

  He had needed to fight her to do her complimentary nail trimming.

  Complimentary, my ass.

  For what he charged me to run his hands over her body and peek into her ears, eyes, and mouth, he should have given her a full doggy spa day.

  Adler, I was starting to realize, had a steel trap for a mind. Nothing got forgotten, overlooked, relegated to the back of the mind with the other nonsense our brains undoubtedly stored without us realizing. Like the theme music to those cheezy commercials that used to plague TV when we were kids. Or fucking useless calculus. The names of all the presidents. The square root of a dozen numbers.

  "So you just knew I wouldn't miss that?"

  "Nah. Figured maybe ya rescheduled. So I called asking for a confirmation of her visit date. The very helpful girl at the front desk let me know that you had been there already. And that yer order of heartworm medication was in."

  "So you came back."

  "So I came back, figuring yer sneaky ass was hidin' in plain sight, figurin' I would never look in yer apartment during a chase game. Clever, Lou. But I did win." His smile was triumphant, but also heated.

  And my body, so defenseless against him, warmed as well.

  "Where were ya?" he asked, throwing me off, tearing my mind away from thoughts about him throwing me up on that counter and eating me with the same enthusiasm he did with the brownies I had made.

  "Oh, ah, Peyton was having a girls night," I supplied.

  "Yeah?" he asked, his smile an unfamiliar one, but almost proud? Or pleased? Or a mix of the two. "She's a fuckin' trip. Just ya two?"

  "Lenny, Savea, Jamie, and Rey."

  "What'd ya think of Rey?"

  "She was sweet. I think she felt a little out of her depths in that environment."

  "A lot like Reeve in the club, I guess. Rey is softer than most of the girls around the compound. Think the girls try to bring her into the fold, but she just doesn't have a lot in common with 'em."

  "After the pillow mishap, they plied her with wine, and she fit in just fine."

  "Pillow mishap," he repeated, brows knitting. "What'd she confuse a throw pillow with a toss pillow?"

  "A throw pillow is a toss pillow."

  "Ah, one of those American things. Like soda and pop and sneakers and tennis shoes."

  "And some people call them trainers."

  "Well, those people are wrong," he decided, shaking his head. "Did ya have fun?"

&nbs
p; "I did," I admitted, oddly unable to make eye-contact as I said so.

  "You're gonna like the rest of them," he informed me.

  "The rest of who?"

  "Well, ya kinda met the Girls Club 2.0. The OGs are a bunch of badasses too."

  "Like Lo?" I asked, knowing enough about the players in town to know that the leader of Hailstorm had shacked up with the vice president from The Henchmen.

  "Lo. Jstorm. Maze. All certifiable badasses. Summer is pretty handy with a gun too. And then there are the girls who aren't shacked up with Henchmen, but are connected. There's a lot of 'em. They're prolly gonna wanna make ya take Krav Maga lessons and shit. Seems to be like a hazing ritual for them. Take ya up to Hailstorm, and beat the shit outta ya."

  "Is it weird that I like that idea?"

  "Don't think I'd be half as into ya as I am if ya weren't weird like that, duchess," he declared, hopping down, making his way to me.

  Stalking his way to me was more like it.

  Because I very much felt like prey to some wild animal, all languid, primal grace, dangerous promise. "And make no mistake, Lou, I am into ya. More than I thought I was capable of," he added, getting close, hips pressing into mine, pushing my ass hard against the door behind me. His arms raised, hands grabbing either side of the doorframe. "Think it's time we stop acting like we are just some neighbors, friends. We both know its more than that," he told me, chin ducked so he could keep eye-contact. "Ya with me?"

  The breath I took was oddly stressed, giving away the mix of desire and uncertainty flooding my system.

  But when my mouth opened, it gave the answer I felt right down to my bones.

  "I'm with you," I agreed, my hands raising to settle at his hips.

  "Thank fuck," he rumbled a second before his lips crashed down on mine.

  He'd been right.

  We had been acting like friendly neighbors, like old friends. Ever since he'd gotten back after the whole club business thing.

  I didn't know if it was because my body was out of commission, and he didn't trust himself to just try to make-out, or what. But we hadn't kissed. Hadn't had any kind of sexual contact since then.

  But there was nothing neighborly or friendly about the way my body reacted immediately to the contact. About the way a low, pained little whimper escaped me at the brush of his scruff, scraping over my sensitive skin, at the way his lips bruised into mine with reckless abandon.