Enemies With Benefits: Loveless Brothers, Book 1

by Noir, Roxie

  I smile at him, the easy, charming, good-old-boy smile I learned from growing up around my dad’s cop buddies. I pretend my palms aren’t sweating.

  I look like hell because I didn’t really sleep last night. I couldn’t. I just laid there, watching the ceiling, trying to think about something besides Violet, furious at me and crying in cold storage.

  When I was a kid, my dad used to take us fishing at this catch-and-release pond nearby. Usually, the fish would bite the hook, we’d take it out, and they’d go on their merry way. But every so often, the fish would swallow the hook, and if that happened it was all over for the fish. Either we had to pull it out or cut it out, and either way, the fish was a goner.

  I feel like I’ve swallowed the hook, like something sharp and merciless is wedged behind my ribcage and I’m just waiting for it to destroy me. Every time I think about her, it tugs. Every time I remember her saying I like you or think of her on the roof, looking at the stars, it tugs.

  Even though apparently the last two months don’t matter, it hurts. Even though she thinks I could do this to her, it hurts.

  It hurts and I have to do something to try and fix it, no matter what.

  “Monty didn’t say anything about that,” the guy says.

  Monty?

  “It was just a suggestion he had,” I say. “But we’ve had nearly a thousand dollars of saffron go missing in the past week, and I’m starting to think that someone might be selling it on the black market.”

  His brow furrows.

  “Saffron?”

  “It’s a spice,” I explain. “Sells for five thousand dollars a pound, so I’d hate to lose too much.”

  He emits a low whistle, then steps back from the door, letting me into the security office suite.

  “Don’t know how much we can help you, but you’re welcome to look through the footage. Talk to Marcus over there. I’m Jim, by the way.”

  We shake hands. I introduce myself. I confirm that there is, indeed, a black market for spices, a fact which gets another whistle out of him.

  Finally, he walks me through the small office suite to the reason I’m there: the monitor room. Inside is a young man, leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head, looking up at a bank of screens. There must be at least thirty.

  “Marcus,” Jim says. “This is Eli. Can you point him to the cameras on the kitchen? They’re having a spice problem.”

  “Of course,” he says, and I step into the room, sit in an empty chair. Jim leaves.

  “What kind of spice problem?” he asks.

  “I think someone’s stealing the expensive ones,” I say, and explain the problem I invented.

  It’s not real, obviously. I’m not going to find that anyone’s stealing the saffron, or the vanilla beans, or anything else.

  I’m going to catch Martin in the act.

  Then I’m going to take this footage to Montgomery and get his ass fired.

  It doesn’t feel like enough. I want to get him fired and then scorch the earth behind him. I want to get him fired and make him unemployable. I want to get him fired, get him kicked out of his house, get his driver’s license revoked. I want him to have to change his name and move to a new state, and once he’s there, I want someone to take a picture of his flaccid dick and put it up on every street corner and sign post.

  I want Martin to suffer. That’s what I want.

  For now I’ll have to settle for getting him fired.

  Violet might never talk to me again, but by God, I’m going to do something about this shitweasel.

  “All right,” Marcus says, and pushes a laptop toward me. “We store footage for the last week on this, but after two weeks it’s deleted from there and stored on the cloud. See those folders that say ‘Kitchen 1’ and ‘Kitchen 2’?”

  “That’s the kitchen?” I ask.

  “You got it.”

  It’s pretty self-explanatory, and I start going through the video files. They’re each labeled with the camera and date, so I find what I need instantly.

  Then I hit a dead end. There are only two cameras in the kitchen, and neither one is in the room where our lockers are. Neither is even pointed at the entrance to that room.

  The hook digs deeper. It buries itself in my stomach and I swear I can feel the cold steel point digging into my spine.

  I don’t give up. I didn’t lie my way into the security office to give up, so I diligently go through a week’s worth of kitchen footage, skimming through it as fast as I can.

  Martin comes and goes three times: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. Each time he’s in the kitchen easily for long enough to head to the lockers, find my phone, go through my photos.

  The thought makes me sick to my stomach. How many of them did he go through? Did he look at all of them? Did he deliberate over which picture to send to Montgomery? Did he go back and forth from one topless picture of Violet to another, deciding?

  I take a deep breath. I unclench my jaw. I unclench my fists.

  On the screen, Martin leaves the kitchen and I still have nothing and I lean back in the chair, rub my eyes. I look at the bank of monitors in front of us, and I try to think.

  There has to be something, I tell myself. He fucked things up for everyone all summer long.

  Somewhere, there’s evidence.

  Something catches my eye: a bright flash, a quick glint of sunlight on water. On one of the pool cameras, a kid wearing arm floats just did a cannonball into the water.

  I sit up straighter. I lean forward again, like I’ve got a renewed interest in catching my saffron thief.

  Marcus doesn’t pay me much attention. I open the folder labeled POOL.

  It’s the same as the kitchen cameras: sorted by date. I scan for the 25th, two Saturdays ago.

  The files skip from 8-24 to 8-26.

  I blink. I double-check.

  I’m not wrong.

