Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
Elsie
“You looking at the spread?” Forge called out as his eyes remained glued to the television.
“Yeah,” I assured him.
“Watching the total going over?” he asked.
“Yes. The line is moving though,” I told him.
“That’s because of the backdoor cover.”
I glanced up, not knowing what that meant, and looked at Gathe to see if he knew since Forge was locked in on the game.
He shrugged. “No fucking idea.”
Forge turned his head to look at me. “What?”
“I don’t know what backdoor cover means,” I admitted, worried I was supposed to watch something else on the iPad he’d given me.
“When a team scores late unexpectedly, covering the spread,” he replied, focusing back on the screen.
“Oh, got it.”
“We need the Celtics to win this,” Forge said, running his hand through his hair.
“Eh, Spurs were favored,” Gathe said, leaning forward as the final minutes of the game ticked down.
“Yeah, but it would be a prettier spread for us if they lost,” Forge replied.
His gaze swung to the other side of the massive screen that covered most of the wall, where the Wizards and Heat were playing. The screen was in four different sections with four different games happening. It was stressful, but I had to admit, the adrenaline rush was exciting.
“Oh, damn,” Gathe said, jumping up and pointing at another corner. “The Pistons just scored!”
“Pull up the individual team totals,” Forge told me as he took four long strides until he was beside me, looking down at the iPad. “That,” he said, leaning in front of me and tapping something.
He was very close. When I inhaled, I took a deeper breath than necessary. He smelled real good. Quickly, I took another one. What was he wearing? I wanted to spray that on my sheets. Was it sandalwood maybe? But there was something else.
“Did you?” he asked.
I blinked, realizing he was talking to me, and I had no idea what he’d asked. Crap.
“Uh, I’m sorry. What did you ask?”
He paused and glanced back at me.
Please do not blush, Elsie. PLEASE.
“With all the games going at once,” I explained. “I got distracted.”
“The betting volume. Did you check it on the Suns and Bucks?”
Oh. That. Yes.
I nodded. “The action, yes. I am watching it on all the games. I haven’t seen anything that stands out so far.”
He seemed appeased, then straightened back up to watch the games, but didn’t move away from me. I could still smell him, and as nice as he smelled, I did not need that distraction. I already knew what he looked like naked. This wasn’t helping matters.
A buzzer went off, and then Forge punched a hand in the air.
“Fuck yeah!” He turned to me, grinning, and grabbed my face, both his palms on my cheeks, and placed a fast, hard kiss on my forehead.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” he said, letting me go.
He walked over to grab the remote and punched in yet another game to take the place of the one that had just ended.
I was frozen. My forehead tingled, as well as other places on my body, from the contact.
“Next one is an even-money game,” Forge said, then picked up the iPhone he’d been tapping on all night and began quickly doing it again. “Bulls and Warriors is coming on too, Gathe. Get it up there.”
Blowing out a small breath, I tried to pull myself together and studied the screens.
“A few more upsets, and the juice is gonna be high tonight.”
I had no idea what juice was, but I figured he meant they made more money when the underdogs won.
“I’m surprised Oz hasn’t called or texted,” Gathe mused.
“He will soon enough, especially if this keeps up.”
I listened to them go back and forth while watching the screens. A name popped up in red among bets coming in, and that hadn’t happened before.
“Uh, Forge,” I said, not looking away from it, “there is a bet that just came up in red. Does that mean anything?”
And just like before, he was there beside me, leaning down so close that his hair tickled my nose as he read the name. “Dumb fucker,” he muttered with a shake of his head, then tapped the screen twice before pulling another cell phone from his back pocket.
Meanwhile, my stomach was going off like a balloon full of butterflies. I liked it when he was close like that.
“Dwon just placed a bet on the Bulls,” he said into the phone. “It was rejected. Yeah. I’d say go there next then. He’s got money to bet, then he can pay up. I’d get the cash before you take the fingers. But, eh, you do you.”
He ended the call and glanced back at me to catch me staring at him. Great.
“The red names mean they owe us already and are past due. Good catch,” he told me.
I tried not to ask, but, well, I had to know. “When you said take the fingers, was that literal or …”
He smirked then, and that dark glint was back in his eyes. “He owes us money, Pickles. A lot of it.”
That was not an answer, but I had the feeling it meant yes.
“Oh,” I replied, dropping my gaze back to the iPad.
Maybe the Mafia hadn’t changed much. I just never pictured them having Southern accents or driving trucks.
“Pickles,” Forge said, using the nickname it seemed he was labeling me with, and I looked back up at him. His expression softened some. “They’re just fingers.” His tone was gentle, like he was talking to a child.
“Listen, I feel that I need to step in here and ask you if telling her that is allowed.”
Gathe’s voice reminded me he was in the room. I’d forgotten for a moment.
Forge barely glanced at him, then went back to watching the screen.
“Damn, the Wizards didn’t pull it out,” Forge said. “Didn’t expect it, but for a minute there, I thought they may have it.”
I went back to work, trying not to imagine Oz slicing off some unknown man’s fingers.
Sure, he had that tall, dark, and brooding thing going, but Winslet was so sweet.
Would she marry a man who cut off people’s fingers?
Have a kid with him? I couldn’t imagine that she would, no matter how attractive he might be—and Oz Savelle was movie-star hot.
I didn’t think he’d truly do that if someone didn’t pay them.
