Chapter 4
Less than an hour into Vero’s date with Darren, it had become clear that her plan was going to flop.
There were two critical problems with it.
One, her mark was unfathomably boring. She had spent her last three shifts hanging around his cubicle, asking him questions about his day-to-day responsibilities at the bank in the hopes of coaxing a clue out of him, but all he’d wanted to do was talk about himself.
She was certain she’d fall asleep before she managed to get anything useful out of him.
And two, she might have laid it on a little thick when she’d suggested they go out to dinner.
He was obviously convinced this was a real date and was now completely disinterested in discussing anything related to his job.
Darren was all clumsy hands and overly optimistic tongue.
It was a little like playing Whac-A-Mole with a clingy octopus with boundary issues.
His wallet was in the pocket of his khaki slacks, but if she reached for it now, it would only egg him on, and the last thing Darren needed was any more encouragement.
It was obvious he wasn’t keeping any big secrets in his pants.
His cell phone, however, was inside the breast pocket of his jacket.
Getting it away from him would be easy. Checking it in his car while he was trying to feel her up would be a bit more challenging.
“Let’s go inside,” she suggested, throwing open the passenger side door and fumbling in her pocket for the spare set of keys she’d slipped from Ramón’s apartment that morning.
Darren chased after her to the side door of the garage. “Are you sure we should be here?”
“It’s my cousin’s shop. He won’t mind.” She tried the first three keys on the ring without any luck.
It wasn’t easy with Darren breathing down the back of her neck.
The fourth key glided smoothly into the lock.
Darren was all over her the second they were inside.
She walked him backward through the garage as he pawed at her.
“My cousin has a sofa in his office,” she said, angling her face away from his when he tried to kiss her.
“How about we do it on the workbench? That sounds really hot.”
“How about I hit you with a tire iron and clamp your balls in my cousin’s vice?”
“What was that?”
“I said, wow, that sounds really nice.” She slid her hands down his chest, then inside his jacket. His breathing grew ragged, his mouth more urgent in its clumsy explorations as her fingers groped near his pockets.
Eureka.
Vero slid his cell phone free, stuffing it in the back pocket of her jeans as his face burrowed down the front of her shirt.
She hauled him out of her cleavage by his chin.
“I’m going to the bathroom to freshen up for a minute.
Don’t go anywhere. And don’t touch anything,” she warned him as she backed through the door to the hallway.
Vero had never been so relieved as when she closed it between them.
She leaned back against it, taking a second to catch her breath.
A light was on inside her cousin’s office across the hall, where he had left a small desk lamp on.
She peeked her head inside. A Ramón’s Towing and Salvage sweatshirt was abandoned on the sofa, and a worn-out copy of a sci-fi novel had been left open, facedown, on the table beside it.
“Come on, Vero! Where’d you go?” Darren called impatiently from the garage.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she called back.
She jogged down the hall to the bathroom and locked herself inside. Darren’s phone came alive with a single swipe, and she tapped the four-digit code she’d seen him use when he’d checked his messages at the restaurant.
She worked fast, skimming past his various dating and social media icons and pausing over one for a banking app…
to a different bank. That’s odd. Why not open an account at the institution where he works?
Why bank somewhere else? Unless he’d been making deposits he didn’t want his employer to know about.
She thumbed the app open and waited for a text message to appear with the temporary security code that would allow her to access his account.
Once she was inside, she did a quick audit of his transactions.
The only deposits were his paychecks every other Friday.
They were higher than he deserved, but his balance wasn’t nearly as impressive as he’d made it out to be while he’d been spouting off at the mouth about his assets over dinner.
It was possible, she supposed, that he’d been keeping the stolen cash under his mattress.
Though given what she’d learned about him tonight, she was beginning to doubt he was the thief at all.
If he was stealing money from the bank, what was he doing with it?
He’d ordered the cheapest item on the menu at the restaurant, he drove an economical car, and he was still living with his mom.
A crashing sound came from the garage. Then a slam.
Damnit. She’d told Darren not to touch anything, hadn’t she?
She logged out of his banking app and stuffed the phone back into her pocket as she hurried back to the garage.
She flung open the door. The light over the workbench was swinging a little, casting an eerie shadow over the lone figure inside.
Not Darren.
Vero’s breath hitched. The man stood with his back to her, his arms braced on the workbench. She knew him. Would know that shape anywhere. The thoughtful, tense hunch of his shoulders. The way his thin white T-shirt conformed to them, hugging the muscles underneath.
She hadn’t seen Javier Romero in three years. Not since he’d left her and she’d left for college.
