by Lena Pierce
Then she looks up and I wonder if I mistook her ready-to-smile lips.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. She frowns. “Absolutely not.”
I spread my hands, walk deeper into the store, run my fingertips along a row of potato chip packets. “What?” I ask. “Can’t a man come by the corner store on a fine Friday evening to see what’s what?”
“You know it’s going to be busy soon,” she says. She stands with her back almost completely straight, as though standing to attention. I get the sense that she thinks if she can control her posture, she can somehow control me. “What’s your name? Birch?”
“Birch.” I laugh. “Maybe you can call me Birch, little lady, if you really feel like it.”
“Little lady …” She shakes her head again, this time slower. It’s like she’s warning me: call me little lady again and see what happens. “You know what? I don’t care what your name is. All I care about is getting on with my work without you here bothering me. So why don’t you just take yourself down the street to the titty bar and see if they’ll let a pervert like you in?”
I just have to laugh. It’s too damn funny, her coming at me like this.
“I mean it.” She lays her fists on the counter. “I’ll call the police!”
Chapter Four
Dirk
“Those are some big words,” I say, calmly searching through the potato chips for something spicy. I haven’t eaten in a few hours. Keeping a steady eating schedule was much easier when you had some old gray-haired veteran screaming at you to get to the mess, or when you were crouched in some sandy doorway, tearing apart your field pack. I pick up a packet, open it with my teeth, and take out a red-colored chip. “Some really big words.” I toss the chip into my mouth.
“I mean it!” She takes the phone from the wall. She’s on her side of the counter and I’m out here, looking in. She thinks that gives her an advantage but we both know the truth. “Are you sure you want to deal with that, whatever-your-name-is?”
“Dirk.” I smile at her: my most charming smile, the one that normally works on the ladies. “Dirk Dvorak. It’s nice to meet you, Meghan Alonza.”
The smile doesn’t work on her. Her forehead creases deeply and she lets her mouth fall open in disbelief. “I mean it!” she snarls viciously. There’s so much anger in her voice, I almost take a step back, just from shock. But I ignore that stupid urge and stand there, still outwardly calm. She has to learn that I’m in charge; this sexy, curvy, perfect-looking lady needs to learn who’s giving the orders here.
I wave a hand and then toss a few more potato chips into my mouth. “Everybody in this life has a mission, Meghan Alonza, everybody. Sometimes a man’s mission is to build a home and protect his lady and his kids. Sometimes his mission is to ride and shoot and maybe die. Maybe your mission is to call the police on me and see me arrested, and I ain’t gonna stand in the way of somebody’s mission. I’ve been accused of a lot of things, little lady, but never of meddling with the fates.”
She throws her free hand up, exasperated … which is exactly what my strange speech was designed to do. I feel some of my intelligence muscles working themselves out of their longtime stupor. No need for them in the club work, or with the club girls, but with Meghan—
“I’m serious now.” She brings her index finger to the number nine. “I’ll do it.”
“Let me give you a tip about threatening folks.” I walk around the side of the counter, search for a moment, and then sit down on a chair just behind the cash register where she stands, staring at me, agape. “If you want somebody to do something and you decide that the best way to make ’em do it is to threaten them, then you’ve gotta make sure that you’re ready to follow the threat through. Otherwise you’re just a little lady with her telephone in her hand and her mouth wide open.”
“I’m giving you a last chance!” she protests. Her face goes cute, almost innocent, and she raises her eyebrows like she can actually convince me if she just believes it enough herself.
“No.” I yawn and place the chip packet aside. “You’re not. You’re just stalling because we both know the police won’t come to this store. Maybe the store across the way, maybe the store down the street. But not this one, no, ma’am, not when Jackson Alonza’s sister is here and her protection has been assured by the Shattered Hearts. So—dial away, Meghan—dial away.”
The phone trembles in her hand for a few long moments. She makes an odd growling sound from the back of her throat. Then she replaces the phone in the receiver and scowls at me: the type of scowl than can chill bones, that can warp a man who cares about the lady that the scowl belongs to. Thankfully, that’s not me.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “This is what’s happening. We both know that this place is going to get very, very busy between ten o’clock and two, so what I need you to do is sit in that chair silently and not get involved in any way in my business. Oh, and also, take off that jacket. I don’t want people coming in here thinking this place belongs to the Shattered Hearts now.”
“I’m not in the habit of taking my jacket off because ladies tell me to.”
She tosses her hands again. She looks somehow efficient and spoiled when she does that; it’s like she flits between the two. She could either be a kid getting angry because she lost her toy or a seasoned chef getting angry because the dish isn’t quite right. She paces over to me, staring down with those soft brown eyes; they don’t look so soft anymore.
“I can’t threaten you; we both know that. I can’t make you leave—”
“We both know that,” I agree.
