by Emilia Finn
Musings in the middle of the night, I guess. Bitterness, for when I’m so bone-deep tired, but unable to sleep.
None of which I can change, so I lower my gaze, but hold onto my smile, and I push through the front door of Griffin Industries, pass a six-foot tall ice cream statue that the whole town is in on hiding from its rightful owner, and wave hello to Theo’s sometimes-receptionist.
“Hi, Dolly. How are you doing today?”
“Aw, you know, Miss Thing. Business as usual. How are you doing? Heard there was a disturbance at your place last night.”
Gone is my smile, and in its place, a scowl. “The gossip tree around here is worse than anything any high schooler could come up with, just so you know. It’s embarrassing that everyone insists on talking about me.”
“It’s only because we love you, baby. You give that boy a talking to?”
I turn before striding through Theo’s office door, and study the voluptuous woman with a lifted brow. “He nearly got himself shot. Now we have a truce. I want you all to leave it alone. Stop gossiping about me. I don’t like it.”
“But, baby, we’re only—”
“No.”
I turn to Theo’s door and tap just once. Pushing it open, I grin when Galileo races through and butts himself against Soph’s thigh while she sits in Theo’s visitor chair.
“Kane sent me over.”
“Come on in.” Soph pulls out a second chair for me, then goes back to giving Galileo some love.
Theo Griffin looks just like his brothers – because he most certainly was not born with Griffin for a surname. He’s a self-made man with more money and fingers in pies than I can ever hope to count, but inside his heart, despite his somewhat scary exterior, he’s a family man who only wants everyone to be well and happy.
Another commonality with his brothers, I suppose.
“We were expecting you,” Theo says with a gentle smile. “Evie was on the phone about an hour ago. She has a problem.”
I lift a brow. “Okay?”
“Remember back when she announced Stacked Deck?” Soph begins. “When we knew we’d start with internet streaming, since the sports channels are busy with the mainstream fighting circuit?”
“Mm.” I sit back in my chair and cross my legs. “They were waiting for Stacked Deck to fold. They were counting on it.”
“Right, but it didn’t,” she inserts with arrogance. “The prize money started at half a million per division winner, then it went to seven-fifty, then to one and a half million after the Monaco endorsement.”
“Fuckin’ Monaco,” Theo growls. “Spineless fuckwits if I ever met some.”
“Yeah, well.” Soph shrugs. “Monaco is out, the benefit dinner is in, and now that we have money rolling through the tournament faster and thicker than Evie ever expected, we’re starting to get poking fingers and watching eyes.”
I frown at that. “Explain.”
Theo leans forward and rests his elbows on his desk. “Some folks are poking at Stacked Deck’s files. They’re clumsy and stupid, so they’re not really a problem for us, but the fact they’re trying is annoying. Where there’s money, there will be people trying to steal it.”
“So first up,” Soph continues, “we’re going to secure Evie’s accounts, files, and computers. Even her website is getting picked at, so we’re going to clean it all up, lock it, and infect the shit out of any computer that tries to get in.”
“Next, we’re introducing a more secure way for fighters to register,” Theo picks up the thread. “Instead of them filling out a form, we’re going to set up a sign-in for each fighter. That way, we have digital files that will remain evergreen and updated. We can see those files build on themselves each year, rather than sheets of paper that Evie tosses away after she does the draw.”
“She’s still working with a clipboard.” I laugh.
Soph only shakes her head. “Not anymore she’s not. This year, her fighters will be signing in, setting up their accounts, they’ll be paying through an encrypted interface, and when they arrive in town, they’ll be fingerprinted.”
“Fingerprinted?” I half-shout. “Are you serious?”
She shrugs. “If they wanna fight, they’ll give us their prints. That way, next year, they won’t even have to tell us their name. They’ll press their hand to a screen, and their shit will populate within a second. That will keep everything streamlined and clean.”