  I open a dialogue box and search the computer for 8-25. Marcus still isn’t paying attention, but I find nothing. No pool footage from that day. Not even in the trash.

  Tension prickles through my veins, even as my stomach twists.

  Suddenly, Jim appears in the doorway. Marcus and I both look up.

  “You find what you need?” he asks.

  I found the opposite, I think.

  “Camera’s pointed at the wrong place,” I say, regretfully. “Thanks for the help, though.”

  “No problem,” he says, and I shake his beefy hand.

  * * *

  I squeeze a few more drops onto the whetstone, draw the knife through it, and then crouch down in front of the counter.

  Shiiiick.

  I adjust the angle and do it again. The sound raises the hairs on the back of my neck, but I ignore that in favor of the solid feel of steel on stone underneath my hands, the concentration it takes to do this freehand.

  Shiiick. Shiiiick.

  I have to do something or I’ll lose my mind.

  “Should you be doing that while you’re drinking whiskey?” my mom asks from behind me.

  I draw the knife across the whetstone one more time, check the blade, then look over my shoulder.

  “I could do this in my sleep,” I tell her.

  She walks up to the counter, leans one hip against it, standing next to me.

  “Yes, but should you be doing it while drinking?”

  My mom eyes the mostly-empty glass of whiskey on the counter near the knives.

  “I’m fine,” I tell her.

  “Are all those knives really ours?” she asks.

  “They were in your kitchen,” I say, holding the knife I’m working on against the stone again. “Maybe you stole them from a church potluck, I don’t know.”

  “Are you planning on sharpening them all?”

  I glance at the counter. It’s mostly covered in knives: steak knives, carving knives, butcher knives, even a filet knife or two.

  “If they’re dull.”

  “Why’s there an axe?”

  “B
ecause it needs sharpening,” I say, drawing the knife over the stone again. “Or I assume it does. You ever sharpened that thing?”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, still leaning against the counter.

  “About sharpening the axe?”

  “About whatever’s wrong,” she says.

  Shiick. Shiiick. Shiiiick.

  “Everything is fine,” I say, not looking at her.

  I’m lying. She knows I’m lying, and I know she knows I’m lying. Clara Loveless is a very smart woman — she got her Ph.D. in astronomy when she was fifty-three, after raising five boys — and there’s not much fooling her.

  “Bullshit,” my mom says. “You’re sharpening every blade in a ten-mile radius while drinking whiskey, and moreover, you’re home at six o’clock on a weeknight. The sun’s still shining, for Pete’s sake, Elijah.”

  I put the knife down, sigh, pick up the whiskey, and down the rest. I don’t particularly want to tell my mom all about the problems I’m having with the girl I was fucking, but the alcohol’s making me want to talk.

  “I got into a fight with Violet,” I say.

  “A fight? With Violet? Surely not,” my mom deadpans.

  “If that’s how you’re going to be then —”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, you’re right,” my mom says, putting a hand on my arm. “That was unkind of me.”

  “She thinks I sent our boss a picture of her so I’d win the twenty grand,” I say, walking back to the bar where the whiskey is. I pour myself another glass.

  My mom grabs a glass, comes over, and holds it out. I pour her some whiskey too.

  “What kind of picture?” she asks.

  I drink and don’t answer.

  “I see,” she says, and I have to look away as my face heats up. “Did you?”

  “No!”

  She takes my elbow and leads me to the back porch, sitting us both down. I let her, even though I feel a little like a child. A whiskey-drinking child.

  “Then this is just a misunderstanding,” she says.

  “She thinks I’m a sociopath.”

  “Does she have a reason to think that?” my mom asks.

  I drink. I want to say no. I want to have only ever been nice to Violet in my life. I want there to be no reason for her to think ill of me, but I know that’s not true.

  “Not a good one,” I finally say.

  My mom looks at me. I drink again. The alcohol feels good, like it’s dulling my brain.

  “Violet hasn’t had a lot of kindness in her life,” my mom says. It’s not what I expected her to say.

  “Well, she’s not very kind,” I mutter into the whiskey.

  “I once went over to her mother’s house when the two of you were in first grade,” my mom says, ignoring my input. “I forget why I was there. The place smelled like a chimney, but anyway, I noticed something. There was nothing on the fridge. Not a single piece of artwork.”

  I frown. I take another drink. My mom is looking at me expectantly, like she’s waiting for something.

  I stand and walk to the back door, look in at the fridge.

  It’s covered with Rusty’s drawings. You can barely see the the fridge between pieces of construction paper decorated with crayon.

  I sit back down.

  “So Daniel’s a better parent than her mom was,” I say.

  “Not to speak ill of the dead, but yes,” my mom admits. “But besides that, there’s a reason why people are the way they are.”

  “Then how come I’m like that?”

  “That’s your father’s genetics,” she says, smiling slyly. “Not to speak ill of the dead.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “My point is, I like Violet and since sometimes you’re too stubborn to know what’s good for you, I don’t mind telling you that you’d do yourself a disservice to lose her.”

  “She’s the one who lost me.”

  “What I’m suggesting,” my mom says, ignoring me again, “is that maybe you don’t worry about what you think she deserves or what she’s earned. Just be kind because you like her and everyone deserves kindness sometimes.”

