LOUISE
The next day, after my shift at the garden store, I went to visit Kayley.
I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to tell her about the plan.
If she knew what I was doing she’d start talking sense into me, repeating all the things that were already keeping me awake at night: that I’d get caught, or shot, that people would find out what I’d done and hate us.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to so easily push all the protests aside, when they came from her.
And even if I did ignore her and go ahead, all she’d have to do would be to threaten to go to the cops and then I’d have no choice but to shut down. She had to stay totally oblivious.
I’d thought I was going to have to fake happiness with Kayley, but it was surprising how easy it was to slip into it.
We’d spent so much of our lives together, there was a kind of inertia that the disease couldn’t stop.
We talked about boys at school and getting her a new backpack; about whether she was allowed to watch that cop show, Blue about new Ben and Jerry’s flavors we’d like to see.
And then I made the mistake of mentioning last year’s vacation. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I tried to scrape together enough for us to go somewhere each summer: last year had been camping in the Los Padres forest. Kayley grinned excitedly. “This summer—” she started.
And then she stopped. And her lip trembled.
I pulled her quickly into a hug. “Hey,” I said, stroking her hair. She was starting to tremble. “Hey! It’ll be fine. We’ll just make it fall, instead of summer.”
She gulped and nodded. But when she eventually pulled back from me, her face was white. “Can we plan it?” she asked.
I looked at her, thrown for a second.
“Can we plan it?” she asked again. “Really plan it?”
And then I understood.
“Yeah,” I said. “Absolutely.” We got out her phone and started planning where we were going to go, once she’d recovered, and what we were going to do when we got there. Every meal. Every last detail. Because both of us needed to feel like it was really going to happen.
While we were browsing hotels, she suddenly said out of nowhere, “This isn’t bullshit, is it?”
For once, I didn’t pull her up on her language. “No,” I said firmly. I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “It’s not bullshit.”
And I told myself it wasn’t.
I’d been wavering since the talk with Sean the night before.
I knew I needed his help and I was glad of it.
But getting mixed up with him changed the whole feel of the thing.
When it was just me doing it, in my apartment, I could almost kid myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
It felt just like growing any other plant.
But as soon as I started working with him, it felt like I would become part of the whole system, a drug grower connected with dealers and enforcers and God knows who else.
I knew it made sense. I knew I couldn’t operate in a vacuum if this was going to work.
I knew I’d been kidding myself that I could.
But none of that made it easier. By even talking to Sean, I was getting myself—and by extension, Kayley—involved in a world I’d always swore I’d stay away from.
Sean was everything my folks had warned me about when I was a kid.
I’d always been a good girl and men didn’t come much worse.
Except...sometimes, when I looked into his eyes, he didn’t seem as ruthless as everyone made out.
I was still scared of him, but less than when he’d first grabbed my arm, up on the roof.
I was having trouble imagining him actually hurting me.
But I was having no trouble imagining him doing other things to me.
I flushed and hoped that Kayley didn’t notice.
Whenever I was around him, my mind slipped into fantasy mode.
Each touch of his hands was enough to send me into a downward spiral that always ended with him on top of me.
..or me on top of him...or him behind me.
I was finding that I was permanently, shamefully wet when he was close. No man had ever done that to me.
What was maddening was that sometimes, just occasionally, I’d feel his eyes on me, a lick of heat traveling up and down my body, or he’d narrow his eyes in that certain way, when we were arguing, like he wanted to take me over his knee.
I’d get just the tiniest hint that maybe he wanted me too.
Then it was gone again, too quickly for me to be sure I hadn’t just imagined it.
If he hadn’t been interested in me, it would have been easy: I could have written off my fantasies as just that, fantasies, and pushed them down inside.
But the little hints of interest were just enough to keep them bubbling up to the surface, every damn time.
Hence the wavering. Could I really become a criminal, like Sean?
And could I even function, working side-by-side with him for six long months?
What if something...happened? What if the hints were real and he made a pass at me?
Hell, what did I mean, make a pass? Sean wasn’t the sort of guy who’d make a pass, he’d just throw me down on the ground and—
I pressed my thighs together.
Nothing was going to happen. I wasn’t going to get involved with him. I wasn’t going to bring someone like that into Kayley’s life: no way. I’d take cold showers three times a day if I had to. Sean and I would be just business and, at the end of six months, we’d go our separate ways.
I pulled Kayley close and kissed the top of her head. For her, I’d make it work.
After the hospital, I headed straight for Sean’s apartment and knocked on his door. A moment later, he opened it...and froze.
“What?” I asked. I looked down at myself. I wasn’t wearing anything out of the ordinary, let alone sexy, just a green scoop-neck top and blue jeans.
