Chapter Twelve
B irch lifted his tattoo gun from his client’s arm when Ryder slunk in the front door, eyes down and back hunched as he skulked over to the desk and sat.
Adjusting his grip on the machine, Birch returned to work and focused on the final detailed lines.
Once Jocelyn had driven away last night, he’d gone inside and stood strong against Grey’s ribbing. His younger brother’s teasing about Birch snagging a ‘hot-ass and smart girlfriend’ despite being a ‘scrawny, moody killjoy’ wasn’t the worst he’d endured over the years. It went on for a solid twenty minutes, a steady barrage of expressed disbelief that such an incredible woman had shown up looking for Birch, and wrapping up with an offer to gallantly step into his place if Birch decided she was too much woman for him to handle.
He let most of it roll off his back, interrupting only to correct Grey on one important point.
Jocelyn wasn’t his girlfriend.
“Okay, Rick, have a look,” he stated, rolling his chair back and holding a mirror to give the guy a good look at the ink reaching toward his bicep. “If you change your mind about adding a few red highlights we can do it in three weeks, but it’s a sweet piece with the shading alone.”
He nodded and flexed his arm a couple times, watching the movement of his new ink as he flexed his muscles. “Damn, Birch. It looks even better than the stencil did. Thanks.”
Ryder left his seat at the desk and feigned doing business at the filing cabinet while Birch ran his client through the care sheet and collected the payment.
Waiting until the door slid closed, he turned to Ryder. “What’s going on with Trevor? Anything I need to worry about?”
After a rather unsatisfying jerk-off session in the shower to clear Jocelyn from his mind for the night, he’d managed to get a few hours of fitful sleep before giving up on rest and spending his early morning hours focused on finding the best path forward when it came to Ryder. Once he was able to separate his anger from the situation, he realized he needed to play it cool, to pretend he knew nothing about the skimming his business partner had been doing until he had proof.
Or caught him red-handed.
Ryder leaned against the cabinet and crossed his arms. “I told you not to stress it. Trevor’s home and his lawyers are on it.”
“Yeah, well, the cops have our tax papers,” he stated. “And I don’t have a copy, so what the hell do I do about that? I can’t get a new accountant and give them nothing to file.”
“I’ll ask Trevor what you should do.”
Turning his attention to their schedule for the day, he checked off his first client and made a note for a callback in a week. “What do you think the cops are doing with the paperwork anyways? Your uncle didn’t even have a chance to look at it.”
“It’s the Epson PD. They probably lost it already.” Ryder looked over his shoulder and tapped an open evening session saved for walk-ins. “I can stay late all week if you’re good taking over the morning appointments. Maybe we should stop splitting them and just stick with you opening and me closing. Less confusing that way.”
He hesitated, holding his pen over the paper.
Opening the shop was easier than closing, thanks to their clunky computer startup being the most time-consuming part of the routine. Whoever closed was stuck doing the final clean, checking the supply stock, and doing the nightly deposit.
The nightly deposit Ryder had insisted on doing for the past year, whether he closed or not.
A part of him wanted to drag his business partner from his seat and pound on him until he confessed to whatever bullshit Jocelyn was slowly uncovering. But the rational side of him held back.
Ryder had no idea Jocelyn was reviewing their company books. He had no reason to suspect Birch would have insider knowledge, no matter how confusing that knowledge currently was. Maintaining a casual status quo was the best way to keep that little tidbit a secret, so as much as it killed him, he knew he had to let whatever Ryder was doing play out a little longer.
“Sounds good,” he replied, crossing out his name from the second shifts and adding Ryder’s. “I’m more of a morning guy lately anyways.”
*
Once again, Jocelyn stood in the doorway of her hotel room as Birch exited the elevator, appreciating the sight of him walking down the hall.
The tattered jeans he favored were replaced by tan cargos. The black and grey shirts he usually wore had been swapped out with an olive-green Henley, the long sleeves hiding the art adorning his arms. He had a naturally smooth swagger, the slight bowing of his legs sending her mind right to the gutter as she envisioned what might be between those strong thighs of his.
When she tore her gaze off his body, she caught him appraising her with the same heated expression, his eyes lingering on her hips as though he were attempting to figure out which thong she chose to wear that day.
Stepping aside to let him in, she checked out the fit of his cargos from the back before switching her thoughts to the business at hand. “How was work today? Was Ryder there?”
He seemed to be in the same frame of mind, with all the lust in his gaze gone as he set his wallet and keys on the coffee table then sat in the armchair across from the sofa. “Busy, which is always a good thing.” He checked his phone, then placed it beside his wallet. “He was there. I figure the best course of action is to pretend I don’t know anything. He thinks the Epson PD took the paperwork and shoved it somewhere, so he has no idea you’re reviewing it.”
Plucking the stack of spreadsheets from her portable printer, she grabbed her highlighters and sat in the high-backed chair opposite him, both of them pretending the sofa didn’t exist. “Good plan. There are twelve receipts totaling forty-eight hundred dollars. But I have questions about some others. Take a look through this and put an X beside anything you don’t recognize and we’ll see if you and I are seeing the same things.”
He held out his hand and she passed the spreadsheets and a pen over to him, watching his expression as his brows knotted, his lips drawing into a tight line. He ticked off a few entries on each page, his eyes darkening more with each and every page he scanned. By the time he reached the end, his shoulder muscles were visibly knotted beneath his shirt, his grip on the pen tight enough to nearly crack the plastic casing. He passed the crumpled papers over to her and sat back in his chair, staring at the floor.