“But I can ask you, nicely, and in good faith, to do me this one favor if you’re going to spend this time in my home.”
“And this store is your home?” I look around the aisles, neatly stacked, way neater than any other nowhere-store. I look at the notepads next to the register, the notes not scrawled but meticulously printed. Even the storage cupboard at the back is tidy. Nothing spills over. Nothing teeters. Everything is in its place. “I guess it is.” I nod. “But I still can’t take this jacket off. Not just ’cause a lady asked me.”
“Ah!” She almost bounds to the storage room, disappearing like a startled deer. She returns to me with a bundle of cash in her hand. “One thousand dollars!” she snaps. “One thousand dollars just to take your jacket off for the night!”
“You care that much?” I laugh. “Goddamn.”
“This is my home!”
I sigh. I should take the cash. Hell, normally I already would’ve taken the cash. But I don’t know … there’s a look in her eyes now that isn’t angry or urgent or hateful. It’s more desperate. I take the bundle, remove four fifties, and hand her back eight hundred. “As you say, ma’am.” I take the jacket off and fold it up, and then place it on a shelf in the storage cupboard.
“I can’t believe you still took two hundred,” she says.
I shrug. “A man’s gotta make a living, right?”
“Quiet now, like we agreed.”
“I’ll be quiet if I want to be quiet, little lady, and that’s just the way it is.”
“You are so annoying,” she mutters. “Really, really, really annoying, easily the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”
“Well, aren’t I lucky?”
I settle back in the chair, immediately glad that I picked this as my spot. It’s directly behind the register so that when she leans forward I get a perfect view of her ass and her legs. She’s wearing a summer skirt with her bare legs showing, which are shaped perfectly, especially when she stands on her tiptoes. It’s a longish skirt, but watching her calves twitch is a show in itself. And when the front door opens—as it does more and more often—her dress sometimes flutters, flashing me a bit of thigh.
“Comfy?” she asks after about an hour, in a lull between customers. She’s seen me looking. Really her question means: Getting a good look? But she’s too embarrassed to come out and say it.
I’m not.
; I lean forward on my elbows and smile up at her. “You’re putting on a good show.”
“Wow.” She turns away quickly, dress fluttering around her. “What an absolute jerk!”
I get myself some coffee and stand at the back of the store after another half hour. The place is getting busy and I need to be able to act fast if anyone goes for her. This is a job and just a job, and yet I find myself attentive like I was overseas, scanning each customer with my intelligence eyes. I think of some sadistic fuck hurting those perfect legs, and my blood turns cold. But the night passes without anybody trying to hurt her. Plenty of assholes making comments and plenty of drunks and druggies, but she deals with all of it with grace, always turning away the problem customers without offending them but also without letting them walk all over her.
“I’m afraid not,” she tells one toothless, hollow-cheeked man. “But thanks for asking.”
“No?” the poor bastard murmurs. “Why not? I’ll take you out on the town, I will, and it’ll be a hell of a time for you, missy. We’ll go dancing and then I’ll take you back to my place and show you what Old Charley’s all about!”
“Definitely not,” she says, but she’s still smiling and somehow her rejection sounds kind. “Please stop asking. You’ll make me blush.”
“All right! All right!” Old Charley says, smiling. “I can take a hint.”
I watch her restack the shelves, leaning here and there, stretching her body out. I get hard as I watch her, thinking about all the different things I could do to her. Goddamn, if she was naked … I bet she looks even more perfect naked. The stern looks she throws me only add to the excitement of it all. Because I know women, and I know for a hard fact that those looks have more than annoyance in them. She might be able to force her lips into a sneer, but her eyes don’t lie and there’s a wild look in them, a look like she doesn’t want to like what she sees when she looks at me but can’t help it.
“You know, you could always help,” she says, slamming a can of beans down.
“I suppose I could,” I reply, unmoving.
“You really are the jerkiest jerk who has ever jerked, Dirk—Dirk the Jerk. Do you have a nickname, Dirk? I know that some of you do. But if you don’t … Dirk the Jerk, I think that works for you.”
I grin at her. “Then I’ll just go right ahead and keep on being a jerk, then.”
She scowls and turns away from me, giving me another look at that fine ass. The dress has red flowers on and when the doors open the fabric hugs her ass so that the flowers mold to the shape of her body, and for a few moments I get to see her fine fuckin’ ass, round and ready to be grabbed and played with.
The night turns to early morning and then we’re heading toward closing time, which for this place is three o’clock. I’ve drunk a few cups of coffee and I feel wired. I lean against the wall and watch her as she goes about the business of packing away, closing and locking the door and the rest of it. I’ll have to take her back to the clubhouse soon, like the boss ordered, but I don’t see why I can’t have a bit of fun with her first.
After she locks the front door I stroll over to her and then stand right next to her, looking down. She stares up at me, fists at her sides. “What are you doing?” she whispers.
