This girl was gone, and never coming back. Which sucked.
Plus, other than the missing furniture, and really, it’s not like she broke in, she had a key, she didn’t actually steal real money from me. She didn’t hack into my bank account, or use my debit card unauthorized. All she’d done was sign an illegal contract illegally.
Not really something I could prove.
I trudged up the stairs to Fin’s apartment, precisely on time for our scheduled workday. By my calculations, and if I worked some overtime, by the deadline I would only owe six thousand five hundred dollars.
And best case scenario right now, was if he let me work the entire debt off doing this whole free slavery thing. If I did that I only had to give up my life and free time, and live penniless and destitute for the next…. two years.
Totally feasible.
My family would eventually get involved in this. There would be no way I could hide this amount of time spent with Fin and glide under Grayson and Beckett’s radar. They would ultimately find out. And the only thing more embarrassing than them thinking I was dating Fin, would be them finding out I owed him an insane amount of money and was trying to work it off through free services. Although those did not include prostitution, so at least I had that.
I knocked on the door to Fin’s apartment and had the strongest urge to bang my head against the cold metal instead. I was in a bad place and Fin was trying to be my friend? His texting hadn’t stopped over the weekend, although I only replied when I absolutely had to. Jameson befriending me in one of my classes? Meeting Britte and introducing his friends to us? This…. whatever we had going on had an expiration date not five weeks from today, at which point he would be forced to break my kneecaps with a baseball bat. Or at least that’s what they did in movies when they couldn’t pay.
“It’s about time,” Fin grunted when he opened the door for me. His expression was drawn and his eyes glared into me, pinning me in place in the hallway.
“What?” I fumbled for my cell phone, rechecking the time. Holding it up for him, I said, “I’m right on time.”
He grunted at that and then stepped out of my way. He closed the door behind me and then while I spun around wondering why he wasn’t leading the way to our work station he leaned back against the door. His arms were crossed, his eyebrows still pulled together. I fidgeted with my backpack but he made no move from the door.
“You told me four, it’s four,” I held up my phone again.
“It is four,” he allowed quietly. It was a dangerous quiet, a soft but menacing quiet. Our gazes locked from the few feet apart we were standing and he held me there unmoving. His eyes were sparkling dark chocolate, alive with some intensity I didn’t understand. The muscles in his neck and shoulders were corded tight and his jaw was clenched together as if he were physically stopping himself from doing something. I swallowed against the lump in my throat, knowing he wanted something from me, but having no idea what it was. Eventually he released me from his hold. Rubbing to rough hands over his face, he sighed heavily. “You’re not like any girl I know.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you?”
“It’s not a compliment,” he scowled at me. He shoved off the door and stalked to his computer. Adjusting my chair heavily next to him, he motioned for me to sit down.
I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Had he really just insulted me? We were back to angry-Fin, the one that scared me to death the first time I met him.
“Sit,” he motioned with his hand while keeping his eyes glued to his computer screen.
“No,” I said simply. I was pretending bravado, especially after his shoulders tensed even more and he shot me a scathing look. Inside I was a tremulous mess.
“Why not?”
“You just insulted me,” I pointed out. “And you’re being rude.” He looked stunned at that, like he was completely unaware of how he was treating me. “I don’t know what the other girls you know-“
He cut me off with a fast, “They think I’m charming. They show up early when I ask them to come over. They respond to my text messages.”
“Oh, I see,” I nodded, working to hide a smug smile. I decided that I would oblige him then by sitting in the chair he rudely offered.
“You see what?” he asked in utter bafflement.
I sat down in my designated chair and dropped my backpack at my feet. I reached for his laptop, turning it on and drumming my fingers impatiently on the desk.
“You see what?” he repeated a little bit desperately.
“I wounded your pride,” I turned to give him a sympathetic smile but he just stared back at me with wide, wild eyes, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe I just said that. “If you wanted me here earlier, you should have said so. Or texted. I can’t read your mind. And I did respond to your text messages. Well, some of them. I just don’t want to get in the habit of texting each other since we’re not really friends. I don’t want to confuse our business relationship. Besides, I don’t really think you needed my opinion on which pair of running shoes to buy for after you graduate. It doesn’t really matter to me. Plus, that’s forever away; we won’t really know each other then. And you can be charming, sometimes. It’s not that I don’t think you’re charming ever. It’s just that,” I cut my eyes to him, his expression slackening into hard disbelief and I figured I better just appease his vanity so we could get along with this whole poker thing. “Ok, fine, I find you really, really charming. Except when you’re yelling at me, or being rude. Other than those times, you are definitely charming.”
A few long moments of silence stretched out between us before he mumbled, “All I wanted was my money. Do you know that?” he looked at me, waiting for an answer but I didn’t have one. He continued, “All I wanted was my money. Instead, I got you. You, the one person in the world I have to convince I’m charming, and on top of that I find out that my texts are annoying.”
