Luke

  “You didn’t say you weren’t still screwing her either,” Trigg said.

  “Because it’s ridiculous and I’m not answering that.”

  “You are,” Trigg said. “Shit, man, I’ve known you how many years now? I know when you’re avoiding shit or trying to lie. You’re the worst damn liar in the world.”

  “Trigg,” I sighed. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Well, I want to know about the TV producer chick,” he said. “But since you’re not talking about that, I’ll tell you why I called.”

  “That would be nice,” I said. “Getting to the point would be wonderful.”

  “I’m doing you a damn favor, Silas,” he said. “You could be a little nicer about it.”

  “Sorry, Trigg,” I said, my voice sing-songy. “Did I hurt your feelings? I’ll even say please.”

  “You should,” he said, fake sniffling. “Quit screwing around. I wanted to tell you that some weird shit has been going on with Coker.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked warily, waiting to hear that Coker was looking for Tempest and the rest of her team.

  “He’s all around the fight circuit looking for fighters, bragging about some big money-making opportunity he has going on,” Trigg said. “International fights. He’s talking about making people stars. Abel and I are obviously not idiots. But some of the guys are getting into it.”

  I exhaled, my relief palpable. Whatever Tempest had promised him, Coker was apparently too much of a tool to have realized that they weren’t going to deliver. “Yeah, I would stay out of that, Trigg.”

  “Do you know something about it?” Trigg asked.

  I stopped. Tempest would want me to be discreet. “Nah, I don’t know anything,” I lied. “But if it’s something Coker’s involved in, you don’t want to be.”

  Trigg was silent for a minute. “Roger that,” he said. “There’s another opportunity for you, though. Coker’s not involved in it at all. One of the other promoters wants you- he’s been trying to get in touch. There’s a fight coming up that has a big purse. Ten grand. Have you been keeping up with shit?”

  Had I been keeping up with shit? I’d been running in the mornings with Tempest, using the heavy bag that hung in the corner of the garage downstairs for practice.

  I wasn’t supposed to be fighting. Doctor’s orders. The last fight had been impromptu, unexpected, really. I was doing Abel a favor.

  I wasn’t trying to get back into it, but the pull was strong.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been keeping up with shit.”

  “You should do this fight,” he said. “I know that last one was it for you, that you paid off your tab to Big Johnny, but it’s ten grand. That would be a lot of weekends bouncing, you know?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, thinking of Tempest in the other room. I knew she’d hate the idea of me fighting.

  “Ten grand, Silas,” he said. “This guy had a hard-on for you specifically. He’s been trying to track you down. What could you do with ten grand?”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, hearing Tempest behind me.

  “What’s there to think about?” Trigg asked.

  “Dude. I said I’d think about it,” I said.

  “Well, think hard about it,” Trigg said. “And fast. It’s coming up real soon. Need to know ASAP.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. I’ll let you know.”

  I hung up the phone and turned to face Tempest, who slid her arms around me. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “That was one of the guys I trained with out in Vegas,” I said. “Did you know Coker hasn’t figured out that you’re scamming him yet? He’s looking for fighters for some international TV channel or something.”

  Tempest grinned. “I told you we’re good at this,” she said. “We usually string them along for a while. Emir has something set up to auto-respond on email to the mark for a few weeks and blow him off. By the time they realize they’ve been conned, we’re somewhere else.”

  “I’d say you’re a sneaky bitch, but I approve of you scamming Coker, so I won’t.”

  “I am a sneaky bitch,” she said, looking up at me, her smile radiant. She slipped her hand down the waistband of my sweatpants. “Want to see how sneaky I am? Do you think we can do it before the cookies come out of the oven?”

  “How long are they in the oven?”

  “Twelve minutes,” she said.

  “Race you,” I said.

  ***

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  TEMPEST

  “Sorry about the cookies,” I said. But I wasn’t sorry in the least.

  Silas laughed. “I’m not. It was worth a giant burnt cookie. And a house filled with smoke.”

  “My Nana called me yesterday,” I blurted out. I hadn’t told Silas about her. We’d spent the last three weeks screwing and talking about things that had happened in our lives since we were teenagers. But we hadn’t talked about West Bend. Or about the shit that had happened with the sheriff. Or about how my grandmother had asked me to look into things. I didn’t want reality to intrude on us, to pierce this perfect little bubble we had going.

