Jason smiled at Tourmaline. “Staying out of trouble?”
“For the moment,” Tourmaline said loftily. “Virginia wanted to see your bike.”
“No, I—” What an asshole she was. Virginia’s face burned—the first time she’d blushed in years. She swallowed and shook her head, taking another step back. The blush deepened. God. She put her hands to her cheeks.
Tourmaline gaped. “What’s—?”
“What kind of bike is it?” Virginia cut in over her, dropping her hands and trying hard to ignore the burn still in her face.
“Fully customized Softail Springer.”
The bike dripped in chrome—it would glow in the moonlight, a slipstream winding around the mountains. Virginia wondered whether it felt like everything she imagined. Gripping the waist of the shadow, her chin on his shoulder as the night swallowed them. No one could touch her inside that darkness.
Behind the glare, she noticed the whitewall tires and the slick cerulean-and-sapphire-painted gas tank—which color it was depending on the tilt of her head. She stepped closer and crouched to look at the engine. Her warped reflection peered back at her. “Are these custom, too?” Virginia asked, pointing to the pipes in an effort to ask any question that sounded even a little like she knew what she was talking about.
“Yes, ma’am.” He sounded actually nice.
She sat back on her heels. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Sounds even better.”
She glanced at him, and he almost seemed to smile. It caught her off guard. Made her insides open up and rush awake with no mind to the fact that she knew he wasn’t truly smiling. Standing, Virginia stuffed her hands in her pockets and shrugged. “I’d need a ride to make a full determination.”
He barked a laugh. “Keep dreaming, little girl.”
Just like that, she felt less like an asshole. But with his sparkling eyes held tight to hers, she found herself smiling sweet sugar, cocking her hip, and vomiting out whatever sprawl of words came into her head first. “Didn’t we cover this ‘little girl’ thing already? Don’t pretend you don’t like them young.”
His face tightened immediately.
She wanted to grab after her words in a desperate attempt to stuff them back inside. He’d probably not meant to hurt her. Not really. And where he’d thrown a jab, even she knew she’d returned with a grenade.
Jason looked away, and it was hard to keep breathing, so—dummy her—Virginia kept on talking. “I mean. I guess I’m young. But not inexperienced. It’s hard to tell which is more valuable.” She cringed as the words left; hearing them sounded so horrible. “A full life in a short amount of time is what I mean. Not the other . . .” She gulped, awkward. God, when had she ever been awkward? “How much of a mess do I have to be right now before you shut me up with a ride?” She laughed, but it fell flat.
Jason still ignored her.
Virginia would have gladly been buried under the asphalt at that moment.
“A hot mess?” another Warden asked, coming up behind Jason. “Are we talking about a girlfriend of yours, Jason?” He wore a vest and boots, the same as the others. About as old—though Virginia would probably remember his age instead of forgetting it the way she did with Jason. Sharp, beady eyes echoed a narrow, pointed beard. His bald head made him look a little satanic, echoing the undercurrent of danger present in all the others.
“I like a hot Southern mess,” Jason said to the man with a grin.
“He does like pageant girls,” Virginia replied, half horrified to hear herself talking again.
Jason was still ignoring her. He smacked the man on the chest. “Have you seen Aubrey?”
“Naw, brother,” the man said, sharp eyes looking Virginia up and down in appreciation. “Why you looking for her?” He offered Virginia his hand. “Flying Ace, but friends call me Ace. And you are?”
Virginia smiled. Finally, something familiar. “Virginia. I’m Tourmaline’s friend.”
“She’s eighteen,” Jason said, as if she were ten.
Ace smiled. “Perfect.”
Virginia laughed. “See, you know.” She winked. It seemed silly, standing there, to think she’d avoided this direction. Making friends, as Hazard put it, could have been easy. A close-her-eyes-and-gotten-it-over with sort of thing. She was much less valuable than she’d considered herself, in the end. But now there was no point.
Ace jerked his thumb at Jason. “Don’t worry about him. He’s a lost cause.”
