“Yeah, fuck them.” Laurel lay back down.
“So what’s the issue?”
“It’s dumb.”
“Seriously? We are in the mountains, watching the stars and drinking beer. It’s a warm summer night. What better time is there to talk about the reasons you’re angry at your parents? It’s either that or philosophy, and Nietzsche was never my favorite.”
“What about Foucault? He seems more your speed.”
“Yeah, but if we discuss the History of Sexuality, we’re going to land right back at the reasons you’re mad that your parents judge your wardrobe.” I made it sound really trying.
“Okay.” Laurel laughed. “I’m angry that they disagree with all my decisions, argue passionately against them, and then, when I make said decision, they brag about it. I’m tired of fighting against them to accomplish something, then them taking credit for my having accomplished it.”
“That would piss me off.”
“And they are so well connected, well respected that I hear about it all the time.” Laurel dropped her voice a register, “‘Your dad said you graduated cum laude.’ ‘Your parents are so proud of you.’ ‘Everyone just loves how unique your style is.’”
I laughed. “Fuck them.”
“Yeah, fuck them. I’m proud of myself, dammit.”
“Well, yeah, you’re super fun and smart and shit.”
“Hella smart and shit. And my style isn’t fucking unique; they’re just all the same.”
“Total sheep. It’s not your fault they’re so heteronormative.”
“Yeah, heteronormative.” She was quiet for a moment. “Is it weird that I feel way better now?”
“Not really. It’s exhausting to have people tell you that you’re wrong in some way. We get enough of that everywhere else. Family shouldn’t pile it on.”
“But they do. Well, I guess yours doesn’t. Clive is just as cool as you said he would be.”
“He is, but it took us a while to get here. I mean, I was a teenager once.”
“No.” She sounded incredulous.
“I swear.” She chuckled. “Plus, my grandparents tried to help and just made everything harder on us. We got the double whammy of people telling us that there was something wrong with me and something wrong with him for not forcing me to change.”
“See? So you totally get it.”
“You know what I learned, though?”
Laurel turned on her side to face me. “What? Is it profound? I hope it’s profound.”
“It’s super profound.” I shifted and looked at her. “You’re allowed to cut people out. Some people will say you’re a dick, but it doesn’t matter. If someone makes you feel bad and balances it with only a modicum of feeling good, it’s not worth it.”
“That easy?”
“Well, it’s not easy, but it’s worth it. It doesn’t matter if you’re related by blood or marriage or whatever. Why would you maintain a relationship with someone who worked against you feeling happy and healthy?”
“You know, I really don’t know. If a friend treated me the way my father does, I wouldn’t spend time with them anymore.”
“Exactly. So why put up with it? If anything, your family should treat you better than everyone else. Being family isn’t an excuse to treat you extra shitty.”
“Oh, my God.”
“What?”
Laurel did that thing where she pushed her hair out of her eyes. It flopped to the side. “I think you just convinced me that familial obligation is worthless.”
“All obligations are worthless.”
“And how did you arrive at such a brilliant conclusion?”
“I’m not sure it’s brilliant. It’s kind of just the way I have always operated.”
“Why?”
I thought back on that. It could have been the elementary school kids and teachers. They certainly taught me that working for scraps of respect wasn’t worth it. But it seemed more ingrained than that. “I think it has something to do with my mom.”
“Do you hate her?”
I pursed my lips and thought some more. I tried to conjure any sort of strong feeling for my mom and came up empty. “No. I don’t feel much of anything for her. She doesn’t exactly factor in to my daily thoughts.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yeah, but I don’t respect her. I have no interest in a relationship with her. The decisions she made are her own. I can’t judge that. But her decisions did alter the general trajectory of my life. I’m happy Clive raised me instead of her.” Laurel reached over and started tracing patterns on the back of my hand. “Of course, it’s not hard to keep her out of my life. I don’t know where she is. Hell, I don’t know if she’s alive.”
“Yeah, that makes cutting her out easy.”
“But I’ve let go of plenty of people who didn’t simply disappear.” I turned my hand and held hers.
“How do you do that?”
“I guess you find a balance that you’re comfortable with. Like, you probably can’t remove your parents entirely. You probably don’t even want to,” I said. Laurel nodded. “But you can dictate the terms of your relationship. If Mom calls and wants to grab lunch, say no.”
“That’s it? Say no?”
“Simple. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of self-indulgent.”
Laurel smiled, then leaned up and kissed me. It started simple, then became indulgent. Her warm mouth moved against mine. There was a dart of tongue that I tried to lift up and chase. She scooted until she was lying half on top of me. Her breast pressed into my arm. Her hands pressed into my stomach. Her weight felt delicious.
I slid my free hand down and cupped her ass. She shifted again so that she was entirely on top of me. Her lips left mine and followed that line across my cheek, down my jaw, then back up my chin to my mouth. The kiss turned deeper. Her open mouth gasped against mine, our tongues vied for dominance. Her fingertips edged up my shirt until they were digging into my bare stomach. I used both hands to rock her into me. She spread her legs enough to let my thigh slip between them. At the pressure, she groaned into my mouth.
