“Um, last time, the walls were bleeding colors and I could hear my own heartbeat. This is a little different,” he informed her. She laughed and pushed him away from her.
“Okay, lover boy, keep it in your pants. If we can solve this mystery, I will let you stare at my naked body all you want.”
She got dressed in a hurry, almost falling over as she jumped into her jeans. She walked across the room while still pulling her shirt into place, and almost laughed again when Beeshonn winked at Archer.
“What was that about?” he asked, following Jo as she lead him out a back door into an alley.
“Oh, in order to get that guy’s information, I had to give something in return. She thinks you’re hot.”
“She clearly has good taste. What did you give her?”
“Your number.”
“Ah,” he laughed. There was a brief pause, then he cleared his throat. “You gave her a fake number, right?”
Jo winced and turned around the corner, hurrying across the parking lot to her car. A slight chill was in the air, raising goosebumps along her shoulders. As she slid behind the wheel, she briefly wondered if maybe she had a sweater in the trunk, but then thought twice about looking.
“Shit, I didn’t. I was in a hurry, I didn’t even think about it, I just scribbled yours down,” she replied when Archer got in the car.
“Dammit. Then I’m answering when she calls,” he warned her as he took his phone out of his pocket. “And I can’t be held responsible for the things I may agree to.”
“And I can’t be held responsible for the amount of times I might kick you in the balls,” she sneered, shoving her key in the ignition. He smirked while his thumbs tapped against his screen. She wondered who he was texting. Wondered if Beeshonn had already sent him a message.
“I like this jealous side of you, Jojo. Pretty hot. Maybe later we can -”
His voice was cut off as the engine sputtered and coughed. They shared a concerned glance, then she tried again. It was even worse that time – like a smoker’s cough, hacking through her engine. The dash lights flickered, then went out completely. When she tried the ignition a third time, nothing. Just the tell tale clicking noise.
“Fucking battery,” she swore, smacking the wheel.
“I told you to put in a new one last month.”
“Thanks Archer. Maybe we should start keeping a list of all the things you’ve told me to do that I didn’t do that are now coming back to bite me in the ass.”
There was a long pause.
“That would be a really long list.”
“We’re fucked,” she sighed, climbing back out of the car. “We can’t exactly go back in there and ask for a jump. There’s a gas station maybe a mile down the street, but I doubt we could get anyone to come back and jump us.”
“It’s not the end of the world – at least we know it’s somewhere it won’t get towed,” Archer pointed out, getting out of his seat and shutting the door behind him.
“True. But it could get stolen,” she replied. He shook his head and held up his phone.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll get an Uber and we can …”
His voice died off and Jo raised her eyebrows. Then he groaned, shook his phone, and she watched as he pressed his thumb hard against the power button. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what that meant.
“Fuck. Your phone didn’t just die, did it?” she groaned. His lips were pressed together in a hard line, but he managed to nod.
“Yeah. Fuck.”
“How are we going to get there, now?” she asked. “Both our phones are dead, and there’s no cabs around here this time of day.”
“We have to walk, we don’t have any other option. Let’s go home and get my bike, then we can go buy cables, or fuck it, a new battery,” he suggested.
“Seriously? Walk that far? How?”
“You have feet, Jojo. They were originally invented for walking, you know.”
“Sometimes … it’s like my hatred for you overflows my body,” she breathed, letting her eyes fall shut.
“When you talk like that, I know it’s your way of saying you love me. Now c’mon, let’s move out!”
And with that, Archer wrapped his arm around her shoulders and dragged her out of the parking lot.
4:40 p.m.
Day One
They walked in silence for a while and Archer couldn’t help but stare down at her. She looked so different, back in her jeans and tank top. Jo had an amazing body and it was evident no matter what she wore, but in that sparkly gold work uniform? He couldn’t get it out of his head.
He’d seen her in all sorts of sexy get ups, of course. Halloween was his favorite time of year – she’d been a naughty nurse last year. But something about that gold outfit was really sticking in his brain.
Probably because it was the first time you not only got to see her being sexy, but you got to touch her, taste her, and fully experience her sexiness. Well, almost fully …
“So,” Jo finally started speaking again, startling him. “Senior prom, huh?”
“What about it?”
“You wanted to take me?”
“Yeah. But you know, now I’m kind of glad I didn’t.”
“Why? Because if you had, we might not be such good friends now?” she guessed, smiling up at him. He snorted.
“Because you just told me you were still a virgin back then – you never would’ve put out.”
“Such a dick,” she growled, punching him in the shoulder.
They went back to silence, but only for about two minutes. He smirked when she couldn’t take it anymore and opened her mouth. Jo was a habitual last-word-haver.
“And who says I wouldn’t have put out?”
His smirk fell away and he jerked his head to look down at her again.
“Seriously?”
“You should’ve asked,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Who knows how the night would have gone?”
“Oh, c’mon. You were a good girl, Jo. Nothing would’ve happened,” he said. She laughed.
“A good girl, huh? You know, just because I never had sex with my prom date doesn’t mean I didn’t do anything else with him.”