“I didn’t say they were annoy-“
“I’m lost. I have no idea who I am anymore and it’s because of you!” he was growing even more distressed and I didn’t know what to do to calm him down.
I wrapped my hand around his forearm, hoping to sooth him. He looked down at my hand and then up into my face and I could visibly see the worry lines fade. Taking encouragement from that, I smoothed my hand along his forearm up to his muscly bicep. Holy cow! There were so many ripples and tendons under my fingers, I may have rubbed it a little longer and harder than I needed to. I stared at my hand for a minute, letting it dip under his t-shirt sleeve and pull it up so I could see the muscles for myself. I swallowed against a shot of lust low in my belly before forcing my eyes up to Fin’s.
The worry lines were deeper. His whole body was strung tight. His throat bobbed with his effort to swallow.
Breaking the silence, I cleared my throat and then said, “Don’t worry, you only have to deal with me for the next five weeks. Actually less than five weeks. And then we will go our separate ways and life will go back to normal for you.” But probably not for me.
“Five weeks,” Fin echoed thoughtfully. “Unless you get the money first.”
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed quickly. There was no way I could get him the money first.
“I want to amend our deal,” he said in a gruff voice. His eyes flickered to my hand that was still gripped against his bicep and then back up to my eyes. “Even if you hand over the money tomorrow, you still have to work for me until the end of our deal. You can’t just walk away, I need you now.”
I narrowed my eyes against his choice of words, but then reluctantly nodded my head. If there was a way to get him the money beforehand I would have put up a fight, but since I knew there was no way in hell I could come up with the money before then I decided to let him feel like he won this round.
“Ok, if you insist,” I sighed.
He nodded, working to swallow again and I suddenly got the distinct impression that he was nervous. Which then made me nervous…. My hand wa
s still on his bare arm, but I just couldn’t bring myself to remove it from his hot, delicious skin. And he wasn’t exactly in a hurry to pull away from me.
Finally, I realized that leaving my hand on his bicep and tilting my face toward him was probably sending him the wrong message. So I withdrew my hand and then with a shaky breath waved it at the computer.
“We should probably get to work, yeah?” I hated the breathlessness in my voice, but he had to know his effect on girls. In fact, I knew he knew his effect on girls; he just came out and told me how they usually act around him.
“Right,” he mumbled, drawing back to sit up straight. He shook his head a little bit as if to bring himself back from something and a lock of hair fell across his forehead.
I stifled a sigh at how gorgeous he was, at how desperate I was to brush that lock of hair back with a sweep of my fingers and ignored the urge to shake my own head.
“So what do you want me to do tonight? I have a list of the eight people I think make good candidates for your big game, and I did some background checking on the ones scheduled to play tonight. Even though I know it’s not a high stakes game, you should still probably watch a guy named Jay Fairway, screen name: Jaybird93.” At Fin’s eye roll, I added, “I know. But his freshman year he got caught cheating in a Biology Lab and then again last year, there were allegations that he cheated again on his Child Development midterms. Plus he owes his friend Kyle thirty dollars.”
Fin’s expression turned serious and thoughtful, his eyebrows pulled together in that intimidating way and his jaw ticked while he thought this over. “How did you find all that out?”
“I sat near them in the student union Saturday afternoon. You’re friends with him on Facebook, so I saw they were going to be hanging out there and I went to see if I could get a feel for him. Kyle just happened to be talking about the money Jay owed him. I was in the class last spring that he was accused of cheating in, so that’s how I heard about that. And while those rumors were flying around, the stuff about his freshman year got brought up. I just happened to remember all that when I saw him in person. He was an easy background check, I got lucky.”
Fin seemed to think that over for a while before he said, “Any other concerns over the rest of the players?”
“No, other than I’m a little confused why Maddie Taylor is playing. She seems way too sweet for this kind of thing.”
“What does being sweet have to do with playing poker?” he asked incredulously.
“Honestly, I don’t really know. I just don’t peg her as the kind of girl who wants to be holed up in her room all night losing her hard earned money.” I admitted.
“You’re right about that,” he agreed. “But it’s her parents’ money, so I don’t think she’s too worried about it. She’s played a couple games before. She’s not all that great, but she’s a quick learner. She might surprise you.”
I just rolled my eyes. “Whatever you say.”
“Exactly,” he smiled at me and my breath stuttered. His face was staggering when he looked at me like that, complete perfection. I smiled back, entranced by his curved lips and perfectly formed teeth. I needed to piss him off pronto, just so I could think straight again. But I couldn’t get my thoughts in order quick enough to make any kind of noise, so I just sat there staring back dumbly. Eventually he spoke again, “So, because you don’t know the first thing about poker, or so you say,” he gave me one of those challenging looks like he expected me just to open up and spill the untrue truth to him. I didn’t respond. The spell of his smile was gone and he was back to being the scary guy that thought I owed him all this money. “I am going to monitor the game tonight, and I want you to write up a list of rules that I can keep permanently, send out to future players and all that. I have a list that I use, but I want something professional and readable.”