“Oh, whoa,” she exhaled, flipping through the spreadsheets. “You noted more than I did.”
“I know my business,” he growled, running a hand through his hair. “At least I thought I did.” Getting to his feet, he paced the floor behind her. “Seeing it all laid out in rows like that makes it so goddamn obvious he’s been screwing me over. I know we don’t go through that much ink in a month, and we haven’t had nearly enough piercing clients to justify half those jewelry receipts. I don’t even recognize any of the business names I starred.”
“Then we start there,” she said, standing up and stepping in front of him. “Your job is to order us room service and take a deep breath. I’ll begin looking up these business names online and see why Ryder has been ordering from them. Maybe it’s explainable. And if not, you’ll be okay.”
His expression shifted from furious to strained, as though he was struggling to accept something she said. “Explainable,” he echoed. “Yeah. Maybe, right?”
*
Birch wasn’t much of an ‘I told you so’ guy.
Except, apparently, when he was talking to himself.
He knew it was a mistake to allow Jocelyn’s calm optimism to infiltrate his intense rage, to allow himself to think things were going to be okay.
Because it was not okay.
Nothing was okay.
And things were getting less okay by the minute.
“No, Angelo. I…yeah, I’ll be moving onto invoices and deposits tomorrow. No. No.” Jocelyn looked over to him, her delicate brows furrowed. “I will. So far only one person’s signature is on any of the questionable receipts. I…no…of course. I will. Talk to you in the morning.” She set her phone on the dining table and knelt in front of him. “Birch, I’m going to ask you something and I need you to be upfront with me, okay?”
He hunched his body forward a fraction, knowing he shouldn’t take offense given the situation, but feeling the sting of her words nonetheless. “What do you need to know?”
“Tell me I’m not hitching my wagon to the wrong horse. That you’re being completely honest with me. Because I’ve been burned for trusting the wrong person before and it fucking sucked. More than sucked. It almost destroyed me.” She took his hand and looked up at him, her steel blue eyes pleading with him. “Tell me you’re not the bad guy here.”
The bad guy.
Being the bad guy was traditionally Winter’s job, a role Birch only fulfilled when his older brother wasn’t able to. He was more of the fall guy, the one who shouldered the brunt of the damage when things went to hell, the one who maneuvered the pieces the best he could when backed into a corner with few options. And yeah, a few of the decisions he’d had to make would put him squarely in the bad guy pile. And maybe the thoughts he was having about whoever hurt Jocelyn enough to damn near break her would be considered bad guy stuff in some circles.
But not here. Not now.
Not this time.
“I’m not the bad guy here,” he said quietly, wrapping her small hand in his. “This is probably going to sound ridiculously cheesy and stupid, but Serpent’s Tongue Ink saved me from becoming the bad guy three years ago. I would never do anything to fuck it up.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, the optimism he’d seen in them a mere hour earlier replaced by a hardened resolve as she squeezed his fingers and stood. “We have a lot more than this situation to talk about.”
He’d known this was coming since their first lunch together, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet. Whatever Jocelyn knew about his incarceration through the town grapevine hadn’t scared her off, but he knew hearing it from his own lips would do it. And he was too fucking selfish to lose what was left of her opinion of him.
Swallowing, he nodded. “Yeah, I suppose we do. And we will. Just…not tonight, okay?”
With a deep breath, she let go of his hand and the absence of her warmth hit him, hard. “It’s going to take at least another week for me to review the rest of the paperwork. Then there will be the write-up, cross-referencing, and recommendations. Can you keep this quiet until I can forward my findings to my boss, knowing it will likely end up in the hands of the police?”
“You mean can I play nice with Ryder until then? Yeah, I can do that.” He cleared his throat. “He’s been doing the nightly deposits for the past year. Today he offered to take all the evening shifts while I do the morning ones. Not saying it means anything, but it might.”
She frowned and walked over to the coffee table where her laptop sat, swiping her fingers across the track pad. “Interesting. What about your brothers? Have you mentioned anything to them?”
He scoffed and slouched back in the chair. “Have I told Grey and River that the business keeping us afloat is under investigation for fraud? No, Jocelyn. I’m not putting that stress on them.”
Licking her lips, she sat cross-legged on the king-size bed in her suite with her computer, her fingers dancing across the keys as the small printer beside Birch fired to life. “Angelo emailed me a list of the other businesses linked to Trevor Drayson. You probably overheard some of the conversation, but several of them are the same ones Ryder paid for excess supplies you say weren’t needed. Do you remember ever seeing a delivery from any of those companies?”
The printer spat out a piece of paper and he grabbed it, reading the names over. “I’m certain I saw some of these names on some boxes in the recycling bin, but since Ryder usually does the contracted mail pickup on his way to work, I don’t deal with anything not sent through the post office.”
Setting her laptop aside, she leaned back on her hands. “So, what came out of the boxes? Jewelry? Ink? Disinfectants? You would see the stock on the shelves, right?”
Wracking his memory, he shook his head slowly. “Nothing. I can’t think of anything I’ve seen in the shop that wasn’t a regular order.”
“Then what was in them?” she pressed. “These companies weren’t just shipping air to keep up a front.”