  We were living in this little fantasy universe we’d created, and I found myself not wanting to leave. And yet, I wanted him to meet the person who was most important to me, my grandmother.

  “Is she in West Bend?”

  “She’s at the nursing home in town,” I said. “Excuse me- an assisted living facility.”

  “I’d heard she moved away,” Silas said. “After what happened with your parents and stuff…”

  “She didn’t move far away,” I said. “But she’s here in town now. I want to take you to meet her.”

  The smile that crossed Silas’ face couldn’t have gotten any fucking bigger if it tried. “All right.”

  “It’s no big deal,” I said, holding my hand up. “I mean, it’s not some giant thing. Don’t make a giant thing about it.”

  I was lying. It was the biggest of things. I couldn’t believe I’d just offered to have Silas meet my grandmother. She’d think I was marrying him.

  Silas was still grinning. “Yeah,” he said. “No big deal. When?”

  “Seriously,” I said. “You’re making it a thing. I can see it in your face. Don’t. You can meet her whenever. Maybe tomorrow or something.”

  “No way,” he said. “How about now?”

  “Now is sudden.”

  “Exactly,” Silas said. “I don’t need to give you an opportunity to change your mind.”

  ***

  Nana gasped audibly, her hand over her mouth, doing her best to be as dramatic as possible. “Oh my stars,” he said. “This is Silas, isn’t it? My, my, my, look at those eyes.”

  Silas chuckled. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Weston.”

  “Oh, and he’s as polite as he is good-looking, isn’t he?” she asked, gesturing to the chairs in the room. “Call me Letty. Mrs. Weston makes me feel like my mother, and that makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old and I’m not quite there yet. Sit with me and visit, will you? I told you he was a young Paul Newman, didn’t I? Those eyes. Of course, I hadn’t seen you in person, just photos from your mother.”

  “You were friends with my mother,” Silas said.

  Letty sank into her armchair and smoothed the pant leg of her tracksuit, today’s choice a pink and purple rhinestone studded number. “I don’t know that I’d call us friends exactly,” she said. “You mother - God rest her soul - I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but your mother was a...complicated...person.”

  Silas made a sound that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a cough. “Complicated is a good way of putting it.”

  “Well, then you know, I don’t think your mother really had friends,” Letty said. “I’m not sure she was really that capable of something of that nature. But we were good acquaintances, I’d say, on account of us both being black sheep in the town. Your family and mine, we had that in common.”

  “People didn?
??t take too kindly to my parents and me running out of town the way we did,” I said. I felt badly about the effect we’d had on so many people.

  “Oh now, I can see that worry line right in the middle of your forehead,” Letty said. “A young girl like you shouldn’t have lines already. Stop concerning yourself with things that happened years ago. I’ve always been a bit of a black sheep, well before your parents did their thing. And besides, it adds a little color to my life, having a salacious story like that- my grifter daughter and her conman husband. It ain’t hurting me a bit.”

  I laughed. “Nana, I’m not sure you need any more salaciousness added to your life.”

  My grandmother leaned forward and looked at Silas. “She’s talking about my active social life here,” she said, winking. “Of course, if I were sixty years younger, I’d give someone like you a run for your money, young man.”

  “Oh my God, Nana,” I interrupted. “Please do not hit on Silas. Holy shit.”

  “Watch your mouth,” she said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You’re the one who said you were, and I quote, fucking fantastic the last time I came to see you, Nana.”

  “I’m not talking about your language,” she said. “I’m talking about your telling me to not hit on this man sitting in front of me who’s a dead ringer for Paul Newman. Or, who’s that other fellow, the young one with the blue eyes?”

  “I don’t know, Nana,” I said, laughing and shaking my head. Silas leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, smirking as he watched us go back and forth.

  My grandmother waved her hand. “You know who I’m talking about,” she said. “That actor. The one who plays bongos naked in his house.”

  Silas laughed out loud. “You mean Matthew McConaughey,” he said. “Well, thank you very much, Letty.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t encourage her,” I warned. “The next thing you know, she’ll be telling you to stand up so she can get a better view of your ass.”

  “Oh, would you like me to stand, Letty?” Silas asked, smiling and feigning standing. “I’m happy to oblige.”