“Just looking at you,” I reply. “Is there something wrong with that?”
“Yes, there is—”
I crush her against the wall, pressing my body against hers hard. She folds under the strength of me, just managing to gasp before I press my lips against hers. Goddamn, but a man can’t be expected not to have a taste of a lady like this if he’s going to watch her strut about the place all night. Her lips taste like strawberries. I wonder if it’s that lipstick she put on at about one in the morning. Wherever it comes from, the taste is incredible and I kiss her even harder, pressing so that our teeth click together. She resists at first, her hands against my chest to push me away, but then she softens and grips my pectorals with her fingernails, moaning musically and opening her mouth. She offers me her tongue, and then seems to come awake and thumps me in the chest.
“Get off!” she snaps, breaking off the kiss.
I take a step back, grinning. “Whatever you say.”
Her chest heaves and her face is flushed. She bites her lip and looks at me like she’s annoyed I really got off, like she wishes I had kept kissing her but that she still could have pretended she didn’t want it afterward.
“What’s your problem?” she hisses.
“Problem? I ain’t got a problem, Meghan, except that your ass is about the finest damn thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”
“Wow.” She pouts at me. “You really know how to charm a lady, don’t you?”
“I’m not interested in charming. I’m more interested in other things.”
“Like what?” she murmurs, voice low.
I reach out and touch her cheek. She doesn’t flinch away like she ought to do if she really wants me to believe she doesn’t want me. “You shouldn’t have asked,” I tell her. “Because now I really wanna show you.”
She swallows, but doesn’t move away from my hand. “I—”
Then something crashes through the window, a something my instincts tell me is bad. Overseas-bad. I grab her and tackle her behind an aisle just before the explosion.
Chapter Five
Dirk
Cans and cereal and pieces of plastic and brick fly overhead, slamming into the wall and knocking glasses to the ground. A whisky bottle falls and shatters next to us. I hug Meghan close to me, shielding her from the glass. Some small pieces spray against my neck, but nothing to worry about.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, clearly in shock. She’s staring up at the ceiling like God will really be there, like if she stares hard enough he’ll slide down from heaven and into her open mouth.
I go into autopilot, but not club autopilot. This is army autopilot. I take out my pistol with one hand and with the other I drag her to her feet. The room is orange now. The explosion has torn into the walls, catching it on fire, and now the fire is spreading around the edge of the room, slowly boxing us in. I move quickly, knowing that whoever threw the first might just as easily throw the second. But the biggest threat, I realize as I drag her toward the counter, is the fire; no second bomb comes.
I wave smoke from my eyes and drag Meghan toward the storage room at the rear of the building.
“Oh, oh,” Meghan is whispering, hands almost covering her face. “I—no, no, no. We can’t leave. Please, Dirk, please. We can’t leave. Not my store. Oh Dirk, please. Not my store. Not my store!”
“It’s burning to the goddamned ground,” I snap at her. I stop at the back door. It’s locked with a padlock and I don’t see the key. “Where is it?” I shout in her face. The fire is eating through the counter and the ceiling, coming right at us like something alive. “Where’s the goddamn key?” Then I shoot at the padlock with my gun, figuring I might as well try. But it’s just what I guessed; the custom-built padlocks the Broken Sinners started using a few years back to stop us from jacking their bikes. “Meghan.” I grab her face. “If you don’t tell me where this key is, we’re dead.”
“Under the counter,” she murmurs, almost sleepily. “Next to my personal coffee.”
I place my gun in her hand and then dart forward, leaping through a few low flames and ducking down next to the counter, which the fire has almost claimed now. I see the coffee; the glass shatters in the heat … some of the glass shattering against a small blue lockbox. I tear off my T-shirt and wrap it around my hand, and then bite down on another piece of the shirt as I reach forward and quickly open the lockbox. I just manage to get the key out before badly burning myself.
I run back to Meghan. She’s staring down at the padlock with a lost expression on her face. She looks utterly confused, right down to her core, like her mind is outright rejecting what she’s seeing. I push her aside—not unkindly—and unlock the padlock as fast as I can. Then I open the door to the alleyway an
d drag her outside and down the street.
“Meghan!” a woman screams, her voice high-pitched and choked with smoke. “Meghan! Meghan! I fell asleep!”
We both turn and see her at the same time. A red-haired young-looking teenager is half hanging out of the upper story window. I recognize her from somewhere, I’m sure. It takes me a second to place her: the club. She hangs around the club sometimes. I think she might be one of the club girls but there are so many that come in and out, I can’t be sure. Why would Meghan have a club girl in her apartment?
“That’s Sissy,” she says, waking up a little. “She works part-time for me, Dirk! Oh my … Sissy! Sissy!” She makes as though to run back into the building.
I grab her arm. “No,” I say. “That’s really not a good idea.”