15. Clara
Chapter 15
Clara
J ansen’s earthy smell surrounds me, his weight pressing me into the mattress. I run my fingers up his spine, each bump a new mountain to explore, each dip a valley. His breath tickles the small hairs on my neck, but it’s good—serene even.
I burrow my nose against his skin, pressing a thank you kiss to the curve of his shoulder. I can’t believe I just jumped him like that. Is that fair? Shit, I have no idea.
Maybe it’s a bad idea to go at this nonexclusive thing without rules. How do I know when I’ve crossed a line? Did I just hate-fuck Jansen because I’m pissed at Walker? I mean, Jansen and I have been promising each other “later” all day, but neither of us thought “later” would look like this.
I might be the worst not-quite-girlfriend out there.
Jansen mirrors my kiss before pulling back, brushing some of my hair out of my face, his own blond hair a messy curtain, closing us both in. “Hey,” he says, a grin cutting across his face, his eyes glittering emeralds as he gazes down at me.
“Hey,” I answer.
He glances around the room for a second. “Where would I find a towel? You know, to clean up?”
My stomach bottoms out before I answer. “We didn’t use a condom,” I state like a dummy.
“Nope,” Jansen says.
“Well shit,” I say, not really knowing where to go from here.
Jansen’s smile fades, concern lighting his eyes. “Do we need to go run and get Plan B?”
We. He said we , and my poor heart turns giddy. The one time a condom broke with Bryce, it had been up to me to take care of it, and to prove it with a receipt. Asshole. Thank God I figured out how to keep that from happening again. “No, I have an IUD. And, um, I’m clean. I got tested after I broke up with Bryce. I had to be sure, you know?”
He nuzzles his nose against mine, all the tension falling from his body again. “I’m clean, too. Tested right before I came back to campus.”
I find a smile creeping across my face, Jansen’s easy joy contagious. He presses his forehead against mine, a soft kiss lingering against my lips. “So, about that towel.”
“Oh, right.” I point to my towel from this morning, hanging on a hook between the bed and my cubbies. Jansen leaps up and snags it, rushing back to wipe me clean, his brows furrowed as he works. And my heart twists again. How did I get so lucky?
A chuckle escapes me, the flood of anger, lust, power, joy, panic, and care suddenly too much for my body to contain all at once. It explodes in a wave of laughter and tears, and I sit up, trying to contain the sudden rush of everything all at once. I snort while weeping, Jansen looking at me, his face pure terror. “I’m okay. Just…” I wave my hand around, trying to catch my breath. “A lot of…feelings.”
Jansen’s horror turns into laughter, both of our muscles failing us, and we’re lying on the bed side by side, shaking the mattress with giggles this time, both of us trying to stop, but then catching the other’s eye and starting the whole process over again.
A soft knock on my door has me trying to stuff the giggles back in and snorting again instead. Fuck. That sets off Jansen, but he ekes out a “What’s up?” through his chuckles.
RJ, bless him, doesn’t open the door, but just calls through the wood. “If you guys are, well, done I guess, then dinner’s ready.”
“Got it. Give us, like, one minute.” Jansen catches my eye and snickers again. Damn it. I shove him, embarrassed that RJ heard us, struggling back upright, sitting on the towel as I try to get my game face back on.
Jansen’s lips press against my shoulder, and I reach for him, needing him closer. “Thank you.”
He kisses me again, threading his hands into my curls. “Better now?”
“Much.”
“Good.”
As we stare at each other, I wish we had more time—all night at least.
I swallow back all my extra emotions, folding them into the pit of my stomach. “Help me find my clothes? ”
“Anytime, beautiful. Anytime.”
I’m the last one in the living room for dinner after a pit stop at the bathroom. Jansen hands me a plate piled high with pot roast and veggies, with a fresh bun tucked to one side.
Walker’s claimed RJ’s chair, stabbing his meat with more force than is strictly necessary. I settle cross-legged between RJ and Jansen, glad I don’t have to sit next to Walker right now. I’d be throwing fingerling potatoes at him if Jansen hadn’t stopped by my room and helped me burn off the sharp edges of my rage.
Thank you, Jansen, for letting me fake normal. Now, hopefully I can make it through this meeting with enough brain power to follow along and learn more about heist planning.
