by Geneva Lee
“And you think that’s what I want?”
“You came home,” he says, like this clears matters up. “You came looking for your girl. Do you really think she fits into your life? We both knew the Koltsovs were going to come looking for you.”
“They’ve got no beef with me.” I mean it. I delivered on every job they ever sent me. We left everything just fine.
“It’s not that simple. They’re cleaning house. Half the list—courtesy of our friendly informant—is dead already.”
“And you think I’m next?”
“You’re not hearing me. They know you’ve been named by someone who flipped—”
“Which means your office fucked up,” I hiss, trying to keep my voice down enough it won’t be overhead. “And now you’re talking to me, which will only make me more of a target. So leave off pretending you’re here to do me any favors.”
Noah’s expression sours, but he doesn’t give up. “Now I’m to blame for the Koltsovs trying to clean house? Look, I don’t know if they’re working through their list in fucking chronological order, but they’ll get to you, eventually.”
“Thanks for the warning.” I toss a twenty-dollar bill on the table.
Noah reaches for it and tosses it back at me.
“Can’t let someone like me buy you a cup coffee?” I ask.
“I try to keep my ledger clean.”
“You did me a favor. Told me what to expect. Consider this making us even,” I say and drop the bill back on the table. “I’ll see you around. Thanks for the warning.”
“You have a chance to do what’s right here, Sterling. Don’t waste it,” he advises me.
“I can always make new chances,” I tell him, as I button my suit jacket. “What you’re talking about is closing doors.”
“And this is the door you really want to keep open?” He gestures to the city outside the café’s windows.
“For now.” I’m not giving him the satisfaction of any more of my time, even if he’s given me a lot to consider. It’s one thing to have the FBI sniffing around town. If I keep my nose clean, he can’t touch me. The Koltsovs? That’s another story. If he’s right, then I’ll be hearing from them soon enough. “See you around.”
He tips his head in acknowledgment before tapping the corner of his eye. “I’ll be watching.”
“I bet you will.” As soon as I’m outside, I dial Luca’s phone. There’s no time to waste.
“Bail Money Are Us,” Luca says when he answers. “Did you punch him again?”
“Shut up. This is important.” I fill him in on what Noah said.
He lets out a low whistle before he responds. “Looks like Nashville is getting more interesting.”
“Tell Jack,” I say, ignoring his misplaced humor.
“Will do,” he says.
“You know he’ll go after her,” Luca adds quietly.
“Yeah,” I say in a clipped tone.
“Watch your back, brother.”
“I always do.”
What have I gotten her into? Valmont isn’t big enough for all of us. Not if my past mistakes are going to move to town with me.
“And, Sterling, better watch hers, too,” he says before hanging up.
I thought Valmont needed a reckoning, but now that one is on its way, I’m wondering not only if I made a mistake coming back but who’s going to pay or it?
19
Adair
The Past
“I’m going to sleep with Sterling.”
Poppy’s Audi swerves into the next lane, and she quickly jerks it back to the right side of the road, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a mini-van.
I instantly regret my decision to tell her while she’s driving.
“I thought you already did,” Kai says from the backseat.
“What? Of course she hasn’t!” Poppy cries in a shrill voice, turning off the radio. She throws an exasperated look over her shoulder at him.
“Eyes on the road!” I grab the steering wheel and straighten it until her focus has returned.
“We would know if she slept with him. She would tell us,” Poppy lectures him. “It’s part of the rules.”
“There are rules?” I ask.
“Yes, and they’re so ingrained that you didn’t even know it. You just knew you needed to tell us!” Poppy claps and then grabs the wheel. “Oops! Sorry.”
We pause the discussion until we reach safety, but the moment our feet are on solid ground, they pepper me with questions.
“When?” Poppy asks.
“Where?”
“Friday, and I don’t know.” I wring my hands together. That’s the part that’s been weighing on my mind. Part of me wishes we hadn’t been interrupted that night at the Eaton. Then it would already be behind me. Sterling has been focused on his finals since Francie left, leaving little time for romantic interludes. “I told him that I’d sleep with him if he got an A on his Econ final.”
“You incentivized your virginity?” I can tell Poppy doesn’t approve.
“Look, I know I want to lose it to Sterling, so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone.”
“Romantic,” Kai says with a chuckle.
“Actually, I think it will be.” I bite my lip, wishing they could see in him what I do. Unfortunately, the pair has been privy to enough bad behavior on his part to make that harder than I’d like. I take a deep breath and drop the bigger bombshell. “I think I’m in love with him.”
I know it, actually.
Poppy spins and grabs my hands. “Oh my god, did he say it?”
It doesn’t matter if she likes him or not. She knows that a moment like that is bigger than her personal objections. Her face falls when I shake my head.
“We keep hinting at it,” I admit. “We’ve definitely used the L-word but not actually said I love you.”
Even speaking the words to them ties my stomach in knots.
“Don’t say it first,” Poppy advises.
“Why not?” Kai is clearly not on board with her old-fashioned views about relationship etiquette.
