4. Chapter Four Lakey #2
I stayed longer than I should have. Sitting on my bike, holding a bag of food that was getting colder by the minute, staring at an empty house with pink curtains in one of the upstairs windows.
She'd picked those out herself. I'd watched her and her mom hang them one afternoon, the mom holding the rod and the girl pointing and saying "higher, higher" and then clapping when they got it right.
I didn't know why I watched her. Cam had asked and I'd told him I didn't know and that was the truth. I didn't understand it. She wasn't mine. She wasn't anyone's, in the way that mattered. She was just a kid in a house with pink curtains and a mom who hung them where she asked.
Maybe that was the point. Maybe I watched because I wanted to make sure nobody took that from her. Because nobody had made sure of that for me.
With a defeated sigh, I started the engine and booked it back towards the apartment. The food would be cold, but whatever. Cam would deal.
Opening the door, he was lounging on the couch, wearing nothing but those ridiculous boxers I'd bought him as a Christmas gag gift.
They were sparkly, dark blue and custom written with the words, "this is the dick of a killer, Lakey.
" Yes, it was a spin of my favorite movie.
I thought it was hilarious and clearly, so did he.
"Nice boxers, babe." I grinned and opened the bag, grabbing the containers and plastic forks, walking around to hand him his eggs benny before opening mine.
"Oh, a certain loco bought it for me."
"It's loc-A, Cameron. LOCA." I shovelled eggs in my mouth, muttering under my breath as I chewed, "Uncultured swine."
He threw a piece of bacon at me and laughed. "Whatever. Sorry I prefer movies about murdering unsuspecting women while wearing a sexy mask over sparkly vamp dicks."
I rolled my eyes but couldn't help the small smirk that played on my lips. He'd never admit it, but he loved those movies. We watched them every year. "So, what are we doing today?"
He shrugged, stuffing more food into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. "I dunno, a voice in my head keeps telling me to go kill someone," he said, gesturing around with his spoon, "but I dunno, I think we should relax. Go down the pier, maybe?"
I grinned. "Deal. Though, I have to be back later because I gotta dance tonight. We're short rent and I don't think Joe will let us default again."
Cam snorted. "That fat fuck wouldn't do a damn thing, and he knows it."
"Yeah, but killing the landlord would just put this place into foreclosure or whatever they do when shit like that happens."
"I dunno, probably. Don't know much about real estate. Eat faster. I wanna go swim."
I grinned, inhaling the rest of my food and shoving the container back into the bag. "Let's go, babe. Just don't try to drown me this time. I need my lungs intact if I want to work."
"Be right back." Cam hopped to the room and came out a moment later wearing black swim trunks and a hot pink shirt, his hair effortlessly styled as he ran his fingers through it with a glob of gel.
"Sexy." I winked and blew him a kiss. I probably should have gotten my own swim shit on but knowing Cam, he'd find us some secluded spot and I'd be naked anyway, being railed against some rock. "K let's go. Remember, gotta be backstage by five."
He grabbed his backpack off the floor, taking my hand as we headed out the door. "Aw, and here I was hoping you'd just quit and let me support you with my millions."
"Millions, huh? Where you been hiding those bills at? Yeah, fuck no. I need my dancing and my stilettos. Besides, what would be the fun in that?" This idiot. I rolled my eyes and locked the door.
He smirked, running a hand down my ass before giving it a playful smack and steering me towards the elevators. "I could think of a few things."
"We taking the bikes?" Excitement coursed through me.
"You wanna walk 37 miles? Of course we're taking the bikes, dip shit." He pressed the P as the doors closed behind us.
The garage was cold and smelled like concrete and motor oil.
My bike was parked next to his, which she always was, and I ran my hand along the tank as I walked past. She was matte black with a custom hot pink pin-stripe that Cam had painted on for my birthday last year.
He'd done it at 2 a.m. while I was asleep and when I came down the next morning, there she was.
He'd said the pink was because I was a psycho who deserved a psycho's bike and then he'd kissed me and told me happy birthday with paint still on his fingers.
Best birthday present I'd ever gotten. Well. Second best. The karambits were first.
Swinging my leg over, I kicked her to life and felt the vibration settle into my bones. Cam was already out the gate, the bastard, revving at the curb and grinning back at me through his side mirror. I peeled out after him.
The road to the pier hugged the coast, winding through the industrial stretch south of town before the buildings thinned out and the ocean opened up on the left.
Cam rode ahead, one hand on the bars, the other hanging loose at his side.
He rode the way he did everything. Controlled and reckless at the same time, daring the universe to fuck with him and knowing it wouldn't.
I rode behind him, watching the muscles in his back shift under the hot pink shirt, watching the way his hair whipped behind him, and I thought about the man in the cafe. The navy suit. The way his eyes had slid off me. The recognition that he'd tried to hide and failed.
My brain was still chewing on it, running his face through every file I had.
Foster house number two? No, we were too young then.
The group home visits? One of the men who came through Carmen's?
There had been so many of them. Carmen's friends, her husband's friends, men who showed up at night and left before sunrise.
Some of them I remembered and some of them I'd trained myself to forget.
I'll find you. I thought, and I meant it, and then Cam cut right toward the pier parking lot and I followed and let the wind take the thought out of my head for now.
The pier was quiet for a weekday. A few fishermen at the far end. Some kids skipping school, smoking something they shouldn't be. Cam parked and swung off, pulling me into him before I'd even gotten my kickstand down.
"Race you to the water."
"If you let me win, I'll be pissed."
"Baby, when have I ever let you win at anything?"
Fair point. I shoved him and ran.