“Conscript. What could you possibly have to say to her?” Jason said.
Cash looked up, mid-word it seemed, as he stood next to Tourmaline.
Virginia hoped Jason wasn’t watching Tourmaline’s cheeks, because they turned dead-giveaway red.
“Oh, nothing. I just came over to listen to you tell the girls how you picked out the paint to match the shade of blue in their eyes.”
“Oh, but it does match,” Virginia cut in, pulling Jason’s chin back toward her and away from blushing Tourmaline. She bent and put her sunglasses on her head, opening her eyes wide along the gas tank. “Look,” she said, meeting Jason’s eyes.
“Gorgeous,” Ace said.
Jason grunted and looked away.
“It is pretty damn close. Look,” Cash said, his arm brushing Tourmaline’s as he spoke.
Tourmaline blushed harder—like the pretty young thing Jason guarded. If only they could’ve seen her five minutes ago, telling Virginia to shut up about how she was going behind everybody’s back with Cash.
“Tourmaline, here, take my picture,” Virginia said, digging her phone out of her pocket and holding it out.
Tourmaline held up the phone, and Virginia smiled.
Jason frowned.
“Thanks,” Virginia said, straightening. “So when you going to take me for a ride?” she asked Jason.
“Never,” he said.
Virginia laughed. “We’ll see.”
“You’re going to be waiting a long time.”
Ace cleared his throat. “Uh. Jason.”
“I bet you I won’t wait that long,” Virginia purred, finally feeling that she was on steady ground and determined to keep his hazel eyes right on hers, even if they were bright with irritation.
“I wouldn’t be betting on those odds if I were—”
“Jason,” a woman squealed, bounding through the semicircle and into his chest, arms around his neck.
He staggered back a step, looking surprised, and his gaze flickered from Ace to Virginia to the woman at his chest. Then his hand went to her waist, and he smiled. “Hey, I was looking for you.”
“Well, here I am!” She pulled away and settled under his arm.
Virginia snorted. “You weren’t kidding,” she said to Ace. “He does like them crazy.”
Because, of course, the bouncing blonde was Miss Teen Virginia from four years ago, Aubrey Winthrop.
“Virginia,” Aubrey said, smiling. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Thanks, Aubrey. Good to see you.” The polite words and smile came out of habit, but then she wondered why she’d bothered.
“We competed for Miss Teen together the year I won,” Aubrey said, flashing her dimples at Jason. “Virginia was just a little thing then.”
“I wasn’t that little.” Saying it made her feel like she was in middle school. But it had been her first year working for Hazard, and she could have snapped Aubrey’s neck and taken the crown without a peep if she’d been told to.
Virginia’s stomach churned, and she felt all out of breath. This was all such bullshit anyhow. Bullshit, when she had Hazard trawling for her. Did she really want to say she’d spent her last days standing on sticky asphalt bickering with a man she didn’t give two shits about?
“You want to go for a ride, Aubrey?” Jason asked.
Virginia spun and walked away.
Tourmaline’s mother faded back into a ghost. Her wounds turned into fresh pink scars. And Wayne stayed a man with a vise grip—a threat in every shadow.
>
Her world continued on, good and bad, without even a pause of respect for the tumult it was in. That’s how life always went. She texted Cash every night on her broken phone. She laughed and whined along with Virginia while mowing. She passed the garage and ached to ride again. She stood there, staring at Jason’s bike, with a hot asphalt breeze puffing in her face, closing the fractions of centimeters separating her arm from Cash’s, and the world zipped into nothing when his arm brushed hers.
Don’t smile. Don’t smile. It would be a dead-giveaway type smile and she couldn’t afford any more of those.
Cash shifted, boots scraping the ground. The scent of laundry soap and cologne and leather pushed its weight against the wind. His forearm, tight and muscled, drifted back against hers.