“We’ll say it when it’s right.” I really do know it’s about what’s right for me and Sterling. I just needed to share before I imploded, trying to keep all the nerves and excitement locked inside me. “But I don’t know what I should do. I mean, how do I tell him I want to have sex without actually having to say it?”
“No panties,” Poppy says seriously. Kai and I burst out laughing, and she shakes her head. “Nothing sends a clearer signal. A garter belt and nothing else.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m not sure I’m ready to jump from virgin to vixen.”
“You want to know the truth?” Kai asks.
I nod, hoping one of them has some real advice.
“It’s like any other day of your life. There’s not a lot of ceremony about it—unless you’re going to wait until your wedding night,” he adds.
“No way.”
“Then find something you feel good in, tell him you want to hang out, and… ”
“And what?” That can’t be the end of the instructions.
“Kiss him,” Poppy says.
“Kiss him? That’s all.”
She shares a wicked look with Kai. “Kiss him,” she repeats. “The rest will take care of itself.”
I tell myself I’m not nervous, but my hands are slippery on the steering wheel of Mom’s Roadster as I pull into Sterling’s dorm parking lot. I’m running late, which isn’t a surprise after the number of outfits I tried on. We’re supposed to be getting together to celebrate the end of finals. Despite my friends’ assurances that a kiss will send the message I want to send, I’m hoping he remembers the promise I made. I don’t want to make an idiot out of myself.
I want everything to be perfect. I teased him during our pre-Thanksgiving study session, but the truth is, I don’t have a lot of stuff from the Victoria’s Secret front window. I spent hours combing my closet for the perfect outfit. Kai said to
be comfortable, but I doubted showing up in yoga pants was going to send the right message. I needed to look hot, but I understood I’d gone overboard on my birthday. I couldn’t show up in a mini-dress to hang in his dorm room without feeling out of place. In the end, nothing felt right, so I ended up in a gray t-shirt with a deep cut v-neck, jeans, and a black gasoline jacket with boots to match. I thought I looked like a badass. Now, I just need to channel that energy into some self-confidence.
I make a kissy face in the rearview mirror, then check my teeth for any of my blush-red lipstick. All is well.
Sterling had one of the latest finals on campus, and the parking lot is mostly empty. He’s sticking around through the week to attend my family’s Christmas party before leaving to spend the holidays with Francie in New York. That’s why this needs to happen tonight. I want to be able to spend as much time with him as I can before enduring Christmas without him.
His dorm is a ghost town, so I’m surprised when the elevator slides open and he’s inside. His eyes widen when he sees me. “Damn, Lucky. You. Look. Perfect. I was just stepping outside to wait for you.”
Is it possible for a heart to actually explode over a guy? Because mine feels like it’s on the verge of bursting.
Wait for me? I can’t help feeling like he’s as eager to see me as I am to see him. A casual sexiness rolls off him. Sterling might not spend thousands on his wardrobe like most guys I know, but that works in his favor. His faded t-shirt with its well-worn fabric only accentuates his muscular torso and wide, strong shoulders. The leather coat he’s wearing was vintage twenty years ago, but that only makes it better. He’s clean-shaven for once, drawing attention to his electric-blue eyes. There’s even a little piece of paper where he must have nicked himself with the razor.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I say, plucking off the paper.
He grins sheepishly, biting the edge of his lip, and rubs the spot.
I’m in love with him. I feel it every time he looks at me. It fills me so full that I have the strangest sensation of floating whenever I’m near him. I only want more of him.
“How’d the Econ final go?” I ask.
“Pretty good, I think. I wasn’t sure on a couple answers, but that’s not bad when there are 30 questions.”
“Ready to celebrate? And by celebrate, I mean avoid books for a night?” He doesn’t know how important his answer is to me, how much I need him to myself tonight.
“For ever and ever,” he says, sighing. “Cyrus is gone for break. In fact, it looks like we pretty much have the entire dorm to ourselves. I was thinking we’d start with a movie. But I can’t remember Cy’s Netflix password, so we should to go to the library and grab one.”
“It’s open?”
“I think there are a few more finals going. They won’t close it until every student’s brain is fried from studying,” he says with a grin. “Don’t worry. I checked the hours.”
So he’s been planning tonight, too. The library to grab a DVD? It’s not the first time I’ve been reminded of how different our lives are. I’m about to tell him we can use my account when I realize it might hurt his pride. I smile brightly, even though I’m ready to get back to his room and be alone with him. No movie required. “Lead the way.”
Eaton Library is a couple blocks down from Sterling’s dorm. The librarian at the desk glares at us when we enter. Apparently, she’s as ready for finals to be over as the students.
“This way.” Sterling seems at ease at the library, weaving in and out of the stacks before leading me up a staircase. It’s clear he spends a lot of time here.
On an upper floor, we find ourselves looking at Valmont’s meager collection of DVDs. Nearly all of them are marked Criterion Collection or AFI Top 100.
“So this is what film students do?” I guess.
“I doubt they study classics like Waterworld.” He picks one up. “What do you want to watch?”