She took a step closer, to be sure it was actually him. Not some figment of her imagination. Her mind playing tricks. He tossed a wrench, letting it clatter into a bucket of tools as he reached for a rag. He paused, as if he sensed her watching.
Tattoos ghosted through the thin fabric of his shirt.
There were more of them now, ones she’d never seen before.
They wound down from his sleeves in dizzying patterns.
Hints of dark tendrils peeked out of his collar, tangling with the shining locks of his raven-black hair.
She could still feel it, if she let herself, the feathery strands falling like a veil around her face, threading between her fingers when she used to run her hands through it as they—
She clenched them into fists. “What are you doing here?”
“I was getting ready for bed until you and your boyfriend showed up.” The subtle, sharp edge to his voice did strange things to her insides.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said curtly. “We just met.”
Javi let out a joyless laugh. He turned, leaning casually back against the workbench as he cleaned his knuckles on a filthy shop rag. “You bring all your casual hookups to your cousin’s garage for late-night make-out sessions?”
“That stopped being any of your business a long time ago. And what do you mean, going to bed ?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“You’re sleeping on Ramón’s couch?”
“Would you prefer I sleep somewhere else?” His dark eyes bored into her. She was certain he could see the answer in the hot flush creeping up her cheeks. He dropped his gaze, sparing her the embarrassment. “Didn’t exactly have much of a choice since someone else is sleeping on mine.”
“ You’re the person who’s been sleeping over at Ramón’s apartment?
” She shouldn’t have been surprised. Ramón’s mother had practically adopted Javi when they were kids.
His own mother wasn’t much of a presence, and he’d probably spent more nights sleeping on Ramón’s floor than in his own bed.
Ramón and Aunt Gloria were the closest thing Javi had had to a real family growing up, and yet, Vero had never paused to consider that this piece of Javi’s life had never changed.
It irked her for reasons she didn’t want to admit. “So you just followed him to Virginia?”
“He asked me to come. He needed someone who can do body work, and he offered me a job,” he said defensively. “I’m not freeloading off your cousin, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I pay rent.”
He paid rent to sleep on her cousin’s couch. And he’d given up his bed for her because Ramón had asked him to. She bit her lip, but it was too late to take it back. “Where’s Darren?”
“The asshole with the boner? He had to go.” Javi looked down at his hands, working the rag over his knuckles. They left dark red smears on the fabric.
“Javi! What did you do to him?”
“Nothing he won’t recover from.”
“You beat him up?”
“Your friend needed a little help finding the door.”
“Shit!” She rubbed her eyes. How was she going to explain the fact that she had Darren’s cell phone when she was forced to return it to him at work on Monday?
“Don’t look so upset about it,” Javi deadpanned. “It’s not like you were actually enjoying it or anything.”
“I was enjoying it just fine!”
He took a bold step closer, until they were close enough for her to see the V on his right pectoral through his shirt.
Until the warm, familiar smell of his skin hit her square in the throat and his low voice rumbled in her own chest. “I know when you’re enjoying yourself, Veronica.
The way you move. The way you breathe. If I really thought you were having fun with that prick, I would have walked out that door and closed it behind me. ”
She swallowed, conflicting urges threatening to take over her body.
He did know all those things. For an entire summer, he’d been her whole damn world—her first everything.
Then right before she was supposed to leave for college, he’d ghosted her overnight.
No explanations. No apologies. No goodbyes.
“Maybe you should have left. That’s what you do best, isn’t it? ”
It was Javi’s turn to flinch. Like he had the nerve to regret what he’d done to her. She turned on her heels for the office. “Where are you going?” he called after her.
“To find a ride home. Tell Ramón I borrowed a loaner.” She stormed into her cousin’s office and threw open his desk drawer where he kept spare keys. Javi was right behind her. He took the keys from her hand and tossed them back into the drawer.
“You can’t drive that one. It’s missing a timing belt.”
“Fine, I’ll take another one.”
“I’ll take you.” His hand closed around hers as she reached for another key—any key. Hell, she’d walk the twelve miles home if it meant she didn’t have to be this close to him. His hand lingered around hers before he finally let go. He reached for his hoodie. “Where’s your coat?”
“In Darren’s car.”
Javi dropped his sweatshirt into her arms. It was two sizes too big.
Too soft. Too easy to put on. He pulled a set of keys off a hook on the wall and switched off the desk lamp, and for a moment, it was just the two of them, standing too close to each other in the dark, neither one taking the first step out the door.
“My van’s out front,” he said, leading the way out.