He glanced away for a second, then back at me. “Nothing. Come in.”
He wasn’t topless, this time, although the black tank top didn’t cover much. It almost made him look bigger, drawing attention to his tight waist and the way he seemed to flare out in an X from that point, up to the broad, muscled chest and shoulders and down to his hips.
“You want coffee?” he asked, and walked through to the kitchen area.
I trailed behind him, a little thrown. I’d never thought about him doing something normal, like eating breakfast or drinking coffee.
I guess until that moment, I’d only seen him as a criminal, smashing stuff up or picking up women in bars and pounding them into the mattress so loud I could hear it through my floor.
I knew now he played guitar. What else did he do? Did he have friends? Family?
He leaned against a wall. I hopped up onto the counter and perched there, then took the mug of coffee he poured for me. “You—” He caught himself and started again. “We...are going to need a grow house. Somewhere we can give over entirely to growing.”
I nodded and sipped, looking surreptitiously around. I suddenly wanted to know more about him. There were no family photos that I could see...actually, there were no photos at all.
“It’s got to be in a neighborhood where people won’t ask too many questions,” Sean told me, “but close enough that it’s not a pain in the arse to drive to, because we’re going to be there a lot. And we need to be on the right turf.”
“Turf?” I asked disbelievingly. “Like, West Side Story, ‘you’re on our turf,’ turf?”
He nodded.
“It’s really like that? I mean, I know about gangs and stuff, but….”
“If we grow in someone else’s area, our place will be trashed. Or burned. Or reported to the cops. At best.”
“At best? What’s ‘at worst?’”
He looked away, suddenly unable to meet my eyes. “It won’t happen. I know a neighborhood that’s quiet, now. We can grow there.”
My stomach churned. From the concern in his eyes, he was worried specifically about me. God, what the hell am I getting into? And then I thought about how I’d been going to try to do all this on my own, without six-foot-something of criminal muscle on my side. I winced.
He drained his coffee. “You ready to go house hunting?” he asked.
God, we’re really doing this. It wasn’t just taking the step of finding a grow house; it was the fact I was heading out with him, trusting him to take me who-knows-where for who-knows how long. Until now, I’d only ever seen him for a few minutes at a time. This was like our first proper date.
He led me downstairs and around the side of our building to an alley. His car was a glossy black 1960’s era Ford Mustang and it loomed with almost as much evil, muscular charm as Sean himself.
“You park it here?” I asked, looking around. The thing must have been worth a fortune. Without answering, he opened the door. “You don’t even lock it?!” I couldn’t imagine my car lasting an hour if I parked it in a dark alley, and my car is a piece of junk. “Why doesn’t it get stolen?”
He just looked at me and then I got it.
It didn’t get stolen because everyone knew who it belonged to.
I climbed in. The inside was just as impressive as the outside: old, but every bit of chrome was shining. “I thought you’d drive something European,” I mumbled. When he turned to look at me, I said, “You’re Irish, right? I mean, originally. You sound Irish.”
He nodded. “Born in Ireland. Ended up here.” He went quiet for a moment, staring at the steering wheel, and I stayed quiet, too, hoping he’d say more.
Just when I thought he wasn’t going to, he ran his hand over the dash and said, “It’s been with me a long time.
I like it because it’s American. I wanted to fit in.
” And then he shook his head, as if he thought he was being stupid.
Before I could say anything, he turned the key and the engine roared into life, the V8 throb echoing off the walls of the alley and booming back to us, making the whole car shake. It was deafening and over-the-top and wonderful. Sean reached down for the gear shift...and everything stopped.
I was suddenly aware of just how close we were, in the car.
His hand, gripping the knob of the gear shift, was inches from my knee.
He could grab that just as easily and my whole body stiffened minutely as I imagined the warmth of his palm through my jeans, the way his fingers would squeeze hard before he swung his whole body across the car and onto me, a leg pushing between my thighs, his other hand sliding up under my top—
The car didn’t move. His hand just stayed there on the gear stick. What’s he waiting for?
Unless...he was staring at my knee, imagining the exact same thing.
My breathing started to speed up. I told myself I was being crazy. Of course he’s not thinking about grabbing you. I waited three more breaths and then forced myself to look up at him.
He looked up at the exact same moment and we stared into each other’s eyes.
The expression on his face made a slow-motion explosion go off in my chest, the embers falling down to ignite a new fire in my groin.
He looked...hungry. As if he was barely restraining himself from pouncing on me.
And he looked angry, as if it was all my fault, as if I was teasing him into it. But I’m not doing anything!
I heard the gears shift as he finally moved the stick. Only then did he break my gaze and look out through the windshield. We surged forward.
And drove into hell.