“Whatever.” Honestly, I don’t plan on watching much of the movie.
“Francie likes old movies,” he continues. “Philadelphia Story. Arsenic and Old Lace. Cary Grant is great.”
Is he really not thinking about… ? I expected us to pick up where we’d left off in the suite at the Eaton.
“Cary Grant it is then.” I grab every title I can, making a small stack. If we got them all, we’ll have no reason to leave his dorm again for a while.
“I’ve heard of this one,” says Sterling, flipping one of the cases over to read the back. “Charade. Cary Grant. Audrey Hepburn.”
“Perfect.” It could star a banana and a bit of shrubbery for all I care.
We take the DVDs to the front desk and check them out, and Sterling slides them into the large waist pocket of his coat. I’m a couple steps ahead of him when we exit, and I’m surprised when I feel his heavy coat land on my shoulders.
“Oh, no. Don’t,” I say. “It’s freezing out.”
“Hush. I’ll be fine, Lucky.” He pauses as we reach the food court. “It’s only going to get colder. Why don’t we get something from the food court on the way back? That way we don’t have to go out again.”
Now he’s thinking. I can get behind stopping for food if it means we get to stay put later. But when we reach the food court, we find it closed.
“Fuck,” he says, reading the sign.
“Let’s just order a pizza or something. My treat,” I say.
“It’s not that. I probably should have stocked up before it closed. I didn’t think about it, and I’m here until for another week before I head to New York.”
“Don’t worry about it. We can go by the grocery store,” I say without thinking.
He flinches at the suggestion. Sometimes I forget how sensitive he is about being on scholarship. That’s not going to stop me from making sure he eats, even if I have to decorate my naked body with food to trick him into accepting it.
“Or… ” With a furtive glance, Sterling walks over to the market section of the food court, where students buy the kind of stuff they can take back to their dorms. The lights are off, but there’s nothing stopping someone from taking things. There’s just no way to pay. He picks up an apple and a couple of bananas, then he grabs a tiny box of cereal.
“Here.” I grab them and shove them in the oversized coat he put on me.
“No way. I can’t let you steal for me,” he says, his face a mixture of stubbornness and concern.
“If you get caught, you will end up in big trouble,” I say firmly. “If I get caught, they’ll end up apologizing to me. So just let me do this.”
His face remains a stony mask, and I regret bringing it up.
“It’s all going to go bad. We’re doing them a favor,” I say.
“Fine,” he says, softening a bit, “but if campus cops stop us, I’m telling them it’s all mine.”
We shove the stolen food in his coat pockets, and, feeling suddenly reckless, I swipe a cake slice in a plastic container.
“Uh, what do you think you are doing, Lucky?”
“I want cake. And I shall have it.”
“Not in my pockets you’re not.”
“And this,” I say, ignoring him and grabbing a brownie. I stride towards the exit, my pockets loaded with contraband. “You’ll thank me later.”
Sterling has to hustle to keep up.
“You’re so hot right now,” he says appreciatively.
“I know.” I try to say it evenly, but a wicked grin finds its way to my face. Is it the thrill of stealing something for the first time? Or am I riding high on embracing my bad girl side? First, stealing. Next, sex. Maybe he’s rubbing off on me.
Because my hands are full, Sterling opens the door for me. I nearly bump into a couple professor types, and despite telling myself moments ago that I didn’t care about the consequences, my heart skips a beat. One of the professors, a kindly looking uncle-type with bushy white eyebrows, does a double take when he sees me carrying the brownie. After a moment, though, he seems to conclu
de I am a student worker taking home old food, because he gives me a bright smile and says, “Looks yummy.”
“It better be,” I say.
Sterling’s dorm is across the street, and it’s not until he’s putting the DVD in the player that my heart slows down. I no longer feel like a fugitive. Now, I just feel like a girl about to make the biggest decision of her life. I distract myself by arranging the stolen food on the coffee table, like it’s a feast.
“You hungry?”
I shake my head. I’m too nervous to be hungry. “Maybe later.”
He lies down on the couch and beckons me with his finger to join him.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, trying to think of anything to say and coming up short. I lounge back, and he folds his right arm into a V, and my head falls on it like a pillow. His other arm he wraps around the bare skin of my midriff.
“I’m good.”
I consider asking him to forget the movie and put his hands all over my body, but manage to bite my tongue. He turns it on, and I try to pay attention, but all I can think about is the way he feels pressed against me, how strong his arms are, how good he smells.
“I’d love to take you there,” he says.
I focus on the screen. Paris is gold-tinged in the evening light, and the characters are on a boat somewhere along the Seine, bickering.
“Paris?” I say dreamily, thinking of walking with him, hand in hand, under the Eiffel Tower.
“You’ve been there, haven’t you?” he guesses.
“Yeah, but I think it would be better to go with you.” I think every experience would be better with him at my side.
“Someday,” he promises, his breath tickling across my ear lobe. A tremor races through me. “Someday, I will give you Paris and London and every dream you’ve ever dreamed.”