“Huh. Like what kinds of things?”
“You should’ve asked me, then you’d already know.”
Now it was Archer’s turn to punch her in the shoulder. He barely biffed her and she laughed at him.
“Alright, Miss Sexy Sex Time,” he teased her. She rolled her eyes. “So since we have quite the walk ahead of us, maybe we should use this time to plan our next move.”
“Okay,” she agreed, nodding her head.
“I think we should go back to your apartment and write everything down. It’s easier to go through it all when it’s on paper,” he suggested. She thought for a moment, tapping her nails against her bottom lip.
“You know, maybe it’s time to call the police,” she sighed. He nearly started choking.
“No,” he practically shouted, then he winced at how loud it had come out.
“Why not?” she asked, glancing up at him.
“Because …” he racked his brain for a suitable excuse. “We look worse now than we looked this morning. How are we going to explain driving around all day with the body before calling the police?”
“How would they know? Unless one of us told them,” she pointed out.
“Do you even watch CSI? They’ll know, Jo. They always know.”
More silence. He prayed she bought it. Finally, she sighed and nodded her head.
“Okay. So still no cops. We’ll write everything down.”
“Yeah. You can make us some food while I do all the writing, and then we can go grab some jumper cables and get your car started. After that, we should go search Krakow’s apartment,” he suggested. She shuddered.
“So creepy.”
“What?”
“We’ll be walking through a dead guy’s apartment. It’s … weird.”
; “No weirder than driving around with his dead body in your trunk.”
“Please don’t make this worse than it already is,” she groaned. He laughed, then on an impulse, he hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her close.
“And then after searching the place,” he continued with the plan-making. “We can go back home. We can stay at your apartment.”
“We can?”
“Yeah. Strictly for security purposes.”
“Ah. I see.”
“Safety in numbers, and whatnot.”
“Very cautious of you.”
“Probably best if we sleep in the same bed, too.”
“For security purposes?”
“Well, duh. Wouldn’t want one of us to get caught unaware.”
“Don’t you just think of everything?” she laughed, leaning against him.
“Sometimes.”
It was ridiculous. They’d been on the run all day, and Archer knew it was going to get a lot worse before it got better. If it got better. Still, he couldn’t help feeling happy. Finally touching her, being close to her. Feeling her nestled into his side. She was so small next to him. Delicate. All dainty and soft. Feminine. He loved that about her. Could stare at her all day.
This is wrong, and you know it.
The unbidden and unwelcomed thought burst into his brain. He cleared his throat and used the sound as an excuse to pull away from her. He coughed into his fist, then shoved both hands into his pockets.
“You okay?” she asked, staring up at him.
“Yeah. Just cold. Let’s pick up the pace,” he said, increasing his stride. She struggled to keep up.
“Geez,” she laughed. “Why don’t we just jog there?”
“Certainly would be faster.”
No matter what happened, no matter how beautiful Jo was, or how amazing he felt around her, he had to remember – she wasn’t his. If everything went well, this weekend together would be all they had, it couldn’t go any farther. She deserved better than him, and he had to keep that in the forefront of his mind.
Because if he didn’t, then one weekend would never be enough and they’d both be screwed.
And not in the good way.
5:01 p.m.
Day One
They walked in a silence for a while. Without cell phones, they couldn’t call any friends or order an Uber. They trudged along, hoping they could flag someone down – it was eight miles to their apartment building.
Finally, Archer was able to score a ride by sticking his thumb out. The driver was kind enough to let Jo use his charger, so she plugged her phone in and after it had reached fifty percent battery power, she turned it on. When the screen finally lit up, she was surprised to see seven missed calls.
“Who is it?” Archer asked, leaning between the seats.
“It’s Beeshonn, I think,” Jo mumbled, pressing a button to call the number back. She glanced at Archer, then lifted the phone to her ear. After four rings, the line connected.
“Jo! I’ve been calling you and calling you!” Beeshonn spoke in a stage whisper. There was loud music in the background, but it was quickly fading, as if she was walking away from it.
“Yeah, my phone was dead. What’s up?” she asked.
“Right after you left, Buzz came into the back. He was acting all weird, going through your locker and shit. He was all red, sweating everywhere. I thought he was having a heart attack!”
“Why was he going through my locker?” Jo asked, though she wasn’t exactly surprised.
“That’s what I wanted to know – so I followed him to his office, was sweet talking him, giving him a massage, and I notice he’s got your file on his desk!”
“Wait … what? What file?”
“Ya know, like your application and payroll stuff. It’s spread all over the place, even a head shot of you. So I asks him what’s going on, and he says nothing, so I sit in his lap and breathe in his ear like he likes, and he says you’re in trouble with some bad people. Some guys had come lookin’ for you, so he’d given them your address!” Beeshonn told her. Jo gasped and spun in her seat, staring at Archer.
“My address!? You’re sure?”
“Yeah, sweetie, down to your apartment number. I don’t know what you did, but I thought you deserved a heads up.”