“Each fighter will check in at each stop,” Theo continues. “Like, they’ll check-in with Evie, scan their hand, which will confirm they’re present. Then they’ll scan in again when they weigh in. The Rollers won’t even have to write the weight down anymore. They’ll scan their way onto the scales, and boom, it’ll fill itself out.”
“Same as fight night,” Soph says. “They’ll scan their way through the door, and that’ll save them from having to find Evie in the crowd and let her know they’re around.”
“You’re cutting out a bunch of human interaction.”
She snickers. “Only the administration shit. It’s cleaner, smarter business. Doesn’t mean they can’t stop and chat with her. Doesn’t mean they can’t ask the Rollers for an autograph. It just saves Evie carting a damn clipboard around with her, and messing up if she ticks the wrong box, or something distracts her.”
“She’s a fighter too,” Theo adds. “Every other fighter is allowed to train and get their heads in the game pre-fight, but she’s busy dealing with paperwork, and barely gets a minute to prepare. That sucks.”
I nod. “It does. So we’re streamlining the system. Sounds cool. But…” I look between the two. “That’s your domain, not mine. I’m not that smart.”
Sophia scoffs. “I’ll fix that up for them, then I’ll teach you how to troubleshoot it. But also, the benefit last year went in a strange, new direction.” She looks into my eyes and smiles. “Evie wants to make this tournament about raising money for the women’s shelter her mom founded, right?”
I nod.
“Well, last year, we all worried it would all go to shit and there would be no money, since Monaco fucked us over with the endorsement. But turns out, Bry’s girl is a marketing genius. She made us well and truly more than anything Monaco was offering and, after champion purses were paid out, millions of dollars were still funneled into the shelter.”
My heart swells with happiness, with contentment at the thought that the girl who terrified me in school now singlehandedly pushes millions of dollars a year into a corporation that helps battered women. There’s no massive conglomerate, no board of directors who’ll take ninety percent of the income for their own pockets. There are no bullshit administration costs to soak up every spare dollar. There’s just Evie, her mom, and her aunts and uncles, who pour their own income into houses so they can feed and keep safe women who have had a hard time with abusive men.
“Anyway,” Soph continues with a gentle smile, like she knows what I’m thinking. “The dinner went so well that we’re going to do it again. Every year, it’s going to get bigger, and…” She pauses, almost like she’s embarrassed. “It’s kind of strange to say this, but we now have too much money.”
My eyes flicker between her and Theo. “Huh? How is there too much? There’s no such thing.”
“Well…” Soph snickers. “Yes and no. The infrastructure we have now, the houses, the tenants, it’s all going really well. But we have a surplus of money. So we’re in a position now where we can think about expanding. More homes, more communities, more cities.”
“That’s really special,” I croak out.
My sister wasn’t a battered woman in the general sense. She was hurt by a man, killed by a man, but it wasn’t a domestic-violence-type situation. It was just… terrible timing. But even still, the thought that there are excess funds available to help anyone makes my heart sigh.
“I’m so proud of her.” I smile. “Evie’s doing really good things for women, and it makes me happy that I get to be her friend.”
&
nbsp; “Yeah…” Soph scrunches her nose. “She’s cool and all that.”
I laugh.
“Anyway, that was a really long-winded lead-up to the fact that this year, the tournament won’t only be streaming on the internet,” Theo says.
My eyes go to him in question.
“Stacked Deck is going to be televised across the world. Which means more money.”
“So we’re preparing for this onslaught,” Soph finishes.
“Hence, decryption, fingerprints, and sign-ins?”
“Exactly. We know it’s coming, so we prepare, we do it right, then we start thinking about where to spend that money in the most meaningful way. But to be able to spend that money how it was intended, our job is to keep those sticky fuckin’ fingers out of our files. Our job is to have Evie’s six, since she has no damn clue how to even sign into her email.”
I spend the rest of my day thinking about the amazing fighter that is my best friend. She’s beautiful, knowledgeable in her sport, witty as hell, and funny when she’s not being obnoxious.
But technologically advanced she is not.