Trips wipes his mouth with a napkin, his eyes blazing at me. I know he hates being late, but it’s not like there’s an actual deadline tonight. Fifteen minutes for everyone to eat first seems like a courtesy, not a failing, but whatever. I spear a carrot and ignore his ire.
Once I look down at my food, breaking eye contact, Trips’ plate knocks against the coffee table. “Everyone clear on the objective?” he asks, signaling the start of the meeting.
Jansen swallows a piece of tofu. “Retrieve a password from a secure location on the Sunday after Thanksgiving between 11 a.m. and noon.”
This is the one thing in that whole packet that I understood. Now it’s on to the more complicated bits. For example, floor plans of a Chicago mansion? Not something I’m familiar with. Let alone the security map? Way over my head. At least I have delicious food to keep me busy while I observe how the guys work.
Trips turns to RJ. “Security issues?”
RJ swallows before answering. “All of them. They have cameras, motion detectors, window alarms, all top-of-the-line tech. Add to that the security personnel on site, and the failsafe lockdown protocol? It’s zipped tighter than your average country bank.”
Walker sets down his plate, his food mostly untouched. “What did you find out about the family?”
RJ balances his plate on his lap, speaking with his fork. “Our target is apparently Jasmine’s family, and the password is her grandfather’s.”
Trips crumples his napkin in his fist. “Fuck. And of course, she didn’t put that in the brief. Did you figure out why they have such good security, besides being wealthy as Midas?”
RJ rubs the back of his neck, shifting his weight so his thigh presses against my knee, a glowy feeling moving through me with the casual contact. “It’s hard to verify, but if I were to guess, Grandpa was a mob fixer, and Jasmine’s uncle took over the family business when Grandpa retired. I can’t trace it to be sure, but there are just enough points of contact, a few old news articles, you know. I don’t know all the players in Chicago or anything, but I have a feeling it’s going to shake out that way.”
The energy in the whole room shifts with this information. Trips drops his head into his hands, Walker slouches back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. Jansen’s leg bounces, whatever calm he’d carried into the room burst by the mob connection.
I set my fork down on my plate. “Is the mob still a thing? Didn’t it die out after prohibition?”
Four sets of eyes lock on me, and I feel like an idiot. Read the room, Clara. They wouldn’t be so on edge if the mob were a fairy tale. I swallow, looking down. “Never mind,” I mutter.
RJ rests his hand on my knee, and Walker twists a bit in his chair, subtly turning his back to us. A gentle squeeze from RJ keeps me from seeing red. “No, it’s a legitimate question. They’re quieter, they’re smarter, but they’re still there. It’s just that at some point, the mob left the dirty jobs to the local gangs. They get most of their money through laundering for other organizations. They own a bunch of construction companies, nightclubs, and restaurants. The pulse of politics in Chicago is under their finger as well, and I doubt they ever go more than one election cycle without a pet politician to help them out.”
I smile my thanks, and he squeezes my knee again, butterflies fluttering in my gut. Trips pulls his head from his hands. “Great. How do we keep ourselves from ending up at the bottom of Lake Michigan?”
Jansen scoops some more veggies onto his plate, snatching up a second bun. “It’s going to be tough. I need to do a stealth in and out, but with that security layout, well, I’d have to know more, you know?”
“There aren’t any obvious gaps in the system as designed, but—” RJ starts.
Jansen finishes for him. “—Design isn’t what they installed. There were people involved, and people make mistakes. ”
They grin at each other over my head, and I match their faces, not really getting the joke, but going along with the vibe.
“So you guys are going to have to do some surveillance and see if you can hack in?” Trips asks.
RJ takes his hand back from my knee. “There’s no way we can do this on the fly.”
“Okay. Either this coming weekend or the following one, you two are heading to Chicago. Full cover, disconnected assets, cash where possible.”
Walker finally clears his throat, joining the conversation. “Remember, I need to run to Chicago, too. The sooner the better.”
Trips sits back in his chair. “I don’t like all three of you there at the same time. Also, I don’t think you need full cover, Walker. You can use your university duplicate self to visit a museum. Art students are always visiting famous art, right?”
Walker shrugs, his jaw tight.
