4. Dane
4
DANE
For a long, lingering moment, I check out her rear, nearly whistling a sound of appreciation as I ogle her backside shamelessly. “How much?”
“Thirty k.”
“Twenty. Cash.” I steal another look. “Final offer. Take it or leave it.”
Sergei’s jaw sets. He doesn’t like that I’m shorting him, but this is clean money. He’ll never have to check to see if I’m scamming him with counterfeits.
Finally, after an eternity has passed, his chin hikes with a gruff mumble. “Twenty cash it is.”
He drops the set of keys into one hand while I pass him the wad of hundreds with the other. He doesn’t count the stack. We’ve done this dance enough times for him to know I’m good.
Instead, his gaze lands on my face for a taut, awkward, and extremely drawn-out beat of silence. We aren’t ones for words.
“Pleasure doing business with you, kid.”
My chin lifts as I stalk over to the driver’s side of the car, and a low whistle escapes me. Goddamn, do I love the body style of muscle cars from the sixties. The long hood, the short deck, the power it yields— Goddamn .
The fucking cherry on top of this sweet-ass sundae?
The sweet girl’s a manual.
She’s stunning, even though she’s not in her prime state. Her blue paint is peeling. Rusting. One of her side-view mirrors is missing. The cracked windshield needs to be replaced right away unless I want to chance it shattering on me while driving.
I can’t tell what I love more: the sheer beauty of a sixties muscle car or taking on project cars and restoring them to their former glory.
Holding back a grin, I slide into the driver’s seat and start the ignition, the V8 engine roaring loudly within the following seconds. It’s music to my ears. After all this time, it never gets old.
Then I hit the gas, keeping an ear out for any rattling noise or anything out of the ordinary as I head toward the outskirts of town.
Too many neighbors back in Las Marinas have whined about my cars waking them up in the early morning. In an effort to get them to stop filing complaints against me, I’ve resorted to renting out a garage in a nearby city.
I know I’m no longer in the heart of the city when the smooth paved roads become riddled with potholes and cracked asphalt. Graffiti bombs every exterior inch of run-down buildings as far as the eye can see. Bus stops are littered with trash. Overgrown weeds peek through the crumbling sidewalks.
A flare of ease fills my chest, my restlessness growing dull. I haven’t been to my garage in weeks, cooped up at my apartment on a bunch of painkillers, living off of takeout and whatever food Marco would bring back after he’s been out surfing all day. The itch to do something with my fingers will soon be scratched.
Pulling up to my garage, I reach for my set of keys, only to frown a split second later. “What the?”
I shake the set, squinting hard as I look for a specific key. Suddenly, I remember handing over my main set of keys to the brunette chick over two weeks ago.
“Fucking shit.”
I slam my fist on the steering wheel in frustration, and the horn blares. Pitifully , because it needs to be fixed as well. Right now, it’s the least of my concerns.
My main set is the only one with the key to my garage. I don’t have a backup. I lost the spare ages ago and have been meaning to replace the lock but haven’t gotten around to it.
Considering my luck of having things bite me in the ass? I should have dealt with it the moment it went missing.
Backing up quickly, I look up the location pin I sent Marco two weeks prior, speeding down the winding roads until I pull into an empty parking space on the street.
Working my jaw, I glance at the run-down building before the realization hits me, and a groan breaks free while a frown forms between my eyebrows.
Shit . I have no fucking idea which apartment she’s in. My memory’s usually not this bad, but the days following the incident have been a foggy blur. And excuse me if I want to avoid acting like a creep scoping for a chick’s apartment for hours until I run into her again. It’s basically a one-way trip to the police station.
Peeling away from the curb, I visit the coffee shop next only to see that it’s closed early tonight, along with a help wanted sign hanging in the window.
Agitated, I drive back to my apartment and park the car in the building’s underground parking garage—neighbors be damned. If I want to get my main set of keys back, I need to find her. Fast .
“What do you mean, she no longer works here?”
“She no longer works here,” he repeats, stretching out the vowels of every word. That explains the sign in the window. That doesn’t help me one bit, though. And that’s the only thing I give a shit about.
Resisting the urge to grind my molars into dust, I fold my arms. “Any chance you know where she went?”
“No.” He gives me a saccharine smile that’s met with a hardened glare. “Now, what can I get you?”
My fucking keys back.