Like a soldier in a war, but instead of fighting with weapons or fists, I become the front line in technological warfare. My job is to defend my best friend and the company she built. My job is to help keep money in the right hands, so maybe we can help girls like me and my sister before they find themselves in a filthy club, in an office filled with drugs and guns. Before they find themselves killed because of poor choices they don’t know how to undo.
The irony isn’t lost on me that, in this case, I get to be Evie’s defender.
Chuck
Friday Night
I should be getting ready to head to Piper’s Lane. I should probably take a nap, then get my ass up, shower, and head to the racetracks to make a little cash and get my hit of adrenaline. It’s been almost a religion for me over the years, a Friday and Saturday night ritual that I would never dare skip, but since my friend stopped going – Bry got hit hard by the girl fever, the kind where his girlfriend asked him to stop racing, and he simply… stopped – it’s not as much fun anymore.
Everyone else is still there, the same racers, the same girls, the same cars, but without Bry to laugh with, it doesn’t hold the same appeal it once did.
Which is why I’ve yet to peel myself up off my couch to nap or shower. It’s why I’m considering sending a text to the organizer and telling her I’m out for tonight. Takeout, a beer, a movie – that sounds a hell of a lot more appealing than dragging myself out in the middle of the night for the sake of cash and dirt in my throat that I’ll have to cough back up tomorrow.
I really should go, because cash is cash, and that’s how I pay my bills, but then a knock at the door draws me from my laziness like the crack of a whip to a horse. Not a knock on my door, of course. My neighbor’s.
Bounding up from my couch with a grin, I race across my apartment – bigger, and more luxurious than the place I rented before this – and skid to a stop so I can plaster my eye to the peephole like a total creep.
My breath hits the door, it comes faster because I ran – I’m breathing like a creep while I creep – but damn, I’m not walking away. The view outside my peephole has been more entertaining than anything I’ve ever seen on my television, because I’ve lived in this apartment for a little over a month now, and every single Friday night, without exception, a dude has knocked on her door. Every single Friday, I run to the peephole and watch her answer the door in her date-best.
And hell if that ain’t entertaining to me. A nice contrast to the gun-toting psycho I know.
Smiling, I catalogue the dude’s tweed jacket – strike one, motherfucker – the elbow patches in an off color compared to the rest of his jacket – strike two, loser – and while Nora’s door remains closed, he quickly snatches breath spray from his pocket, and spritzes that shit into his throat like he thinks it’s an aphrodisiac.
Strike three, and you’re out.
Grinning like I’ve been smoking wacky-tobaccy, I wait for her to come to her door. Because watching her interact with other people is a fun pastime. Something I’m gonna miss the shit out of when my old apartment is done, and I can go home again.
Finally, a full two minutes after he knocked, Nora’s door creaks open. She doesn’t bother with a chain, though I’d lay down a few zeroes that she studied him for a minute and a half through her peephole. She steps out in a red dress and high heels, so he and I – Tweedy McGee and I – study the long line of her pretty dress, the way it splits just a little over her left thigh, the way her calves flex as she moves aside so her dog can trot into the hall.
It makes me smile that she’s clearly going out on dates with these guys, but she takes her dog.
Galileo, a name I’ve heard a million times in the last month or so, sniffs the guy from his shoes right up to his cock, he digs his snout in, and takes a long whiff that makes the guy’s ears burn red, then with a dismissive huff, he comes to my door and sniffs.
Galileo comes to my door.
Not the tweedster.
He knows I’m here, he knows every single time I watch his human through my peephole; which is often enough to warrant a protection order from the cops.
Nora’s eyes follow his movements for just a moment, but then they go back to her date when he takes her hand and does this weird-as-fuck mini-bow. He doesn’t go full Colin-Firth-playing-Mr.-Darcy on her, but still, he does something that borders on a stroke, and he kinda-sorta-brings her hand up like he might want to kiss it.
Gritted teeth, flexed bicep, she snatches her hand back and whips her eyes to my door when I let out an accidental chuckle.