Trips turns to RJ instead of engaging with Walker. “Do you have work next weekend?”
“Yeah, but I can get someone to cover for me.”
Trips leans back in his chair. “Then you and Jansen leave Friday. Get a car, use cash. Walker, you’ll have IDs ready by then, right?”
Walker shifts back toward the group, not really having a choice in the matter. “If RJ can get me the clean trail, I can make the IDs.”
RJ grins. “I’ve been saving a bunch for a rainy day. I can get them to you whenever. ”
Trips nods. “Good. Walker, you’ll drive out there the weekend after that. Take Clara. You can use a romantic getaway as cover.”
I don’t think my jaw could drop any faster. After the fight we just had? Five or six hours stuck in a car with Walker, both ways? No. Just no. “I have to work the next two weekends. If you want my rent paid, I can’t be gallivanting off to Chicago without warning,” I say.
Walker nods along. “I can go solo. It’s not a big deal.”
Trips shakes his head. “Things are about to get weird. I don’t want any of you alone in Chicago when the motherfucking mob is involved in this whole thing. And I don’t want any duplicate visits—it will look too suspicious if anyone thinks to look. Visit once, you’re a tourist. Visit twice and you’re up to something.”
I glance at Walker, but the set of his jaw tells me he’d rather pull out his molars sans anesthetic than go to Chicago with me. God. This wasn’t just a temporary setback, was it? My palms sweat, and I rub them against my sweatshirt. “What about you, Trips? What are you going to be doing?” I ask, grasping at straws.
Trips crosses his arms across his chest, and I focus on how his biceps stretch the cotton tighter than is probably comfortable, needing to latch onto anything but the growing dread in my gut. An image of him sweaty with his hands wrapped in tape, pummeling a canvas bag flashes in my imagination, and I’m grateful for my suddenly hyperactive libido. It’s the perfect distraction.
I still can’t tell where I stand with Trips, no matter how carefully I observe him. Some days, he’s the picture of grudging sweetness. Others, I’m no different from the gum on the bottom of his thousand-dollar shoes: an annoyance that needs to be scraped off and thrown away. He’s the master of mixed signals.
Trips clears his throat, and I realize he must have caught me staring. Shit.
He leans forward, his hands on his knees. “I’m going to be figuring out who we’re up against and what tactics they’re likely to use. We’ve got to be prepared to counter. We will win this stupid fucking tryout, and then we’ll do the Rubens job. By the first of next year, we’ll be rolling in cash. And we’ll finally have the capital to move our operation national.”
I blink, that whole statement the most honest bit of truth I’ve gotten from Trips in over a month. “What about my rent money?” I ask, my brain not catching my mouth in time to stop that inanity from spilling out.
Trips laughs, the sound bright like the sun bouncing off a summer lake, and totally ill-fitted for the tension in the room. “Fuck, I’ll pay you a per diem or some shit for Chicago. You can be an independent contractor. The business can easily float some of your rent this month. RJ’s been making a killing lately.”
I glance at the man in question, and a bit of mischief sparkles in his eyes. Walker makes fake IDs for this mysterious company they have, and Trips runs his poker games. I’m fairly certain that the pickpocketing I saw Jansen working on at the football game is at least a portion of what he donates. What crimes does RJ commit to add to their business coffers? It’s not like teaching kids martial arts is what Trips was alluding to .
Now’s not the time for that, though. “So I’m going to Chicago no matter what. That’s what you’re saying?”
“Sure thing, Crash.”
I glare at that stupid nickname, but apparently teasing me makes Trips giddy, and if I didn’t know him better, I’d say he’s thirty seconds from breaking into a toothy grin at my expense.
Before I can figure out how to play this, Walker stands up, stretching. “Well, if that’s it, I have a paper due tomorrow.” And he walks upstairs. Without looking back.
“Thanks for dinner,” I call after him, not able to halt my good manners from rearing their useless head. He throws a wave of acknowledgment, but keeps on walking, disappearing from sight.
Trips glances between the two of us, a hint of a grin creasing his lips. “Remember, Clara, you promised no drama. Think you can do that?”
I show him my middle finger before pulling my plate back onto my lap and reaching for another roll.
Trips laughs, handing me a fresh one, then loading his plate before chuckling the entire way up the stairs.