“Nothing,” I grumble as I exit the line.
My only lead is dead.
Wait, that’s not exactly true. I know she goes to Belford, but thousands of students go there. What exactly am I supposed to do with that information, though? Check out every classroom on campus in hopes of finding her? Nah, fuck that noise.
My grimace deepens as I step out of the coffee shop. I refuse to entertain the idea of sitting in my car, lurking outside her apartment building until she returns home. I’ve already wasted one day trying to find her, and I can’t afford another. Not with the passive-aggressive comments from my neighbors about how loud my engine is.
Along the way back to my car, my eyes inadvertently cut toward the building adjacent to the coffee shop. It’s some random learning center that sets off a light bulb above my head. I recall seeing tutoring in loopy handwriting on the whiteboard calendar.
If my memory serves me correctly, she has a tutoring session today. Belford U has a tutoring center. The dots easily connect themselves as I haul ass to my vehicle and gun it to campus.
Belford’s tutoring center is located next to the language lab. I’ve only been there once by accident freshman year when I was trying to find the language lab to take my Spanish final, so I know where I need to go.
The moment I reach the second floor of the Hepner Building, life decides to be kind to me for fucking once and put an end to my wild goose chase when my gaze lands upon waist-length hair.
It’s the first thing I remember noticing when my little savior screamed she was going to call the cops. Her long, thick, cascading brown locks underneath her Belford U cap.
“Hey! You!”
It’s not my most eloquent moment or words by far, but it captures her attention immediately… as well as everybody else seated on the hallway floor or in the lounge chairs placed against the walls.
She waves her fingers at me, and the instant I take a step closer to her, the guy she’s talking to appears in my line of sight.
He squints his green eyes at me.
Two can play this game, amigo. I narrow my eyes back at him.
There’s something about him that’s familiar, but I don’t know where I recognize him from. And to be honest, my ass can’t be bothered to fraternize with the guy to figure it out.
“I need my keys,” I say when my little savior walks up to me, softening my tone to make up for my bluntness earlier.
“I was waiting for you to ask for them back,” she says softly, retrieving a huge set of keys from her coat pocket.
“You kept mine on you?” I ask incredulously, watching her unhook my set from hers.
“Didn’t know where I was going to run into you.” Her face splotches pink as she passes mine over.
“Thanks. I’ll let you get back to your boyfriend?—”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Yet .
I can hear it in her tone. And see it from the way her face has turned scarlet red, along with her neck and ears. I wonder if she’s the type to flush red everywhere.
She tugs on the collar of her tight sweater, and that’s when I spot it. A harsh, terribly healed scar slashed diagonally just below her slender neck, between her clavicles, marring the pale skin.
“Who did this to you?” I demand. I don’t remember seeing it before. Then again, that night’s been a hectic blur.
Her hand flies to her neck, and her dark brown eyes go wide, her face stricken with a deer-in-the-headlights expression.
“Who did this to you?” I repeat, softer. “Did he ?—”
“Caleb? No,” she whispers, her voice a mere tremble. She lets loose a shaky breath, her eyes misty with tears. “I was… attacked .”
“On campus?” I heard about the crime sprees popping up last semester while I was on my so-called leave of absence. Received plenty of emails about it from campus police every time a robbery occurred.
“N-no,” she stammers, readjusting the neck of her sweater. Her distress is so palpable that my chest tightens. “It happened w-when I w-was in high school.”
My hands ball into fists. What kind of asshole would do that to her? “Are you all right?”
“They said I was lucky,” she croaks. “Any few inches higher and… I might have lost my voice or…” My blood runs cold as she trails off, her gaze suddenly far away. “I’m fine,” she whispers, forcing a smile a little too bright onto her slender face. “Really. I’m fine.”
I don’t think it’s me she’s trying to convince.
“I’m going to find the bastard who did this to you?—”
“That’s okay?—”
“—and kick his ass.”
Her eyes widen. “You don’t have to.”
“But I owe you one.”
“I’m fine,” she squeaks, “but thank you for the offer.”
“What else can I do?”
“What do you mean?”
“You helped me out,” I remind her. “Now, I want to return the favor.”
“I don’t… It’s fine.” The kind smile that appears this time is genuine, lighting up her entire face. “I’m not the kind of person who expects something in return just because I did you a solid.”