She moved her hands from my stomach, planted them on the table, and lifted up to stare at me. “Cash.” She was breathing hard. Her tone was serious. I waited. “You’re a terrible influence.” The tone changed. “You know that, right?”
“Yes.” I squeezed her ass.
“As long as you’re aware.” She dropped back down and continued kissing me. This was torture. The good kind.
She put her hands back under my shirt. Soft, slightly calloused fingers traced my ribs, climbed up my torso, then back down. Her hips shifted against mine. I was going to come in my pants if we didn’t slow this down. Or speed it up. I slid my hands onto her back and pushed her shirt up. Her bare stomach pressed against mine. That really didn’t help with the whole turned on thing.
I dug my thumbs into the curves of her hips. She rolled her hips against me again. This was ridiculous. I gave in to temptation and popped open the button on her shorts. Laurel groaned and pressed her hips into me. I started in on the zipper, but she grabbed my hand and stilled the motion.
“Okay, we need to slow down,” she said.
My breaths were labored, but I managed to nod and say, “Yeah, okay.”
“Really?” she asked. She looked nervous. I nodded again. “You don’t mind?”
“Well, I had some ideas that were not slowing down, but yeah. If you want to stop, we stop.” I grinned at her.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I was very aware that most of her body weight was still pressed against me. It was excruciating. “But if you want to slow down, lying on me is cruel.”
Laurel laughed. “I do enjoy being cruel to you.” She rocked her hips once more, then rolled off of me.
“I’d complain about the cruelty, but I’m kind of enjoying it.”
“Yeah?” She arched her hips and buttoned her shorts.
“Totally.”
I tugged my shirt back into place. She did the same. We both were breathing hard. I stared at the stars and enjoyed the rush of aborted hormones coursing through my body. I would have preferred to continue, but this was good too. The high of making out, the way I was hyper aware of how restrictive my clothing felt, the warm gasping woman next to me. I could wait. As long as I could have this anticipation.
Laurel reached over and grasped my hand. This was good.
CHAPTER TWENTY
We had just crossed into Sacramento County when my phone started blowing up. I ignored the first few texts, but then it started ringing. I glanced at the readout. Nate.
“Would you mind answering this?” I handed it to Laurel. I couldn’t talk on the phone and drive. I was a law-abiding citizen, after all.
“Sure.” She swiped it. “Hey, this is Laurel.” I could hear Nate talking, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. “No, we are just passing Citrus Heights. We will be home in about twenty.” He talked some more. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Just a sec.” She pulled the phone away from her ear. “He thinks Jerome is headed to your place. Nate is going over there. He also says Henry is downtown? How does Nate know where Jerome is? Is he following him?”
“Shit. Tell him Andy is still home.”
Laurel repeated the message. Nate cursed, which echoed nicely with the curses in my head.
“Okay, just a sec.” Laurel moved the phone away from her mouth again. “Nate says he will be there in ten minutes and Henry should already be there. Jerome just drove around your block a few times and now he is going down Nineteenth.” Nate said something else to her. “Okay, Jerome just stopped on Nineteenth and R. Henry and Nate are going to wait in case he comes back.”
“Tell him to haul ass. I’ll be there soon. Tell him to call me if Jerome moves before he gets there. And ask him to tell Henry the same.”
Laurel relayed the message and hung up. “What the hell is going on?”
“Jerome is the guy you punched.” I moved into the fast lane and held it at eighty. “I kind of broke into his house a few days ago and left him a message.”
Laurel grimaced. “And how does Nate know where Jerome is?”
“We planted GPS trackers on his and all of his employees’ cars.”
She took a couple deep breaths. “Okay, this is a lot of information to take in.”
“My life is usually very boring.”
“Why did you guys put GPS on their cars?” Her tone was anything but understanding.
“To see if they were moving in on our customers. Of course, I didn’t consider the whole tracking his movements thing. I guess it paid off in the early warning.” I was trying to stay positive about this whole situation and Laurel was kind of bringing me down.
“You do realize that it’s illegal to put a GPS tracker on a vehicle without the owner’s consent?”
I took everything in my power to not make a crack about her working for a law firm. “You know, I didn’t check. I’m a drug dealer. I tend to pick and choose which laws to follow.”
“That’s great. So how exactly did you threaten him? I assume this is the wheelchair bound father you and Nate were talking about.” She wasn’t quite yelling, but she wasn’t exactly calm either.
“I took a photo with the old man and gave Jerome a copy.”
“I take it you didn’t just hand it to him.”
“No, I broke in and left copies of the photo. So when he came home he saw that I could have ripped him off, just like I could have hurt his old man, but I didn’t. Because I don’t operate that way.”
“That is so big of you.” There was a lot of sarcasm in that sentence.
“You knew I was a drug dealer. What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. A little sanity.” She stared out the window. “You’re not like—you don’t act like a normal dealer. You’re not arrogant and dangerous.”
“You know a lot of dealers?” It seemed like a good question to ask.
“Just my father’s clients. You seem more level-headed than they are.”
I was pretty sure she meant it as a compliment, but it was massively insulting, and I didn’t have the time or inclination right then to examine why.