“Did you want me to put some business cards together too? Maybe some fliers that I could pass around campus advertising a Tuesday Night Special?” I kept my eyes on my computer screen, but I couldn’t help but notice the twitch of his lips as he tried not to smile.
“Smartass,” he murmured.
“Such language,” I breathed with a feigned huff.
He snorted at that and then we both got to work. I pulled up his multiple documents with concise, but simple language and attempted to put all the rules and regulations together in a professional way. Fin sat staring at his computer screen with this intense gaze, arms crossed, feet stretched out in front of him under the desk.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable between us, but we weren’t exactly working in companionable ease. At least on my part. Fin seemed perfectly fine to watch the game happen on the computer screen. It was just like I imagined online poker to be. An octagonal table was displayed on the screen with each section designated to a screen name. The backs of cards were pictured to display how many cards each player had or needed, while the pot in the middle continued to grow with each new bet; also in the middle was a display of the cards the dealer showed. Even Fin, although he sat behind the master controls, couldn’t see the exact cards each player had. The only advantage Fin had over the other players was knowing exactly who each player was, while the anonymity of their screen name kept the other players from finding out.
I didn’t understand what was happening on screen at all. The hands played didn’t make sense to me and from one round to the next, I couldn’t figure out who was going to take the pot. But it was kind of fascinating to watch over Fin’s shoulder. Sometimes he would grunt out a response, either in approval or disapproval. And sometimes his fingers would tap rhythms on his desk in what I imagined was him restraining himself from getting further involved in the game.
“Do you ever play?” I asked casually. I was googling other documents to help me with the wording of Fin’s rules.
“Hardly ever anymore.” He shot me an unreadable look but turned his eyes quickly back to the computer screen.
“How did you get into this whole thing?” I asked casually, but I was dying to know. Did he come to college with aspirations to put this together? Or did he inherit this from a graduating senior when he was but a young freshman?
He hesitated for a few moments and then heaved a short sigh. “Ty.”
“Ty?” I asked in complete disbelief. Ty was so rigid and strict and…. anal about the rules! I could not believe Ty would actually put together something like this and then pass it on to the next generation.
“He’s kind of a computer genius. He helped me set this up freshman year,” he admitted in a low voice.
“I don’t believe you,” I said mulishly.
He shot another look over his shoulder, this time a mischievous grin that told me I didn’t know Ty at all. I shook out my hair, letting it fall around my shoulders in a defiant gesture that I was right and he was wrong. “Besides he told me he thinks of you like a son.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, that’s kind of messed up, don’t you think?”
“Nope. I needed the money, and he found me a way for me to make it without killing myself.”
“Why? Why do you need the money? Aren’t you on full-ride for track?” I asked, a bit desperate to get to the bottom of him, to figure out exactly what made him tick, even though I knew I was being rude.
“Yes, I’m on full-ride, but school doesn’t pay for everything. I still have to live. And I still have to provide…. for myself.” He sounded cocky despite his awkward hesitation as he explained that, like it was his right as a man to make money and he was just fulfilling his destiny.
“You seem to do pretty good though,” I gestured to his trendy apartment with expensive furniture, exposed brick walls and real wood flooring.
“As long as I get paid, I do alright,” he admitted.
I hmphed at that which earned me another killer smile. “So why do you need the money you think I owe then? In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal if a measly seven thousand goes missing.” I kept my
tone and words casual, trying to use my powers of persuasion. If I believed seven thousand dollars was an insignificant amount so would Fin.
He fell silent instead of answering my question and I got the impression I went too far. Fin seemed to have this elevated opinion of me, despite the fact that I owed him money. If I didn’t know better, it was almost like he was chasing me, pursuing me. Good thing I knew better.
Still, I felt really bad when he went quiet, almost like I disappointed him.
After a while he said, “Why don’t you go order us dinner? There’s a good Thai place in the menu drawer. The dish I like is circled.”
“Um, Ok,” I saved the document I was working on and then started to get up.
Fin reached for my hand yanking me back to face him. He was swiveled around on his desk chair to face me, his hand firmly gripping mine. I stepped off balance and then came to land with my legs awkwardly parted over his bent knee. The rough material of his jean-clad knee brushed against the inside of my right thigh and I froze with anticipation. Fin seemed to be hyper-aware of our closeness too because his throat was doing that thing again where I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he worked to swallow.
With his dark eyes boring into mine he reached into his back pocket and pulled out an ultra-thin wallet. He extended it out to me and I grabbed for it with my free hand but he didn’t immediately let go.
“One day,” he said gruffly, his words harsh and raspy in his throat as if it were painful for him to give up. “I’ll tell you why the money’s important one day.”
His eyes were so vulnerable, so trusting…. so open. Even though I didn’t have any idea what he was trying to tell me, I knew there was something he was saying. So afraid to ruin the moment, I just nodded. I could wait till one day. He could tell me one day.