Tourmaline couldn’t help glancing down. God, mens’ arms were the best thing in existence. The muscles. The tendons. The sleeve of Cash’s white T-shirt fluttered in the breeze. Without looking straight at him, she could see his profile and feel the heavy stance of his body. She swallowed, everything feeling thick and aching and as if she couldn’t even move her body except to fall into him.
“Tour-muh-line.”
Jason.
She snapped up, the spell broken. “Yeah?” Did she look guilty? She thought she might look guilty.
Jason frowned and waggled his fingers like he was brushing her away. “Your friend might need you.”
“What?” She suddenly realized Virginia wasn’t standing there anymore. “What did you do?”
Jason tightened his grip on Aubrey and made a face as if Tourmaline had said something absurd. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Why does she need me?”
He rolled his eyes and shifted away from her, turning to talk to Ace, bringing Aubrey along with him.
Beside her, Cash turned to answer the question of a girl who hadn’t been there a second ago. Tourmaline felt him leave and couldn’t say a word.
Jason looked over his shoulder as if to say, Why are you still here? Without thinking, she dropped her gaze again to the starlings on his vest.
The girl talking to Cash laughed, and he along with her.
The blood pounded into Tourmaline’s face, reminding her with each throb that she was barely out of high school, not yet into college, and altogether more child than woman. So what she’d been texting Cash the last few weeks? He had other girls, probably. Probably the one talking to him right now, standing close with her hand coming to his arm as she laughed. Because that girl could. If she wanted.
And Tourmaline wasn’t supposed to.
Tourmaline hid her hands in the folds of her skirt and tried to stand there as if she belonged. But the group she’d been with a few minutes ago had become altogether different, now that Virginia wasn’t there.
“I’m going to find Virginia,” she said to no one in particular, trying not to scurry away.
Virginia was nowhere to be seen, and Tourmaline began wandering among the booths, alone and lost in the crowd. This part of the day was more a public event, with bikes and food and raffles that went to the charities the Wardens supported. Her phone buzzed.
Doing anything tomorrow night? I’m actually free.
Ugh. Allen. Tourmaline sighed. Sorry, I won’t be around much anymore.
Oh hey. Look at you. Who is he?
Nope. That was not happening.
Okay. Well. Call me if you need me. Allen replied.
Subtle, she replied, rolling her eyes.
She stopped in front of a food vendor, distracted by trying to decide whether she wanted to risk eating chili cheese fries while wearing this dress.
A laugh rose above the crowd, and Tourmaline turned.
The woman with the silver earrings—her father’s new girlfriend, she supposed, though it pained her to admit the fact—stood in a booth running a raffle for the Network for Abused Children. Same cute blond hair. Cute shirt. Cute sunglasses. Beside the woman stood Tourmaline’s dad with sunglasses and a grin, and his hand on the small of the woman’s back. Neither of them saw her.
Tourmaline lost her appetite. Her phone buzzed and she looked at it.
Where did you go? From Cash.
The fries stuck in her throat. Listening to the sound of a woman who was not her mother laughing, half terrified of running into her mother’s ex-boyfriend, knowing Cash stood there with a girl she did not know and Jason who fucked anything that moved. Thinking of those things made alarm bells ring that Cash hadn’t even tripped. She started to type back that Jason had shooed her away, but she erased it and just sent Wandering.
Come back, Cash texted.
The sun beat down, the crowd moved around her, the woman with the earrings laughed, and Tourmaline stared at her phone and felt more alone than she had when she was alone. Part of her wanted to go stand beside Cash and talk with him just the same as the woman—to laugh and put her hand on his arm. For all the party girls to see, so they knew they’d have to go through her in order to get to him. But that was the last thing she could do.
I have to find V, she texted, and forced herself to move farther away from Cash.
Tempting fate with the chili cheese fries, she ate at the edges of a crowd that she couldn’t help but feel at once separated from and a part of.
Cash found her a few minutes later. Stopping a good distance from her, he gave her a restrained smile. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she mumbled over her fries and chili.
“I came looking for you.”