“Fuck,” Jo hissed.
“I’m so sorry, honey. I hope you figure stuff out. I just didn’t want you walkin’ into an apartment full of debt collectors or something,” Beeshonn explained.
“No, yeah. Thank you. Seriously, I can’t thank you enough. You’re amazing. I am so sorry for all the times I called you names,” Jo gushed out. Archer whacked her in the arm.
“You called me names?” Beeshonn asked.
“What? No, I would never,” Jo spoke quickly. “I love you, Bee. Serious. If I’m alive on Monday, I’m going to goddamn marry you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. From the bottom of my heart.”
She didn’t wait for a response, just hit the end call button.
“They know where you live,” Archer spoke immediately.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Holy shit, they’re probably at my apartment!”
“We don’t know that, Jo. We don’t know anything. Let’s just go stake out the place. I have my keys, we can easily grab my bike,” he told her.
They didn’t have much of a choice, anyway. Their ride was going to a street just a couple blocks down from them. He gave them a bunch of weird looks, and after letting them out down the street from their building, he wished them good luck.
Jo was scared out of her mind as they walked down the street, so she just followed Archer’s every move. Walked hunched over, almost in a crouch. When he veered off into some bushes, she stayed right behind him. They finally came up to the hedge that lined their parking lot and got down on their hands and knees, crawling up and peeking through the branches.
“I see a car,” Archer whispered. She saw it, too. It was idling in front of the building, and a very large man was standing by the driver’s side door.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“No clue. Look, at your window.”
“Oh no,” she gasped, looking at the building. Her apartment lights were on and large figures were moving behind the blinds.
“Shit, Mandy isn’t there, is she?” he asked, asking about her roommate.
“No. No, she went to San Diego for the weekend, she’s visiting her parents.”
“May want to call her and tell her to stay the week.”
They huddled in the hedge forever, staring up at her window. Every now and then, someone would bump the blinds, cause them to rattle and shake. Though they never lifted, Jo knew what was going on. The men from the club, the ones who had been giving Buzz the shakedown about her and Bernard Krakow, were now in her apartment. Tossing it. Though for what, she had no clue.
What the fuck does any of this have to do with me!?
“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” she moaned. Archer glanced down at her, then rubbed a hand up and down her back.
“Let’s get out of here,” he offered.
“Where? Where are we gonna go?” she demanded.
“I don’t know, a motel,” he suggested.
“We already spent like eighty bucks on gas – the rest of that money has to last us,” she replied.
“Do you have a better idea?” he asked. She opened her mouth to respond, but then the sound of something breaking in her apartment echoed across the parking lot.
“No,” she replied meekly. “My home, Archer. It was an awful apartment and I didn’t have much, but that’s my home.”
“It’s just stuff,” he whispered, hugging her close to his side. “We have each other. That’s more important. Look, I’m gonna go get my bike. Wait here, don’t make a sound, and I’ll drive around, then you run out and hop on. We’ll go somewhere … somewhere no one will think to look for you, and then we’ll figure out our next move.”
She couldn’t think of a better plan
, so she simply nodded her head.
“Okay. But be careful,” she insisted, gripping onto his arm when he went to pull away.
“Baby, my middle name is careful.”
“One time you got distracted by a Baywatch rerun and tripped on my rug and chipped a tooth.”
“Shut up, Jo.”
It was their nature to tease and bicker and banter, but in reality, she was terrified. These were serious bad guys, shit was going down. Archer could get hurt, or worse. Just the thought of it made her heart crack and splinter. What would she do without him in her life? When he went to stand up again, she jerked on his arm, almost causing him to fall back. Before he could snap at her, she leaned in and kissed him quickly.
“I’m serious,” she whispered with her lips still touching his. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
He smiled against her, and when she looked up, she could see that a street lamp was catching his eyes. The hazel appeared dark brown, with a quicksilver rim around his iris. His eyes moved to her lips, his full lashes drooping with the motion.
“Me, too. Be back in a second.”
He kissed her once more, then he was gone, scurrying along the back of the hedge. She watched until he got to the other end, then he disappeared around the corner. Jo held her breath and looked back through the branches, watching as he made his way behind a row of cars.
He made it all the way to the end of the row no problem, then ducked between vehicles to move closer to the building. Their luck ran out after that – his bike was parked in a spot without any other cars around it. She finally let out the breath she’d been holding and started panting.
“Careful, Archer. Careful, careful, careful,” she whispered.
Everything in the apartment complex had been quiet up till then, but suddenly there was some sort of commotion in the entry way to the building. The big man standing guard next to the idling car turned around, and Archer made his move. She bit down on her bottom lip as he dashed across the pavement to his bike, then almost passed out when he swung a leg over his seat. She let her eyes fall shut and sent up a thank you to heaven.
He made it, we’re safe. We’re good.
“Over there!”
Jo’s eyes popped open and she almost screamed. Several men were standing on the stairs and one of them was pointing at Archer. Everyone held still for a moment, suspended in time.
Just a Little Junk Page 10