It was after one in the morning when the screen was cut off, and Forge dropped the remote onto the table, then faced me.
“You did good, Pickles,” he told me. “You definitely earned your cut.”
“My what?” I asked.
“Cut. Portion,” he replied. “You didn’t think I was working you like that for free, did you?”
I glanced over at Gathe, who was typing away on his phone, not looking at us, then back to Forge. “Uh, yeah, I was just helping.”
A crooked grin curled his lips, and my stomach got all wonky again. “And you did, and you get a cut for it.”
I shook my head. “No. I am staying in this house. Y’all are keeping me alive. I am not taking any money whatsoever. That made me feel like I was doing something to help. Not just some burden placed on all of you.”
His brows drew together. “That’s a harsh way to describe it.”
I shrugged. “It’s an accurate one though.”
He studied me for a moment. “No, it’s not.
” He looked sheepish then. “I’ll admit, at first, I did see it that way.
With things here—Mom, you know—I didn’t like that Calvin was asking us to do this.
But now that you’re here”—his lips quirked—“I find that I like you being around. You’re entertaining. ”
“Seeing as how I placed my bet on you,” Gathe said, standing up and stretching, “I’m gonna leave you to it and go on up to bed.”
A dark scowl came over Forge’s face as he looked at Gathe. However, Gathe wasn’t at all intimidated by it. Instead, he blew Forge a kiss and left the room.
When Forge swung his gaze back to me, it quickly changed. The threatening glare was gone. “I kept you up late. We should all call it a night.”
I was in no rush to go to bed. I knew with sleep came the nightmares. But I nodded. He was probably exhausted.
He walked over to me and took the iPad. “I’ve got to finish this up before I sleep anyway. I’d better get started.”
I was curious about what Gathe had meant by placing his bet on Forge, but I didn’t ask.
Forge waved a hand for me to go first, so I picked up my bottle of water and headed to follow the path Gathe had just taken.
“More games tomorrow night, but Oz will be here. I won’t have to work as hard. But you’re welcome to join. Your knowledge of basketball was impressive.”
“Calvin always made me watch it with him, growing up. He’d talk through the entire game as if he were an announcer. I learned a lot. It was the betting lingo I wasn’t sure about, but I learned a good bit tonight,” I said, glancing back at him briefly.
“Yeah, you did. Oz may replace me once he sees how good you are at it.”
I laughed. I doubted that, but I didn’t mind helping. For the first time since I had gotten here, I felt useful. As if I could do something for them in return for what they were doing for me.
“I heard Calvin wrote you another letter,” he said.
“Yeah,” I replied. I’d read it earlier several times, but I hadn’t responded yet. I could do that when I got to my room.
“So, you two were never friends with benefits then?” he asked.
I almost tripped, going up the stairs. His hand shot out and grabbed my arm to steady me.
“Easy,” he said very close to my ear, and I shivered.
Dammit.
Clearing my throat to hopefully cover that reaction up, I continued climbing and paid more attention to my feet. “No. Never. Calvin has never seen me as more than his friend.” And once, that had broken my heart on a daily basis.
“But you saw him as more.”
I paused mid-step, then continued on. I opened my mouth to lie, but why? I wasn’t a kid anymore. There was no silly crush that I thought was love. I had never admitted it to Calvin though.
“Yeah, I did. When we were younger. I hit puberty and thought I was in love with my best friend; it went on for a while, but in the end, I knew we’d never be more than friends.”
“Probably for the best, although I’m still leaning toward Calvin being gay. Dude just hasn’t come out of the closet.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “He is not gay. Trust me. I was there every time he fell in love. I got to listen to it all.” I’d been bitter about it once too.
“I need to see a picture of these girls,” Forge said as we reached the top of the stairs.
“Why?” I asked, glancing back at him.
“Because you’re out of Calvin’s league. I need to know what kind of ass he was scoring that he thought was fucking love. Guys don’t love in their teens. They want to fuck. A lot. But it ain’t love. If you’d been my best friend, we’d have been fucking the moment I knew you were interested.”
The tingle became a sizzle that spread through my entire body as goose bumps broke out on my arms. What was wrong with me? Why was I reacting like this to him? I never reacted to anyone like this. Not even Calvin.
Forge couldn’t know this. That would be humiliating. Whew.
Talk to him like you would Calvin, I told myself. Be a buddy. Make a joke. You know how to do this.
“I can assure you, that would have never happened,” I quipped.
“And why is that?”
I turned to look at him then, and this time, I smirked. “Because the moment I saw the size of your penis, I would have run away, for fear of being ripped open.”
For a moment, he said nothing, and I thought maybe that could possibly be a sore subject for him. Regret started to sink in, and then Forge threw his head back and roared with laughter. Even his neck was sexy. Jeez.
A door opened down the hallway, and I glanced to see who it was, thinking it might be Gathe.
Noa peeked out of her room. She was wearing glasses, had her hair in a messy bun and a pencil stuck through it, and didn’t appear as if she had been sleeping. “I must know what is so funny that you caused me to almost dump my laptop on the floor.”
Forge grinned at me, then turned to look down the hallway toward her. “I can’t tell you. Ransom would kill me. It involves a body part of mine.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “And you’re laughing about it?”
He swung his gaze back to me. “Yeah, I am.”
Oh, good Lord. My nipples were even hard. I hadn’t thought that was a real thing unless you were cold, and I was not cold.