“I am. This is a fluke.” My exit was coming up. I moved over three lanes just in time to hit the 26th Street exit.
“So what if he goes back to your place? What about Andy? Do you realize how much danger you put her in?”
That pissed me off. “Yes, I do. I’ll handle it.”
She stayed silent until we were two blocks from my place. My phone rang. She picked it up.
“Nate?” His voice rumbled through the line. “We’re almost there. Stay put.” She hung up the phone. “Jerome is sitting outside your place. Nate and Henry are watching him. Who is Henry?”
“That sheriff buddy of mine. We went to high school together.” I turned onto my street. Nate was sitting on my steps glaring. Henry was parked two houses up watching them. Jerome was leaning against his Cadillac. When I pulled into my driveway, Jerome smiled and waved at me. I yanked the keys out of the ignition and walked up to Jerome. He looked relaxed. His grin suggested that he found the whole thing entertaining.
“Hey, Cash. Looks like the gang is all here.”
“What are you doing here?”
Jerome put up his hands. “I come in peace. Listen, I got your message. Loud and clear.” He chuckled. “I liked the condoms. It was a nice touch.” He reached into his car and pulled out a bottle of Scotch. “Truce?” He held the bottle out to me. There was a little white bow tied around the neck.
This was unexpected. “I’d like that.” I took the bottle.
“You fucked up. I fucked up. Let’s not make it a big deal.”
“You’ll stay away from my employees? And my customers?” I asked. I didn’t trust him, but I could at least take the peace offering and hope it was sincere. If not, I’d deal with it later.
“Yeah, as long as you stay away from mine. And my father.”
“Deal.” I held out my hand. He shook it.
“You don’t come here anymore,” Laurel said. I turned and found her standing uncomfortably close to my shoulder.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. You’ve got a great right hook, by the way.” Jerome was walking the line between reverence and condescending. He grinned and tipped the scale toward respect. “Enjoy that Scotch. You’ve earned it.”
Jerome climbed back into his car and started the engine. He gave us a cute little wave before pulling away from the curb.
Henry got out of his car and approached. He was still watching the street as if he expected Jerome to come back.
“That was interesting.” Nate stepped up to stand next to us.
“What did he say?” Henry asked.
“He wanted to call a truce.” I held up the bottle.
Nate and Henry looked as surprised as I felt.
“We haven’t met,” Laurel said to Henry.
He pulled his gaze from the street for the first time. It took him a moment to find his charm. “You must be the girlfriend. I’m Henry Brewer.” He put out his hand.
“Laurel Collins.” They shook. It was very civilized. But Henry was scrutinizing her like he had seen her before. The entire interaction felt odd. “How did you get roped into this rescue mission?”
“Nate called and asked how close I was.” Henry shrugged. “Couldn’t leave Cash without a savior.” He lowered his voice. “You know the two of them are pretty soft. Can’t make the hard decisions.”
Nate opened his mouth, but I shook my head at him. It wasn’t noon yet and I was so done with today. I’d been offered a bottle of Scotch and a truce from an enemy, insulted and doubted by a woman I was falling too hard for, and mocked by a friend who treated me like shit and expected me to thank him. I couldn’t handle Nate and Henry going at it too.
Laurel grinned at him, but it looked forced. “Then why keep them limping along?”
“Misguided pity, I gu
ess.” Henry smacked me on the shoulder.
I couldn’t even muster a response so I turned and started up toward the house. Everyone followed me. Their presence felt suffocating. “I’m going to make some coffee. You guys want some?”
“I have to get to school. I’m lecturing undergrads in an hour,” Nate said.
I stopped walking. “Thank you.”
He shook my hand. “Anytime. I’ll be watching GPS when I can today, but you need to keep an eye too.”
I nodded. “Will do.”
Henry stopped on the walkway too. “I have to get going as well.”
“Thanks for getting here so quickly,” I said.
“Of course. It was nice to meet you, Laurel.”
“You too.” They locked eyes for a moment. There was a challenge there.
The guys got in their cars and took off. Laurel sat on the front steps and waited. She pushed her hair up out of her eyes, and I really wished I didn’t find it so attractive. We were two minutes from a breakup and I so didn’t want to go there.
“You coming in for coffee?” I asked.
“No. I’m going to take off too. I don’t think I can…” She picked at a sliver of wood on the steps.
“I get it. The reality of dating a drug dealer is a bit more intense than the idea of it.”
Laurel looked up sharply. “No. That’s not it.” She looked back at the steps. “Okay, yeah, that’s part of it. I just need time to wrap my head around it.”
“You’re not breaking up with me?”
“No, God. No.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me down. “I just don’t get it. I saw the farm. It’s doing well. I don’t see why you need to deal.”
“It’s not that simple.” I thought about Henry. Even if the farm did well enough to survive on its own—which it couldn’t—I doubted he would let it go so easily. I had Nate to think about. I had customers. It wasn’t something I could just step back from. It wasn’t something I wanted to step back from. I was good at dealing. The last few weeks notwithstanding.
Cash Braddock Page 17