  “You two make me out to be some kind of lecherous old woman,” Letty said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Well, you are certainly no nun.”

  Letty laughed. “There’s no confusing me with a nun, that’s for sure,” she said. “Now, more importantly, this Silas. Is he your boyfriend?” She turned to me, making a show of ignoring Silas.

  “Nana!” I said. “He’s sitting right there.”

  “Which is exactly why I asked,” she said, directing her attention to Silas. “Are you her boyfriend?”

  I looked at Silas, my eyes wide, and he grinned, leaning forward in his chair. “I’d like to be, Letty,” he said. “More than that, even.”

  Letty whooped and turned to me while I glared at Silas, my heart pounding in my chest. I couldn’t think of anything except the fact that I’d brought him here, to meet my grandmother, and now he was ambushing me, right here in front of her.

  My head was swimming.

  Letty’s voice broke through my thoughts. “I hope you heard that, girl,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she looked at me.

  “I’m too old for a boyfriend,” I said, looking at him. “We’re not teenagers.”

  “No,” Silas said, not breaking eye contact. “We aren’t teenagers. And you’re right about being too old for a boyfriend. We agree on that.”

  My heart skipped a beat. That was sudden, his changing his mind. I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed.

  I was afraid I was more disappointed.

  But when I looked at Silas, he seemed nonplussed. He smiled and winked at me. What the hell was he thinking?

  “You know,” Letty said. “Life is too short to dick around not knowing what you want. You have to figure that shit out. Otherwise, all you’re going to have is regret.”

  “Letty, I don’t need a lecture -” I began, ignoring the fact that I could feel Silas’ eyes on me.

  “All of us need this lecture, from time to time,” she said. “Life is too short to not take what you want from it, and that includes having ties to people, people that matter. Drifting around is only fun for so long, or if you’ve got some place - someone- to come back to.”

  I didn’t say anything, only half-listening as Letty lectured me. What the hell was I thinking, bringing Silas here? I should have known that Letty would like him way too much.

  I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head, the one that said that’s the exact reason I’d taken Silas to meet her.

  “Now.” Her voice broke through my thoughts. “Now that the both of you are here. Let’s talk about this town. I asked Tempest to do some research for me.”

  ***

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SILAS

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.

  Tempest looked over at me from where she sat in the passenger seat. “Are you okay with bringing me here?”

  “I’m okay if you’re okay,” I said. God, I sounded like such an idiot. Letty’s question about me being Tempest’s boyfriend had thrown me off earlier.

  The problem was that I didn’t want to be Tempest’s boyfriend. We were twenty-four, too old for that shit. Twenty-four was young for most people still dating and playing the field. But Tempest and I, we weren’t young twenty-four-year-olds. We’d both been through too much.

  And we had too much damn history to ever date.

  I couldn’t imagine taking her out to dinner and trying to get to know her.

  I didn’t want to take her to dinner and the movies. I wanted to take this girl home. For good.

  This girl was mine. She’d always been mine.

  “Is it weird for you, coming back here?”

  I shrugged. “Sort of,” I said. “Not really. I mean, I came back to my mom’s house when I got back to West Bend, for a little bit. And we came back here after the funeral and shit. I was going to poke around here a few weeks ago too.”

  “But you got arrested,” Tempest said.

  “Yeah, before I even had a chance to go inside,” I said. “And since then, well…”

  “Well.” Tempest tucked her hair behind her ear and licked her lip. That damn lip. My cock stirred watching her, and I had to tell myself to cut that shit out.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Since then I’ve been with you.” I opened the car door. “Let’s go.”

  Before I put the key in the front door, I warned her. “It’s - not what you’re used to, you know. I mean, we were poor and-”

  Tempest put her hand on my arm. “Silas,” she said. “You don’t have to explain anything to me about your childhood. I understand. And I’ve been to your house before.”

  “Oh yeah.” I’d forgotten about that.

  “Yeah,” she said. Inside the door, she looked around. “So, we’re looking for anything that might link your mom and the mining company.”

  “Or Jed,” I said. “Or the Mayor. Elias said someone made a comment about her sleeping with the mayor.”

  Tempest drew in a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “You start on one side of the house and I’ll start on the other?”