I snap my lips closed to bite off my laughter, and pray she thinks she heard a bird taking a shit outside, and not me, her voyeur neighbor.
“You’re Nora?” Tweedson draws her eyes back to him. “It’s so lovely to meet you. You look beautiful tonight.”
“Uh… thanks.” She fakes a smile and tugs her door closed with a final click. “And you’re Joshua Jackson.” Her cheeks burn. “Um… Like the actor.”
“Right.” He stands taller to gloat. “Same name, but I’m much cooler.”
I’m sorry, Joshua Jackson, but your tweed coat determines that to be a fuckin’ lie.
“Did you want to let your dog back inside, or…?”
“No, he’s coming with us.” She puts on a fake, tittering giggle and places her hand on his arm. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Oh! Um, no, not really. Just surprised is all. Are you… um… vision-impaired, or…?”
“If she’s going out in public with a dude in tweed,” I murmur, “it would appear she’s blind as a fucking bat.”
Her eyes snap to my door and narrow.
“Not vision-impaired,” she grits out. “He’s like my child. If I had a toddler inside, would you insist I left him home?”
“Er, no…” Joshua Jackson of the Tweed Kingdom hesitates. “But, like… he’s not a toddler. He’s a dog.”
“If this is problem for you, we could just cancel.”
“No! No,” Pacey Witter quickly catches her hand before she can escape. “It’s fine. Hi, doggy.” He extends his other hand for Galileo to growl at. “What’s his name?”
“It’s Galileo. Come along.” She slides her arm around the Mighty Duck’s tweed-covered arm and turns toward the stairs. “Where are we going?”
“Oh, so I was thinking Pinocchios might be nice. A little Italian, pasta, a glass of wine.” His voice peters off as they make their way downstairs, and Nora’s heels click-clack against the concrete ground. Galileo’s collar tinkles ahead of them. “Do you think they’ll let your dog in?”
“Yeah, he’s allowed in anywhere. They can’t discriminate.”
As soon as they’re out of hearing, I rush across my apartment and ninja-dive over my couch like I think the floor might turn to lava. If I had a window that faced the street, I’d plaster my nose to the glass and watch Charlie Conw
ay lead his lady across the ice, but since I don’t, I skid to a stop in my bedroom, and tug on a fresh pair of jeans.
I have an hour, tops, though I sprint back out of my room with only one leg in the jeans, and, seizing a whiteboard marker, I write 7:45 in large, block letters.
It’s seven now; I’m predicting she’ll last only forty-five minutes before she’s hoofing it home with a pizza under one arm, and another date crossed off her list.
I have a type of sweepstakes going with myself, a bet that I make that, so far, has been accurate to within ten minutes for the last three dates.
I study my player through the peephole, I take a guess at how long he’ll last – last week, I said a dude would get ninety minutes of her time, but he got a full ten minutes more, and almost blew my winning streak – but tonight, I’m saying Gordon Bombay’s favorite hockey player won’t even get through appetizers with the pretty Nora.
And tonight, the game changes, because I’m taking my ass out for Italian too.
I toss my marker across the counter, stab my other leg into my jeans, and with a grin that I usually only wear when I’m at work and Mac’s girl walks in, I grab my hat and drop it down over my dark hair.
Stopping in the middle of my living room, I look down and make sure everything is as it should be. Pants, shirt, wallet. I snag a pair of socks, and pull them on as I move across my apartment, then I trip into my boots and count to thirty before I open my door and bounce down the stairs.
I can still smell her. Her perfume, her shampoo. I smell Galileo. And beneath all that, I smell the dude’s minty breath.
I mean, women know dudes don’t brush their teeth in the car, right? They know! So how can he possibly have minty breath at her door? It’s stupid.
I move down to the third level of our brick building, the second, then the first. I skip outside into the dark after I hit the foyer, and though I could ride my bike, I keep moving past it and dig my hands into my pockets instead. Pinocchios is just two blocks from here, so I enjoy the nighttime breeze, and smile as I walk in the air that is slowly starting to find its winter bite.