“It’s not how I roll,” I say flatly. “You helped me out; now I help you out. That’s what I wrote on the board. You can try to talk your way out of this, but I’m not budging.”
She tilts her head back to gawk at me, the barest hint of confusion bringing her brows together, like she can’t believe a word I just said. “You’re not going to give up?”
“I’m not the type to give up on anything.”
She swallows, expelling a shaky breath. “Okay then.” She looks down the hallway where the guy is still standing, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. I’m not sure what’s taking her so long or if I should be wary of what she’s about to say. If she’s going to say anything. Before I can prompt her to give me something to work with, she blurts out, “ HowdoItellaboyIlikehim ?”
I stare at her, gobsmacked. There’s no fucking way those words truly just came out of her mouth . “What did you say?”
Her face mottles a bright shade of scarlet. Even the tips of her ears aren’t spared. “How do I tell a boy I?—”
“I heard you the first time. You want to use your favor for dating advice?”
Somehow, her face turns even redder. “He’s really cute. And nice. And we like the same books and music and TV shows?—”
Christ. My eyes nearly glaze over from her ramblings. “You want dating advice?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I scan her up and down.
She’s not bad to look at. Wide brown eyes framed with spiky lashes, a faint amount of freckles sprinkled across her upturned nose, and soft-looking lips in a dusky shade of pink. She’s a little on the shorter side, but her tight sweater leaves nothing to the imagination as it clings to her generous rack.
She starts stammering, and it finally dawns on me. I manage to catch my grin just in the nick of time.
“You’ve never had a boyfriend?”
“ Shh .” She smooths the fabric of her white pants, bashfully ducking her head to look at the ground. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. I’ve… never had a boyfriend.”
“It’s easy. Just go over there and tell him you like him.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“Because it is.”
“It’s not.”
“How is it not? It’s three fucking words.” She visibly cringes, so I soften my tone as I say, “Try it on me.”
“Wait, what?” Her eyes burn with confusion.
“Tell me you like me,” I prompt, my gaze never leaving her face.
When she realizes I’m not playing around, she lets out a blustery exhale and sweeps her hair out of her dark eyes. It takes a sheer amount of willpower to refrain from saying any day now.
She reluctantly steels her shoulders, biting her bottom lip again as she refuses to make eye contact with me. Lord, don’t make me coach her word-for-word.
“I like you,” she gasps, her voice so damn hoarse and raspy that I genuinely deserve a medal for not bursting out laughing. I’m a dickhead, but I’m trying my fucking best not to be a dickhead to her. It’s the least I can do for the one person who helped me out of a really rough spot.
“Christ, you sound like someone put a gun to your head and forced you to say those words.” All right, maybe I don’t deserve a medal after all.
“You’re a jerk,” she gasps. “Do you know that?”
“That ain’t the worst thing said about me. Being called a jerk? It’s a compliment at this point.”
“I like you,” she repeats, and I’m somehow impressed and appalled that she manages to butcher these three words even more the second time around.
When I tell her that, she scowls.
“If you’re such an expert, why don’t you tell him you like him?” she asks hotly.
I nearly hoot with laughter. “You need to relax. Whatever hang-up you have? It won’t be solved this afternoon. And I still owe you one.”
“What?” Her brows scrunch together in bewilderment. “Why?”
“The favor you want is asking for the impossible to happen.” I let out a snort when she spares another scowl in my direction. “Reach out to me,” I say as I start heading for the stairs, “when you have a favor that’s actually achievable.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” she asks.
Right. My feet skid to a halt. “Got your phone on you?”
She retrieves a pink phone from her back pocket, passing it to me after she unlocks it. I text my number and then hand it back to her.
“If you still need dating advice,” I say hesitantly, knowing fully well that I’m going to regret the words coming out of my mouth next, “then… you can ask me for dating advice. But, please, for the love of God, ask for something else. I’m no Cupid. If you have car troubles?—”
“I don’t have a car.”
“ Anything . Seriously. Anything else. Anything but dating advice.”
“Okay.” She nods woodenly. “Sure.”
“Great.” My tongue clicks two beats. “Thanks for the keys.”
“You’re welcome,” she mumbles, not meeting my eyes.
“Good luck with everything,” I say, my gaze flicking to the guy who’s still standing there. “You got this.”
Then I hightail it out of there before she can ask me for more help with getting the guy.