She picked at the fries, wishing interacting with him wasn’t all so complicated. “You found me.”
“You okay? You just left.”
She gave him a flat look. How could he not understand they couldn’t be caught even talking?
He frowned. “You’re around for the whole day, right?”
“I had planned on it.”
He smiled. “Good.”
She couldn’t help but give him a wry grin. “Yeah? What is it good for?” And maybe talk like that came out of her mouth just because the ache and heavy-limbed feeling she got when touching him still lingered, and she knew she couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it.
“Well, it’s just nice to have you around, I guess. Even if it’s a little torturous.”
“Too bad you can’t go anywhere,” she said quickly, shoving food into her mouth because she didn’t know what else to do with herself. There was an awkward pause as she chewed and tried not to look at him. “There’re waterfalls up in the mountains above the lake. It’s cooler up there. No crowds, either.” She held his gaze.
He laughed, cheeks flooding deep red as he twisted away some. “Evil.” His gaze flickered to hers and she was pleased to find him half teasing, his eyes bright with something intense that sent her pulse fluttering in her neck. “That’s what that just was.”
Torture was what it was to hear his thick voice late at night and not have access to him. Torture was what happened when touching herself wasn’t enough. She stuffed another fry into her mouth, annoyed and exhilarated all at once. “Jason’s probably looking for you.”
Cash groaned. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he gave her a look that sent a rush up her whole body, then turned and left.
She continued to eat chili fries without tasting them. When she went to dump the rest in the trash, she found Virginia, surrounded by the evidence of chain-smoking. “There you are.”
“Still here,” Virginia breathed weakly.
“You all right?”
Virginia didn’t answer, just took another deep breath. She hadn’t ever explained why, suddenly, she’d needed a job, or what had her walking around as if a little distanced from the rest of the world, but Tourmaline hadn’t pressed the question. Now that they were working together, she’d started to see that Virginia was a shell for another Virginia and another, like nesting dolls or boxes inside of boxes. Sometimes Virginia said things that she seemed to think were completely normal and Tourmaline had to quickly arrange her face to agree, while silently m
aking a note to bring it up again some time when it seemed Virginia might answer.
Pulling out her phone, Tourmaline stared at the text she’d sent Anna May that morning. Hope you’re having fun today. Miss you! She’d forgotten to check for an answer until now, but it didn’t matter. The text had been read. And ignored. Wordlessly, she held her hand out for Virginia’s smoke.
Virginia handed it over.
Tourmaline took a deep drag and closed her eyes. “I have to find Wayne.”
“And do what?”
Tourmaline flicked the ash, suddenly realizing someone might see her and tell her father. “I don’t think he’s living under that bridge.” She passed the cigarette back.
“His old house?” Virginia asked over a deep breath.
Tourmaline nodded, her stomach turning. “I’m half afraid to find him.”
“I would be.”
They stood there, surrounded by flies buzzing over the trash cans and the mixed smells of fried food and asphalt and garbage. Tourmaline crossed her arms, frowning at nothing.
“You could always just get him to violate his probation. Get him sent back to prison,” Virginia said.
Tourmaline nodded again. “If I can find him.” What she really needed to know was the truth about Ray—the one thing Wayne and his friends had all seemed to fear. If she knew what the Wardens were feared for, she might know what to do about Wayne without having to ask. Alvarez was watching the Wardens. Not her. Jason’s face drifted across her thoughts.
Tourmaline straightened.
Who would know better than Jason?
All this time Jason had stayed the same guard in the shadows, acting the steady soldier while the empire moved around him. Jason was sergeant at arms. Jason was exactly who would know about Ray.
When she lifted her head to take the cigarette back from Virginia, a car parked on the edge of the lot, tucked into the shade, caught her eye. Alvarez’s car, with no one inside.
Tourmaline went cold, but she bent her head and put the smoke to her mouth, coming up casually. “V, look to your left, but be chill about it.”
Virginia did. “What?”
“It’s Alvarez.”
Done Dirt Cheap Page 16