  I run a hand through my hair and look out at our back yard: a quarter-acre of grass before the forest starts.

  “What if she’s a jerk and I’m happy to be rid of her?”

  “Is that why you’re drinking whiskey and sharpening knives?”

  Fine.

  “Your good advice is just be nice?” I say. “Can’t you tell me, like… what kind of flowers to get her?”

  “No, because I don’t know shit about flowers,” my mom says, laughing. “And, for the record, my advice is to be very nice.”

  Be very nice.

  Yeah. Sure. Great.

  “Thanks,” I say, and finish that glass too.

  My mom stands.

  “I’m going to go put the knives away,” she says lightly. “You can keep sulking out here if you’d like.”

  “I’m not sulking.”

  “I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” she tells me, standing. “We all need it now and again. Have a good sulk, Eli.”

  I do.

  * * *

  I spend another night not sleeping.

  My own bed feels strange. My pillow feels wrong. My blanket is too hot, then too cold, then too hot, and worst of all, Violet’s not here.

  I miss her. I hate this.

  I’m still mad. The hook is still deep in my chest, still jerking every time I think of her face. I feel it every time I remind myself that she doesn’t trust me. That she never trusted me. That she kept me at arm’s length, ready to think the worst of me at the drop of a hat.

  And I miss her. That’s all. As complicated as things sometimes feel between us, this is simple. I miss talking to her while I make dinner, I miss bringing her coffee in the morning, and I miss waking up in her bed.

  I’m angry with her and I miss her and I wish she were here and I want to fight with her about why she doesn’t trust me and how she could ever possibly think that I would send that picture to Montgomery, and I want to bury my face in her hair and hold her close and never let her go.

  I want to hand her Martin’s head on a platter, but I can’t even do that. I can’t even metaphorically do that.

  My mom’s advice bangs around in my head. Be very nice. It’s probably good life advice in general, but I don’t know if it’ll work with Violet.

  To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever tried being nice to her. We’ve been a lot of things to each other, but nice? Not really.

  I give up on sleeping and on my sheets that are always the wrong temperature, and I start pacing, running through the same things over and over. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels in mud, but I can’t stop revving the engine.

  The hook. Her hair on her pillow. The look in her eyes when we argued.

  Be very nice.

  Mid-pace, my door creaks open. Daniel sticks his head in.

  “If you’re not going to sleep, at least sit the fuck down,” he hisses.

  “Language, Daniel,” I hiss back.

  He frowns, leans in, taking a closer look at me.

  “Jesus,” he says.

  I just glare.

  “That bad, huh?” he asks.

  “I’m fine,” I say, crossing my arms in front of myself.

  He just sighs.

  “Come downstairs,” he says, turns, and walks away.

  * * *

  “—so she hates me now,” I say, my half-empty tea mug between my palms. “She hates me. She must have hated me all along, because apparently none of it mattered.”

  I take another swig of the peppermint tea Daniel made me. I wish it were bourbon.

  “She didn’t even want to date me,” I say, mostly to myself. “I should have known. What the hell is wrong with me, Daniel?”

  Daniel just watches me. He’s spent this whole time listening, nodding along without saying much, but that’s fine.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.


  “Finally, there’s a girl I like — really like, for fuck’s sake — and she’s an asshole,” I go on. “She thinks I sent that picture to her boss. She thinks I would fucking show anyone else that picture of her. That’s insane. Every time I imagine him opening that email I just — ugh.”

  “That’s rough,” Daniel agrees.

  He’s calm as ever. When he was twenty-three Daniel found out he had a one-year-old daughter, and two months later he had full custody of a child he barely knew, so he’s pretty much impossible to freak out.

  “Can you prove you didn’t do it, or is that not the point?” he asks, drinking his own tea.

  “That’s not the point,” I say. “The point is —"

  I stop. I don’t even know what the point is, any more. The point is that I’m hurt she could even think that and I’m hurt she wouldn’t listen to me for one second and the point is also I’d probably take her back in a second if she walked in here right now.

  “—well, I also can’t prove it,” I say.

  I tell him about the kitchen cameras being pointed at the wrong thing. I tell him about Martin and what a shitweasel he is. I tell him about the cranes, the oysters, everything he tried to ruin this summer. I tell him about the mechanical bull and the deleted files.

  “Okay,” Daniel says, pointing at me. “That. Right there. I don’t know shit about relationships but this, I got.”

  “What?” I ask, mystified.

  “Deleted files. You can get those back.”

  There’s a glimmer of hope. It’s small. It’s fragile. But it looks like Martin’s head on a platter and even if Violet never speaks to me again, I want that.

  “Rusty once managed to wipe everything from the computer at the brewery,” he says. “It’s a long story, and the moral is that we should have been doing regular backups, but we managed to recover all our files.”

  I sip my tea, mind already racing.

  “You can probably do it yourself, honestly, but we called one of Silas’s military buddies who does IT stuff now —”

  “Do you still have his number?”

  “Probably.”

  I pat my pajama pockets, looking for my phone.

  “Eli, it’s three in the morning.”

  “I need that number,” I say.